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.

I start­ed in this busi­ness by know­ing one of the great peo­ple who con­tributed to the Internet, Paul Baran, who became a close and val­ued friend and teacher of how to think, how to get things done, and how to be hon­est. I spent most my career in the aca­d­e­m­ic world, and as many many teachers—a lot of your work depends on your stu­dents. They’re the ones who dri­ve you. They’re the ones who keep you young. They’re the ones who inspire you, and I have had some great stu­dents. Like Jon Postel, Dave Sincoskie, a whole bunch of excel­lent stu­dents that real­ly drove me on, because they would come in and they’d say, ​“I want to do this,” and you think, ​“They can’t make that work.” And they go and do it.

I look for­ward to more stu­dents and more excit­ing future. I think the Internet is just start­ing. I don’t think we’re any­where near it being devel­oped the way it will be in the future. We’re going to get faster net­works. We’re going to get faster com­put­ers. And we’re going to get secur­er envi­ron­ments. And there’s no way we can avoid it unless gov­ern­ment puts its foot down in the wrong place. So I thank you very much for the hon­or, and look for­ward to the future. Thank you.