How do you invent the internet?

The Daily Drip

I was at a conference about the internet, yesterday.

Yep, Al Gore was there.

What's interesting to me about the internet is just how impossibly massive it is.

When we think of the internet, we think of the places we go, the sites we visit, and our wifi speed.

The internet itself, though, is a bunch of cables and routers.

For some reason, people don't know this, but the internet is literally a series of connected cables that runs across the entire globe. Yes, there's a cable that runs across the Atlantic Ocean. It runs to every place people get online. At junction points, there are routers, which are basically boxes of hardware that tell signals which way to go and when.

Wild, I know, but also totally ordinary.

What's interesting about the internet is that no one set out to make it what it is, today.

It was developed to connect massive research computers so that scientists could send data to each other.

Eventually, scientists realized that they also worked with commercial vendors and contractors, who would also need to communicate on the internet.

At some point, organizations popped up to manage all of the traffic. Legislators decided that it made sense to open this network up for commercial use, too.

And here we are.

No one set out with the idea "let's create a network connection so that all of the world can communicate together."

It started as a small project with a purpose. Lots of smart people saw it's potential and worked really hard to see where it could go.

And here we are.

The same is true for Amazon, Facebook, Netflix, etc.

Facebook didn't say "let's compile a ton of data with Oracle and see if we can invent digital advertising."

Amazon started out saying "I bet we can sell things on the internet. Let's try books."

The list goes on.

And here you are.

One of the speakers at the internet conference I mentioned said something powerful.

"Just start doing something you're interested in and see where it goes."

This was his advice to the next generation.

I thought you deserved to hear it.