provider in order to come here you
didn’t because sidewalks other expensive
to build are free to use and that’s what
makes cities work yet when it comes to
something so fundamental as ability to
communicate we accept the idea that we
depend on providers must make a profit
who tell us how many words are allowed
to you sometimes even what words were
allowed to use and use a provider
provider can deny deny us the ability to
speak and we accept that but from
millennia we’ve been used to give you a
messages for postal workers to telegraph
operators to phone companies who carry
the message like precious and expensive
cargo but I’m a tinkerer and a
programmer I look at the wires the
radios and I see how much more potential
there is in the infrastructure and the
Internet itself hints at some of this I
remember once were parting late of
course I’m a nerd so really were
programming late
and we went after breakfast and wanted
to get some french toast the chef said
bread french toast we asked are you a
two eggs are you out of milk are you out
of bread each time they said no admit it
he did know the recipe for French toast
so of course being programs we gave the
software the recipe and we had a fine
breakfast and that’s really what
software is it’s just a recipe that
could take on a life of its own now I
the fortune of getting to programming
very early when things are very simple
the program’s themselves are put on
piece of cardboard punched cards you
gotta see the holes you can see the
wires and the computers all very simple
and that was a very important starting
point because I can see how everything
worked yet by 1966 while I was still in
high school I was already working at
helping to build one of the first online
financial information systems there’s a
very complex system but it didn’t forget
my roots I knew how we went from the
simple steps of the complex systems and
we do everything ourselves like builder
or networks and that’s been a valuable
experience because I know how to build
this I know we can rebuild it but one
other important experience from the time
is I took home a computer terminal and
in August 1966 I was able to work from
home of course I could do my job work
but it was free to do anything else I
wanted with that million dollar computer
it became a personal computer that can
used to do homework assignments I can
exchange email half a century ago and I
can discover the future but I couldn’t
imagine I was living the future just by
exploring it if you can imagine it it’s
just more than more of the same more of
the present a venture I found myself at
MIT which is a fun place which I can
explore all sorts of interesting
interesting ideas learn how people learn
how they communicate we started the
phone system as just another computer
but one class I was in was it the nexus
of change we’re studying a network in
Hawaii a radio network and it was just
computers there’s no provider
and each message was split up into
little fragments called packets and each
one was numbered so you can send the
packet on the radio and sometimes would
get there sometimes not but of course
the programs that’s not a big deal you
program around it so the packet didn’t
get there you can retransmit it and that
took the network well it really wasn’t
Network this is no provider but it made
it act like a network and that’s what’s
important and you know we were able to
use it for standing Network function so
I didn’t appreciate how revolutionary
that idea was but we had inverted the
paradigm of engineering instead of
depending on layers and adding value we
had an unreliable base and everything’s
a resource
now some people did appreciate the value
their answer to a project to
interconnect the existing networks an
internet working effort and the insight
they had was that if they didn’t have to
solve problems in the network again to
worry about translating between all the
networks and getting things to work
together all they needed was anybody in
the middle just put the best efforts in
to move the packets along and that
experiment worked far better they could
have imagined I know how many of you not
know the name for this it’s called the
Internet a very pragmatic solution that
worked far better than they realize
because it created opportunity so Tim
berners-lee in a basement room could
just create the web because it provided
ailable resources now I like the idea of
playing T cring so as soon as personal
computers became available I started
playing with them my mainframe friends
didn’t understand why I was excited
about having device I owned gotta keep
the break but when Dan Bricklin asked me
to help him with this project the first
electronic spreadsheet I jumped at the
opportunity if nothing else would be a
lot of fun what we did though was create
opportunities for others to explore you
no longer have to explain what you want
to do to a programmer you no longer have
to spend all the time on the details and
you didn’t have to sell for program that
did one thing we were able to explore
and work in the relevant in a sense
in the native language of Finance and
most user just disappeared and they’re
working in the moment
now one byproduct of his account was it
gave me standing and a lot of freedom at
Microsoft I had an office in Seattle but
I generally worked in Boston so I don’t
have permission so I just called my my
home the Boston area research facility
explained apartment and of course all my
computers and networked but the problem
is those are days you dial up to make
its connection and I remembered a lesson
in the it’s networking effort I want to
interconnect my home network with the
rest of the world I didn’t want to
access the Internet but if my home is
just much neater as anybody else I
wanted to join and connect now the phone
companies had an exciting new thing they
called broadband so instead of running a
wire every time you want a new phone
line they were just out of service and
there’s wonderful for them but they’re
pretend they were charging for the phone
line that would charge you for each
phone number they were charger for each
television they even would charge you
for every purchase you made because
they’re in the middle and they can do
that that was the dream they charged
monthly fees for each personal computer
forgot two computers had two fees and it
didn’t make sense to me was I was
creating all the servers I knew
everything was a packet I was crane the
value myself and just to illustrate that
at one point the phone company was
hooking up a new phone wire and they
were puzzled there’s a dial tone of the
line how did you remember dial tones and
they were generated on tone it was
coming from inside my house I was
generating the dial tone things were
reversed and because I was a Microsoft I
took the approach I took which was to
put what now-familiar Reuter at the edge
of my house so all my computer’s phone
company couldn’t see past that they just
sorted one device and that exact and I
reversed the pipe now that was just a
tunnel to the rest of the network the
phone companies were not part of the
conversation and
80 which paid a lot of money to become
my cable company sold it off a loss to
Comcast now because I was at Microsoft I
did put the support into Windows and
that’s the familiar home network you
have now that’s why when you buy a new
printer you’re playing the device you’re
not paying a monthly fee at least doc
within your house when you leave your
house things change but to understand
what was really going on we call an
incident in 1998 I was in New York visit
my mother and she bought a red toy dump
truck at RadioShack and want to send it
to a grandson in Seattle she came to me
Robert
well sighs Roberts but her can you send
this to Seattle I said sure it’ll be
there in one hour now I assume she
thinks I’m a magician but she believed
me but she got the post office of course
she was taking the post office I was put
in a box it was shipped on a truck if
they should get to Seattle at a high
cost and everything but I did get it in
there one hour I returned the toy she
bought sent the park number to my
brother in Seattle and he bought the
same toy there so my nephew had the same
toy my mother bought within an hour the
key thing to realize that was the very
same to my mother
book if you quibble about that you
choosing scarcity but it’s a secret to
Moore’s law hyper-growth
is to find success in what you can do
find value any way you can not to
restrict yourself to arbitrary or
preconceived notions now if you think
about it that toy got from New York to
Seattle without existing in the middle
and the message I sent that part number
was meaningless to everybody they just
sorta numbered they didn’t know what it
meant yes it’s a defining premise of the
telecommunications industry is that
everything passes through narrow pipes
and there’s a scarcity there’s a whole
telecommunication policy based
allocating scarce
the purpose of Federal Communications
Commission is to manage the scarcity and
also tell us what words are like to use
but that’s another topic even well many
policies like network neutrality are
about who decides on the scarcity they
all accept the scarcity yet that toy I
sent was not the exception that’s the
way the internet works you don’t send a
copy of Wikipedia every time you send a
URL eunuch said a Netflix movie you send
a name and it’s the way people
communicate there’s the old story of the
Cottagers who told the same joke so many
times or that the same joke 17 and they
laugh yeah it’s all about shared context
and that’s why things really work so we
need policies that basically embrace the
new reality and the abundance because if
not should be things because we don’t
have scarcity in the waters I’m not
trying to fit that toy into a narrow
wire and you take what I did home
networks if you share with your
neighbors you could you expand the area
of just works connectivity without
increasing the cost and that’s a path
you can take that to share an apartment
house you can take that to share in a
city but more important than it being
about lowered cost is that the tambaqui
when you plug something into your home
network the wired network you don’t
think about just plug it and it just
works
imagine if anyway you are you can build
connected devices just like Tim
berners-lee did the web let’s say I want
you to connected healthcare right now
this device could be a medical monitor
but the whole business have to be
developed to justify all the complexity
of negotiating to get that message
across if you had ambient connectivity
you’re gonna see a huge amount of
innovation health care and anything else
where you can just have this abundant
resource but more important the
opportunity to innovate now I said this
is about software it’s not just about
connectivity if you think about when you
ask for directions you go to Google Maps
and you want to take some trains and
buses you take it for granted that the
GPS in for me
is available for free its
multibillion-dollar the satellites but
it’s free the train schedules are
available as a resource that anybody can
build on the weather is available that’s
rich information that you can use to
basically invent anything this is not a
smart city in the ascent in a classic
sense but a smart city is an idea based
on you have to plan ahead you have to
build complex highways this is an
empowering city in which anybody can
contribute value and that’s really
future so I’d like you to join me in
embracing gambia connectivity and I’ve
put together a site for those who want
more information right now it’s a sign
up site but think about right now we
assume if sidewalks a basic resource
imagine if you can assume connectivity
anywhere so I’d like you to enjoy me in
embracing a future of opportunity and a
chance to discover what it can’t yet
imagine thank you [Applause]