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SPEAKER:
Robert Metcalfe '68
General Partner, Polaris Venture Partners
Founder, 3Com Corporation
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ABOUT THE LECTURE:
One of telecom’s living legends, Robert Metcalfe, has signed on to MIT’s Energy Initiative, and gone about mining the history of the Internet for lessons on how to solve the energy crisis. He promises to disappoint those expecting “consensus science,” and indeed shares his strong opinions on MIT’s campus-wide work on energy solutions.
Metcalfe reminds his audience of the importance of reviewing the past, both to avoid mistakes and to consolidate knowledge that might prove useful in the future. Metcalfe notes how industry’s early push to make bigger computers led to a dead end, and the triumph of Silicon Valley over Route 128. Metcalfe sees analogies in the current enthusiasm for energy solutions that don’t seem promising to him. Some enterprises pursue “clean” technology, says Metcalfe, but they omit “cheap,” and “you can’t get away with that.” So-called green technology comes with “a lot of baggage” -- the feel of “Luddism, anti-globalism, anti-corporate everything,” says Metcalfe.
Metcalfe believes genuine efforts at innovation run up against the status quo, as he experienced when demonstrating packet switching to mocking AT&T executives in the 1970s. He warns bold energy innovators that there are “pretty nasty people out there who won’t welcome your technological developments.”
Metcalfe candidly shares his disagreements with MIT’s Energy Initiative for its focus on tackling climate change and CO2 emissions, its emphasis on conservation, discouragement of nuclear power and enthusiasm for building public awareness and big policy changes.
Metcalfe states boldly, “The climate change problem is going to get solved really quickly.” But once we’re done, we are still left with an energy problem. He scoffs at policy people who rush to Washington, and points at corn ethanol as a typical massive policy failure. Metcalfe faults MIT for pushing only scale technologies, noting that this approach risks setting too high a hurdle or even aborting small-scale innovations that might prove themselves. And he remarks that the evolution of the Internet features many surprises, even astonishing developments, including optic fibers and his own Ethernet. Those in search of clean, cheap energy should expect and welcome the unexpected. “I told the Energy Initiative, spend less time telling us there are no silver bullets, and more time finding the damn silver bullets.”
ABOUT THE SPEAKER:
Robert Metcalfe developed Ethernet as a standard for connecting computers for high-speed data transfer. He joined Polaris Venture Partners in January 2001. Before that, Metcalfe was Publisher/CEO for IDG/InfoWorld. His weekly Internet columns for this publication have been collected in his latest book, Internet Collapses and Other InfoWorld Punditry. Metcalfe founded 3Com Corporation in 1979 and stayed with the billion-dollar company through 1990. Metcalfe received bachelor degrees in electrical engineering and management from MIT (1969), and an M.S. in applied mathematics and Ph.D. in computer science from Harvard University.
Polaris Venture Partners
NOTES ON THE VIDEO (Time Index):
Video length is 1:00:46.
Joel Dawson Chair of the MTL Seminar Series Committee, and Carl Richard Soderburg Professor of Power Engineering, welcomes Subra Suresh, Dean of the School of Engineering and Ford Professor of Engineering.
At :34, Suresh introduces Robert Metcalfe.
At 3:39, Metcalfe begins.
At 47:28, Metcalfe invites questions.
The information on this page was accurate as of the day the video was added to MIT World. This video was added to MIT World on 2008-05-22.
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