He began pioneering the Internet in 1970 by building a high-speed network interface and protocol software between a packet switching ARPAnet IMP and PDP-10 time-sharing minicomputer at Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Project MAC.
After building a second IMP-host interface at Xerox Parc in 1973, he was charged with extending the ARPAnet into buildings full of personal computers. On May 22, 1973 he wrote the memo inventing Ethernet, of which more than 1.2 billion new ports are shipped each year, 400 million wired and 800 million WiFi.
In 1979, Bob founded 3Com Corp, provider of Internet hardware and software, including the first commercial implementation of TCP/IP and the first Ethernet for PCs. 3Com went public in 1984, did $5.7 billion of revenue in 1999, and merged into Hewlett Packard in 2010.
Dr. Metcalfe was a General Partner at Polaris Venture Partners from 2001-2010. Since 2011, Bob has been Professor of Innovation in the Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin. He is a Life Trustee of MIT and a member of the National Academy of Engineering.
He received his PhD in Computer Science from Harvard in 1973.
