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Pop!Tech 2008 : Wow ! Meeting Bob Metcalfe

It pays to sit in the front row specially at conferences . I was pleasantly surprised when the gentleman sitting next to me turned out to be Robert MetCalfe founder of 3Com and co creator of the Ethernet. he loved my title " Social Media Swami" for Network Solutions.

He is on the Advisory board for Pop!Tech and here is what the Pop!Tech website says.

Bob Metcalfe
Bob joined Polaris Venture Partners as a general partner in January, 2001. He specializes in Boston-based IT start-ups. He had three careers before becoming a venture capitalist:

While an engineer-scientist (1965–1979), Bob helped build the early Internet. In 1973, at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, he invented Ethernet, the local-area networking (LAN) standard on which he shares four patents. In 2003, Ethernet’s 30th year, 184 million new Ethernet connections were shipped for $12.5 billion.

While an entrepreneur-executive (1979–1990), Bob founded 3Com Corporation, the billion-dollar networking company, where at various times he was chairman, CEO, division general manager, and vice president of engineering, sales, and marketing.

While a publisher-pundit (1990–2000), Bob was CEO of IDG's InfoWorld Publishing Company (1992–1995). For eight years, he wrote an Internet column read weekly by more than 500,000 information technologists. He spoke often; appeared on radio, television, and the web; and produced conferences, including ACM97, ACM1, Agenda, Pop!Tech, and Vortex.

Bob’s book credits include Packet Communication (Thomson), Internet Collapses and Other InfoWorld Punditry (IDG Books), and Beyond Calculation: The Next Fifty Years of Computing (co-edited for Springer Verlag).

Shashi Bellamkonda
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Shashi Bellamkonda

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