Google hires Net pioneer Vint Cerf

Google announced on Thursday that it hired Internet pioneer Vint Cerf, as the search giant seeks to build a network foundation for its future Internet applications.

Cerf, who co-designed TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol), will help Google develop architectures, systems and standards for next-generation applications, the company said.

Vint Cerf

"Vint Cerf is clearly one of the great technology leaders of our time," Eric Schmidt, Google's chief executive, said in a statement. "His vision for technology helped create entire industries that have transformed many parts of our lives."

In 1973, Cerf co-designed TCP/IP for the U.S. military while working as a Stanford University assistant professor and DARPA scientist. He worked at MCI for most of his career, with an eight-year break to work at the Corporation for National Research Initiatives.

Cerf is also working on a new set of communication protocols in deep space for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The project is designed to create an Internet communications connection between planets. Google said Cerf will continue with his work in the Internet community.

[gee672]

Marketing Ploy

Warning: This is Google's ploy to attract investors in buying its secondary offering of it's stock.
MO: Hire a well known tech visionary/inventor, pay him Google stock and/or proceeds from the stock sale, use profit of stock sale to buy potential tech startups.
Outcome: Lemming's Effect - a human psychological need to blindly follow other lemmings wherever they go.

GL

[ddesy]

Oh please.....

As much as I dislike big business, it isn't just a "ploy" every time someone like this is hired at one. Google hasn't proven to be a bad company so far (aside from the legally questionable hiring of a former Microsoft executive), and I cannot see much reason to suspect they are from this.

[ebrandel]

One of the Greatest Names?

Does this guy have one of the greatest names in the tech industry? "Vint Cerf" ... I think he does.