Robert "Bob" Melancton Metcalfe (born April 7, 1946) is an American engineer and entrepreneur who contributed to the development of the internet in the 1970s. He co-invented

Ethernet Ethernet () is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN). It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in 1 ...

, co-founded

3Com 3Com Corporation was an American digital electronics manufacturer best known for its computer network products. The company was co-founded in 1979 by Robert Metcalfe, Howard Charney and others. Bill Krause joined as President in 1981. Metcalfe e ...

, and formulated

Metcalfe's law Metcalfe's law states that the value of a telecommunications network is proportional to the square of the number of connected users of the system (''n''2). First formulated in this form by George Gilder in 1993, and attributed to Robert Metcalf ...

, which describes the effect of a telecommunications network. Metcalfe has also made several predictions which failed to come to pass, including forecasting the demise of the internet during the 1990s. Metcalfe has received various awards, including the

IEEE Medal of Honor The IEEE Medal of Honor is the highest recognition of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). It has been awarded since 1917, when its first recipient was Major Edwin H. Armstrong. It is given for an exceptional contributio ...

and National Medal of Technology and Innovation for his work developing Ethernet technology. In 2023, he received the

Turing Award The ACM A. M. Turing Award is an annual prize given by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) for contributions of lasting and major technical importance to computer science. It is generally recognized as the highest distinction in comput ...

, the highest distinction in computer science. From 2011 to 2021, he was professor of innovation and entrepreneurship at the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,07 ...

Early life and family

Robert Metcalfe was born in 1946 in

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

, New York. His father was a test technician who specialized in gyroscopes. His mother was a

homemaker Homemaking is mainly an American and Canadian term for the management of a home, otherwise known as housework, housekeeping, housewifery or household management. It is the act of overseeing the organizational, day-to-day operations of a hous ...

who later became a secretary at

Bay Shore High School Bay Shore High School is a public high school located in Bay Shore, New York. The school serves about 2,000 students in grades 9 to 12. Metcalfe graduated from that school in 1964. Metcalfe graduated from the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

in 1969, receiving two

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University o ...

degrees in electrical engineering and industrial management. He then attended

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

and received a

Master of Science A Master of Science ( la, Magisterii Scientiae; abbreviated MS, M.S., MSc, M.Sc., SM, S.M., ScM or Sc.M.) is a master's degree in the field of science awarded by universities in many countries or a person holding such a degree. In contrast t ...

applied mathematics Applied mathematics is the application of mathematical methods by different fields such as physics, engineering, medicine, biology, finance, business, computer science, and industry. Thus, applied mathematics is a combination of mathemati ...

in 1970 and a PhD in

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to practical disciplines (includi ...

in 1973. Metcalfe and his wife Robyn have two children.

Career

While pursuing his doctorate in computer science, Metcalfe took a job with MIT's

Project MAC Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) is a research institute at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) formed by the 2003 merger of the Laboratory for Computer Science (LCS) and the Artificial Intelligence Lab ...

after Harvard refused permission for him to connect the university to the then-new

ARPAnet The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) was the first wide-area packet-switched network with distributed control and one of the first networks to implement the TCP/IP protocol suite. Both technologies became the technical fou ...

. At MAC, Metcalfe was responsible for building some of the hardware that would link MIT's minicomputers with ARPAnet. Metcalfe made ARPAnet the topic of his

doctoral thesis A thesis ( : theses), or dissertation (abbreviated diss.), is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings.International Standard ISO 7144: ...

, but Harvard initially rejected it. Metcalfe decided how to improve his thesis while working at

Xerox PARC PARC (Palo Alto Research Center; formerly Xerox PARC) is a research and development company in Palo Alto, California. Founded in 1969 by Jacob E. "Jack" Goldman, chief scientist of Xerox Corporation, the company was originally a division of Xero ...

, where he read a paper about the ALOHA network at the

University of Hawaii A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, th ...

. He identified and fixed some of the bugs in the AlohaNet model, then added that work to his revised thesis. It was then accepted by Harvard, which granted his PhD. Metcalfe was working at PARC in 1973 when he and

David Boggs David Reeves Boggs (June 17, 1950 – February 19, 2022) was an American electrical and radio engineer who developed early prototypes of Internet protocols, file servers, gateways, network interface cards and, along with Robert Metcalfe and ot ...

invented

, initially as a standard for connecting computers over short distances. He later recalled that Ethernet was born on May 22, 1973, the day he circulated a memo titled "Alto Ethernet" which contained a rough schematic of how it would work. "That is the first time Ethernet appears as a word, as does the idea of using

coax Coaxial cable, or coax (pronounced ) is a type of electrical cable consisting of an inner conductor surrounded by a concentric conducting shield, with the two separated by a dielectric ( insulating material); many coaxial cables also have a ...

ether In organic chemistry, ethers are a class of compounds that contain an ether group—an oxygen atom connected to two alkyl or aryl groups. They have the general formula , where R and R′ represent the alkyl or aryl groups. Ethers can again be ...

, where the participating stations, like in AlohaNet or ARPAnet, would inject their packets of data, they'd travel around at megabits per second, there would be collisions, and retransmissions, and back-off," Metcalfe explained. Boggs argued that another date was the birth of Ethernet: November 11, 1973, the first day the system actually functioned. In 1979, Metcalfe departed PARC and co-founded

, a manufacturer of

computer networking A computer network is a set of computers sharing resources located on or provided by network nodes. The computers use common communication protocols over digital interconnections to communicate with each other. These interconnections are ...

equipment, in his

Palo Alto Palo Alto (; Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. The city was es ...

apartment. 3Com became a leading provider of networking solutions, and

became the dominant networking standard for local area networks (LANs). In 1980 he received the ACM Grace Hopper Award for his contributions to the development of local networks, specifically Ethernet. In 1990, the 3Com board of directors appointed

Éric Benhamou Éric Benhamou (born in 1955 in Tlemcen, Algeria) was the former CEO of 3Com and Palm. Biography Born into a Sephardic Jewish family originating from Toledo, Spain, Benhamou left Algeria in 1960 with his parents during Algeria's independence w ...

as CEO instead of Metcalfe, who then left the company. He spent 10 years as a publisher and pundit, writing an

internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

column for

InfoWorld ''InfoWorld'' (abbreviated IW) is an information technology media business. Founded in 1978, it began as a monthly magazine. In 2007, it transitioned to a web-only publication. Its parent company today is International Data Group, and its siste ...

. In 1996, he co-founded Pop!Tech, an executive technology conference. He became a

venture capitalist Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which ha ...

in 2001 and subsequently a

general partner General partner is a person who joins with at least one other person to form a business. A general partner has responsibility for the actions of the business, can legally bind the business and is personally liable for all the partnership's debts an ...

Polaris Venture Partners Polaris Partners is a venture capital firm active in the field of healthcare and biotechnology companies. The company has offices in Boston, Massachusetts, New York, NY and San Francisco, California. History Polaris Partners was founded in 19 ...

. From 2011 to 2021, he was a professor at

The University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

Cockrell School of Engineering The Cockrell School of Engineering is one of the eighteen colleges within the University of Texas at Austin. It has more than 8,000 students enrolled in eleven undergraduate and thirteen graduate programs. The college is ranked 10th in the world a ...

, specializing in innovation initiatives. Metcalfe was a keynote speaker at the 2016 Congress of Future Science and Technology Leaders and, in 2019, he presented the Bernard Price Memorial Lecture in South Africa. In June 2022, Metcalfe returned to MIT by joining the

Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) is a research institute at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) formed by the 2003 merger of the Laboratory for Computer Science (LCS) and the Artificial Intelligence Lab ...

as a research affiliate and computational engineer, working with the MIT

Julia Julia is usually a feminine given name. It is a Latinate feminine form of the name Julio and Julius. (For further details on etymology, see the Wiktionary entry "Julius".) The given name ''Julia'' had been in use throughout Late Antiquity (e.g ...

Lab.

Awards

In 1996, Metcalfe was awarded the

for "exemplary and sustained leadership in the development, standardization, and commercialization of Ethernet." The following year, he was elected as a member into the

National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Engineering is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of ...

for the development of Ethernet. He received the

National Medal of Technology The National Medal of Technology and Innovation (formerly the National Medal of Technology) is an honor granted by the President of the United States to American inventors and innovators who have made significant contributions to the development ...

in 2003 "for leadership in the invention, standardization, and commercialization of Ethernet". In October 2003, he received the

Marconi Award :''"Marconi Award" links here. Note that in the Netherlands, the radio academy awards are also called Marconi Awards.'' The Marconi Radio Awards are presented annually by the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) to the top radio stations and ...

for "For inventing the Ethernet and promulgating his Law of network utility based on the square of the nodes". Metcalfe was inducted into the

National Inventors Hall of Fame The National Inventors Hall of Fame (NIHF) is an American not-for-profit organization, founded in 1973, which recognizes individual engineers and inventors who hold a U.S. patent of significant technology. Besides the Hall of Fame, it also oper ...

in 2007, for his work with Ethernet technology. In 2008, he received the Fellow Award from the Computer History Museum "for fundamental contributions to the invention, standardization, and commercialization of Ethernet." In March 2023, Metcalfe was awarded the 2022 Association for Computing Machinery's

for his contributions to the invention of Ethernet technology.

Predicted Internet collapse

In 1995, Metcalfe argued that the Internet would suffer a "catastrophic collapse" in the following year; he promised to eat his words if it did not. During his keynote speech at the sixth

International World Wide Web Conference The ACM Web Conference (formerly known as International World Wide Web Conference, abbreviated as WWW) is a yearly international academic conference on the topic of the future direction of the World Wide Web. The first conference of many was hel ...

in 1997, he took a printed copy of his column that predicted the collapse, put it in a blender with some liquid and then consumed the pulpy mass. He had suggested having his words printed on a very large cake, but the audience would not accept this form of "eating his words."

Selected publications

*
Packet Communication
, MIT Project MAC Technical Report MAC TR-114, December 1973 (a recast version of Metcalfe's Harvard dissertation) * "Zen and the Art of Selling", Technology Review, May/June 1992

References

External links

*

Video Interview of Robert Metcalfe on March 10, 2009
at the Computer History Museum * {{DEFAULTSORT:Metcalfe, Robert M. 1946 births Living people American computer businesspeople American computer scientists American telecommunications industry businesspeople American electrical engineers American manufacturing businesspeople American technology chief executives Grace Murray Hopper Award laureates IEEE Medal of Honor recipients Harvard University alumni Ethernet MIT School of Engineering alumni MIT Sloan School of Management alumni National Medal of Technology recipients Members of the United States National Academy of Engineering University of Texas at Austin faculty Scientists at PARC (company) Bay Shore High School alumni 20th-century American businesspeople 20th-century American engineers 21st-century American businesspeople 21st-century American engineers Businesspeople from Brooklyn Scientists from Brooklyn Engineers from New York City Turing Award laureates