Leonard Kleinrock


Celebrating the Internet's 40th Birthday

Today marks the 40th anniversary of the invention of the Internet. This morning "a father" of the Internet -- perhaps not "the father" -- joined me. (He said that, not me!)

Leonard Kleinrock, professor of computer science at UCLA, was the first programmer to allow two computers to communicate with one another. He told me the most fantastic stories off-camera. I was completely enamored. The first words on the Internet were the letters "lo." Why? Because the login or password was "login." As they typed "lo" into the 1st computer & watched the letters appear on the 2nd computer, it crashed. Leonard likes to say the first message was "lo" as in "lo and behold". "We didn't prepare that message!

He also told me wonderful stories about his 47 PhD students over 46 years of teaching and his conversations with Bill Gates. One of his favorite stories is about Chris Ferguson, World Series of Poker champion. Ferguson was one of his PhD students, but it took him 14 years to complete that PhD. Perhaps he was a little busy making some money.

Take a look at our fascinating conversation today with James Parker, the former Southwest Airlines CEO, who was one of the business world's first adopters of the Internet. You'll enjoy this! Plus listen to what Kleinrock says the future of the Internet will look like. WOW!!!

(http://glickreport.blogs.foxbusiness.com/2009/09/02/celebrating-the-internets-40th-birthday/)