In some sense my aca­d­e­m­ic chil­dren became some of the fathers of the Internet. It’s why some peo­ple mum­ble that I’m the grand­fa­ther of the Internet. 

I guess I’m sup­posed to say how his­toric things hap­pen, but what I’d like to do is actu­al­ly para­phrase a com­ment that is fair­ly tra­di­tion­al in math­e­mat­ics and was first taught to me by Dick Hamming, that I have done good things (I’m para­phras­ing) because I’ve stood on the shoul­ders of great peo­ple that pre­ced­ed me.