Many people are marking today, September 2, 1969, as the day that DARPA started the Internet and made its first connection between two computers. OK, there’s some dispute on the exact date, but it works as well as anything and I like birthdays. So that would make the Internet 40 years old today.

Given I’m a privileged American that uses the Internet many multiple times a day, and I’ve worked in this industry in some form for many years, it’s near and dear to my heart. Here are some random personal thoughts on my view of that history:

• When working at MCI around 1992, heading up Industry Marketing in National Accounts, I saw reports that showed absurd growth in circuits to this strange entity in the Government and University sector. I called the sales Director to say “who are you selling all these T1s to” (remember, OSI includes  a physical layer). Turns out it was the ARPANET. Dick Liebhaber, CTO of MCI and ex-IBM executive, was secretly seeding the Internet backbone with tons of cheap MCI transmission. I remember thinking this sounds interesting, but I wasn’t quite sure what it was.
• 1994, I remember discussing this new Internet thing with some of the smartest people I ever knew in the Telecom industry over lunch one day. The reply…”who in the world would type in www and something, that’s absurd”. All of them are now C level at Internet firms or VCs in the valley and I’m sure don’t remember the conversation.
• I was at an industry event while at AOL and met a fascinating person from Sun who’d been there at the beginning. He was a post doc helping the DARPA crew. He said his job was to get on a plane, go to the next city, put the new software in the node. Reboot. Repeat. He looked at me with the straightest face and said “Very high throughput. Very high latency”. Think about the comparison to today.
• My daughter comes home from day care and says “Mommy, Mommy, I learned my address today”, I of course am thinking how nice of the day care providers to teach my kid their address, to make them safer and smarter. To which I reply “great dear, what is it?” She’s four, looks me straight in the eye, with such pride. and says “www.com”. I’m like omg, she just claimed the entire TLD. She beamed, I didn’t have the heart to correct her.
• Same daughter, a teen now, looking in a paper catalog to order some clothes and hunched over my laptop in the kitchen. “What’s up dear” I say. She looks at me and says “I want to order this <fill in piece of teen clothing>.” I say “what’s the issue?” She says “I can’t find it on the site.” I say, oh that simple, call this number (pointing to the 800 number). She looks at me like I’m from Mars. “And what exactly would I do when they answer?” “Well tell them what you want to buy.” She’s floored, can’t imagine that’s an option, rolls the eyes and thinks I’m crazy. I’m not sure I ever convinced her there was an 800 catalog business (one I worked on at MCI), but it was instructive on the power of the Internet.
• I’m home this evening with my family. I say “hey, the Internet is 40 today, what would your life be without it”? My kids grunt (a familiar teen refrain) and say “how can I know if I’ve never not had it?” OK I say to my husband, you have experienced both, what do you say. He thinks a while and says “speed”…thing happen faster with the Internet.  I think he’s right. The “real time web” is only going to speed that up even more.
• I tried to think of the answer my own question. I think the thing that I most like/would most miss is the easy access to just about any data or information. I’m nosy. When I was a kid I’d get lost in a dictionary or encyclopedia. I love to look things up. True, the Internet is empirical evidence that there are way too many people with not enough to do. But, it’s also a fantastic way for anyone to get smarter, have fun and reach out to others.

I’m proud to be even a tiny part of this amazing industry.