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The ‘Father of the Internet’ is finally retiring

20 d ago

Vinton Cerf will step down as Google’s chief internet evangelist next week after more than 20 years at the company. The announcement came during the Open Frontier conference hosted by the Laude Institute, where UC Berkeley professor Dave Patterson, a co-developer of RISC processor architecture, recognized Cerf via video feed. “Vint … has been at Google more than 20 years, and he is retiring a week from today,” Patterson said, prompting applause from attendees. Google did not respond to a request for comment. Cerf, 83, is widely credited alongside Robert Kahn as the architect of TCP/IP, the fundamental networking protocols that enabled the modern internet. His work since the 1970s has earned him numerous honors, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Turing Award. Since 2005, Cerf served as vice president and chief internet evangelist at Google. On the conference panel, Cerf joined computer scientists François Chollet (creator of Keras), John Ousterhout (creator of Tcl), and Matei Zaharia (Databricks co-founder) to discuss building durable open-source systems. The conversation focused on the centralization of advanced AI models in a few well-resourced labs, contrasting with the decentralized internet that made Cerf’s protocols resilient. Cerf predicted that the rise of AI agents—autonomous software that coordinates with other software—will drive companies back toward standardized protocols. “The agentic model of AI … is going to force composability, and a requirement for interoperability and standardization,” he said. He argued that natural language is too ambiguous for inter-agent communication, warning that agents speaking informally could lead to errors, like the “telephone game.” In a lighter moment, Patterson recalled meeting Cerf in the 1970s, noting he was always the best-dressed computer scientist, often in three-piece suits. Cerf confirmed, adding he dressed differently to stand out.