YouSaid · the spoken record

Bob Metcalfe

lines on the record: 141
first: 2018-02-14
most recent: 2018-02-14
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“So I tweet a lot and I'm at sign Bob Metcalf with an E. The E is all important. I probably tweet 10 or 20 times a day. And I can control my number of followers. I figured this out. When I wanted to go up, I tweet about startups. I wanted to go down, I tweet about politics. So I have 22,000 followers, and I'm keeping my echo chamber. So I block people every day. Anyone knows me a little bit, I just block them. And so I'm staying there at around 22,000 now. But if I wanted to go up, I know how to do that. Virtuous signal, how you do it is virtue signaling.”
2018-02-14 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #297: Bob Metcalfe — The Man (and Lessons) Behind Ethernet, Metcalfe’s Law, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So there are billions of people who use my invention to have access to the internet. I think that's a good thing. I think connecting people together stimulates prosperity and democracy and all those good things. But I did it in a for-profit, venture-backed Silicon Valley went public kind of way So it annoys me a little when the virtual signaling comes from the social entrepreneurs who claim that they're the ones solving human problems and not all the other companies who feed everybody and fly them around the world and build their houses. That doesn't count. Excuse me for being a little annoyed.”
2018-02-14 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #297: Bob Metcalfe — The Man (and Lessons) Behind Ethernet, Metcalfe’s Law, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I like making a list of companies, you know, General Motors, Google, Apple, Procter& Gamble. I put it on this big screen. I asked my students, which ones are the startups? And they picked the obvious ones Microsoft, Apple, they can remember them being startups. They said, well, General Electric was a startup. Edison founded that company to solve a human problem years ago. It's just an old startup. IBM is a hundred-year-old startup. They're all startups. And that's how the free enterprise system works. You create companies to solve problems. You find a need and you fill it. So I claim.”
2018-02-14 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #297: Bob Metcalfe — The Man (and Lessons) Behind Ethernet, Metcalfe’s Law, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, what's booming in my field, which is my current field, which is the care and feeding of the startup ecosystem in Texas or in the U.S. or Austin, whichever, there are these things called impact or social entrepreneurship And I hasten to explain that, oh, that must mean what I do is antisocial entrepreneurship. And you guys solve human problems, whereas what do we do? We do it. We're doing it. We're money grubbing for-profit people. So I don't respond well to that insult. I don't think profit is a four-letter word. I'm right about that too.”
2018-02-14 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #297: Bob Metcalfe — The Man (and Lessons) Behind Ethernet, Metcalfe’s Law, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I'm a big believer in the American dream, and I think we need to keep it alive. The dream of freedom and achievement, capitalism, Ayn Rand, you know, that whole thing, I believe in it. I think people... should respect it and pursue it. So starting companies is sort of the ultimate version of that. I mean, that's the plumbing of free enterprises, starting companies to solve human problems And so that's why I spend my time helping people start companies.”
2018-02-14 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #297: Bob Metcalfe — The Man (and Lessons) Behind Ethernet, Metcalfe’s Law, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And their attitude to the military very supportive and positive to the military because three of my father's brothers had served in World War II. So that was part of their reaction was to look at these beautiful military. You know, the White House picks these beautiful specimens of fit and handsome or beautiful or whatever the right adjective. So they hung around them. I remember that vividly. And the military They're short. My mother's five was 5'9. So they're little tiny people and they were being escorted around by these huge marines. From the various rooms of the White House. I remember that. Anyway, it was a combination of the American dream.”
2018-02-14 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #297: Bob Metcalfe — The Man (and Lessons) Behind Ethernet, Metcalfe’s Law, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, they walked around like this. Looking at everything, the portraits on the walls, and the military guys, there's a lot of beautiful uniformed military people there. My parents were. Very impressed and befriended them. So they hung out with the military. My father lost an eye when he was a kid so he wasn't able to serve with his three brothers in the Pacific during the World War II. Both my mother and father had a tragedy in their life that prevented them from going to college, which I think is why they had a special reason that I should go to college”
2018-02-14 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #297: Bob Metcalfe — The Man (and Lessons) Behind Ethernet, Metcalfe’s Law, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's right. That's where you get them. So he was telling me that he had received the Nobel Prize. And that was sort of a notch above the prizes we were getting that day.”
2018-02-14 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #297: Bob Metcalfe — The Man (and Lessons) Behind Ethernet, Metcalfe’s Law, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“sets up this episode in the bus going to the culmination of the American dream, I'm sitting next to a man who's about to receive the National Academy of Science, the National Medal of Science. And I started saying to him, this is so cool. And the party last night was great. And now we're going to see the White House and my parents are there and everything. Isn't that great? And this guy says to me It is pretty nice, but it's not as good as Stockholm.”
2018-02-14 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #297: Bob Metcalfe — The Man (and Lessons) Behind Ethernet, Metcalfe’s Law, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I don't think they like George Bush. I don't know. But it was the culmination of the American dream. That's the phrase I use. Culmination of the American dream because these folks had their whole life wanted their kid to go to college and make something of himself. And here I was getting the, so I considered this my mom's medal of technology. So that was a big high point. So, by the way, you may know there is some hostility between scientists and engineers. It's a false dichotomy, really. And this was a member of the National Academy of Engineering, not the National Academy of Sciences.”
2018-02-14 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #297: Bob Metcalfe — The Man (and Lessons) Behind Ethernet, Metcalfe’s Law, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Having given you two low points in my life, of which there are many others, let me give you a high point. A couple of decades ago I was informed that I was going to be given the National Medal of Technology And my parents were still alive. And I brought them with me to the White House. They went into the White House, which is really fantastic. And I got this medal, George Bush, and I put it around my mother's neck. And I had this picture of my dad. And these are very simple people that went to college.”
2018-02-14 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #297: Bob Metcalfe — The Man (and Lessons) Behind Ethernet, Metcalfe’s Law, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In how you sit there and you plan your speech while this other idiot is talking and they're done, you forget what they said and then you just say what you were planning to say and a real character defect. DNT, do not talk. So then I got used to this idea of being the actually that's why I didn't storm out the door. If they had just made Bill CEO, period, I might have stormed out the door, but they gave me a job. They said, now we want you to be head of sales and marketing. So that was the, I think that's what saved me from doing something stupid, believing.”
2018-02-14 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #297: Bob Metcalfe — The Man (and Lessons) Behind Ethernet, Metcalfe’s Law, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Do not talk. Now, everyone thinks that I'm writing down what they're saying, which means what they're saying is important. So that's why I write anything. But the thing I most need to know is to be reminded to keep my mouth shut because these people be responsible for running the company. So that was a big learning. That's sort of the beginning of one of my secret weapons, something I'm very, very good at. And I sort of learned it a lot that day. And it's listening. And I think it's the secret to most success. It's just listening. And Bill taught me that. He was listening to what those people were saying. He wasn't planning his little speech.”
2018-02-14 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #297: Bob Metcalfe — The Man (and Lessons) Behind Ethernet, Metcalfe’s Law, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So I got curious because this is part of I got to figure out what this guy knows that I don't know. So I got up and walked around behind him, which if you're chairman of the board and founder of the company and you own most of it, you're allowed to do that. But otherwise, I would not do that. And I went behind him and I looked at what he was writing on this pad. And he was doodling. And what he had written a hundred times was DNT. So after the meeting, I took him aside and said, Bill, I'm curious, what does DNT mean? And he said, and this was a big learning, Bob, I talk too much. And the way I keep myself from talking is I write,”
2018-02-14 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #297: Bob Metcalfe — The Man (and Lessons) Behind Ethernet, Metcalfe’s Law, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think it's a temperament thing, so Bill is... It is an airtight to do kind of person, does things, writes things down, does them very strong. He's also a big delegator Back to a fault, the rest of us used to joke. We would have these meetings and everyone would end up with action items except Bill. And so then it became our objective to get something on his to-do list. And by the way, if you got something on his to-do list, it got done. So that was his temperament, sort of a disciplined, more so than me Yeah, the first operations meeting the next week, every Monday we had an ops meeting, and I had run that meeting for two or three years. And this was the first time Bill was going to run the meeting. And he had a yellow pad and a pen or pencil, I forget which, and he was writing as we had the meeting”
2018-02-14 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #297: Bob Metcalfe — The Man (and Lessons) Behind Ethernet, Metcalfe’s Law, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So to realize this fact that it is very difficult to be self-aware, self-awareness is hard stuff. And you see it on the campus of the University of Texas. If those people had mirrors, they wouldn't look like that. They don't see how the world views them. So in my role, I couldn't figure out what Bill knew that I didn't know that would make him qualified to be CEO, but not me. I couldn't see the deficiency. But my board could see it, and the board's job is to be sure that the CEO is the right person, so they were doing their job, and I had recruited them to do that job. So I wasn't seeing something that the board saw and that Bill, and by the way, that judgment was vindicated, Bill did fabulously in that job.”
2018-02-14 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #297: Bob Metcalfe — The Man (and Lessons) Behind Ethernet, Metcalfe’s Law, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And plus, I knew that Bill was a sales and marketing expert, so he was going to be able to help me. So I accepted that. It took me about a week to stop being sort of rejected and depressed and wondering whether I was going to leave or not and slam the door. And I didn't slam the door. So I suddenly started being head of sales and marketing and walked Marlene around the building to try to convince her to be a salesperson and found a recruiter to recruit the sales force and quickly learned how to sell.”
2018-02-14 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #297: Bob Metcalfe — The Man (and Lessons) Behind Ethernet, Metcalfe’s Law, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I did not exact oh good observation yes, I did not break my tennis rackets now this company's success is more important to me than running it. I said that to these people and they're now taking me up on that and this board was a board that I had tricked into being this is a first rate board. I had three of the top venture capitalists Dick Kramlick and Wally Davis and A third guy whose name I could remember in a few minutes. So, I had handpicked this board. I had recruited them carefully. So, what up, can I disagree with them? Especially after I told them that it was more important I'd be successful. And that was the meeting in which they said we'd like you to be head of sales and marketing because we need somebody to get out there and tell people about the product. You know how to do that, so go do that.”
2018-02-14 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #297: Bob Metcalfe — The Man (and Lessons) Behind Ethernet, Metcalfe’s Law, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I believed it and it was attractive to the investor, this notion of the founder running things is quite controversial. So here I am in the meeting where they're informing me that I'm not going to be CEO anymore. I'm going to be chairman. I own most of the company by that time still. But I wasn't going to be CEO. My buddy Bill, who's a perfectly fine guy, is about to be CEO. So that was an interesting meeting. Now what the founder is supposed to do following that meeting is slam the door behind him and storm out the door and go start another company or do something crazy. But I didn't do that because I'm not going to.”
2018-02-14 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #297: Bob Metcalfe — The Man (and Lessons) Behind Ethernet, Metcalfe’s Law, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In the time before Recom I lived on Santill Road. I met my wife on Sandhill Road. I founded my company on Sandhill Road and as you may know Santill Road is where all the VCs are. So I had plenty of time to meet them all and I learned the three things in their opinion that caused companies to fail. One was the uncontrollable ego of the founder. Whoa, well that was they had me nailed. Two is a lack of focus, and three was a lack of money, which is self serving advice. So when I came to present my business plan in nineteen eighty to those same people, I handled those three cases preemptively up front. One of the things I said is this company succeeding is more important to me than running it.”
2018-02-14 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #297: Bob Metcalfe — The Man (and Lessons) Behind Ethernet, Metcalfe’s Law, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So here I was the founder, chairman, CEO of Threecom Corporation. We had raised a one point one million dollars of venture capital in nineteen eighty one. And we were burning through it. And Ethernet, which I had predicted would help this company generate revenue on, was delayed in its takeoff. I was wrong. In retrospect, I was wrong by six months as to how quickly Ethernet would get picked up and when our revenues would start growing. But it did look pretty bleak at the time. Cash is going like this and the pickup is not occurring. And then we had a board meeting, and I'm chairman, and I call the board meeting together, and one of my board members says we've had a rump session without you, and we've concluded that we now want Bill to take over a CEO. Now I had prepared for this moment because in the”
2018-02-14 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #297: Bob Metcalfe — The Man (and Lessons) Behind Ethernet, Metcalfe’s Law, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So it was, so it wasn't a hard deep funk because I had all this exciting new stuff going on. Now, if Xerox had said, no, you stay in Boston, and you maybe will consider taking you if you ever finish your dissertation. That would have been hard to recover from.”
2018-02-14 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #297: Bob Metcalfe — The Man (and Lessons) Behind Ethernet, Metcalfe’s Law, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Xerox Palo Alto Research Center. So when I moved there, it was heaven on earth. And I was grateful to them for accepting me even without my dissertation. And then they were helpful in being sure that I finished it. But the excitement of moving to a New York boy goes to California. I really was a big Beach Boys fan. What I didn't realize is how far the ocean is from Palo Alto and how cold and miserable it is when you get there. So the beach boys were southern California, and I didn't quite register with me. But moving to California was a big deal, and it was fun, and I enjoyed doing it. And San Francisco, as you know, is a fantastic city. And I was moving there shortly after the Summer of Love. I moved there in 72.”
2018-02-14 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #297: Bob Metcalfe — The Man (and Lessons) Behind Ethernet, Metcalfe’s Law, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“satisfied Harvard that my thesis was sufficiently novel that I could graduate. So how's that one? Does that answer your question? There's many more”
2018-02-14 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #297: Bob Metcalfe — The Man (and Lessons) Behind Ethernet, Metcalfe’s Law, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They who had hired me on a job talk, a PhD job talk, and Bob Taylor there, he rest in peace, said, Oh, why don't you come out anyway and you can finish your thesis here? Oh, wow, super. The hard call was to my parents, which is, you know, don't come to Harvard Yard because it's not happening. So that was a horrible, horrible, see, that's my New York accent there. Horrible, horrible, horrible thing to happen. And that was only the 10th thing that caused me to hate Harvard. It was a pretty big one. So that was a pretty gruesome because everyone finds out about it and then you failed. And there's a good chance you'll never get your PhD if you fail your defense. I lucked out. I invented Ethernet. And in the course of inventing Ethernet, I wrote a chapter of my thesis that”
2018-02-14 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #297: Bob Metcalfe — The Man (and Lessons) Behind Ethernet, Metcalfe’s Law, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Set up And my oral defence of my thesis was two weeks before graduation, and I went in there, and you give your pitch, and then you leave the room, and then they talk to each other, and then you come back, they invite you back in, and then they shake your hand and congratulate you on being a PhD. Only that's not what happened. I walk back in there and they told me that my thesis was deficient and that I was not going to get my PhD. So I called Xerox.”
2018-02-14 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #297: Bob Metcalfe — The Man (and Lessons) Behind Ethernet, Metcalfe’s Law, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And it was easy to get job offers because I was a networking guy and networking was hot. So universities thought that if they hired me, it would be easier to get grants from ARPA. So I understand it wasn't me, it was the networking thing. But then I turned down eight of the nine offers and accepted the one at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, which was a hard choice. They offered me more money. I didn't have to teach. I didn't have to raise money. I could just enjoy Palo Alto. And I was a big beach boys fan, so I was sure that was related. And I notified my parents whose life's dream was that their son would go to college, and here he was getting a Harvard PhD, and I was inviting them to the Harvard Yard for the event. And my then wife, may she rest in peace, resigned her job at MIT as administrator there, and she got a job at Stanford.”
2018-02-14 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #297: Bob Metcalfe — The Man (and Lessons) Behind Ethernet, Metcalfe’s Law, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I have no trouble. With this, I have many of them. You accumulate them as time passes on. And I'm fond of saying, you know, one of my favorite songs is New Kid in Town by the Eagles and J.D. Souther. Because I've been it has been a few times I know how to be a has been because I've had some practice, but I'm fond of saying. Maybe it has been, but it's better than being a never was. But the story that comes to mind, and I alluded to it earlier relating to my bitterness toward Harvard University, which I should get over with, and I understand it's a childish, petulant sort of thing. So here I am working at MIT toward my degree at Harvard. And I submit a draft of my thesis intending to graduate in nineteen seventy two. And my thesis advisor encouraged this thought. So I went on a job. And I got nine job offers.”
2018-02-14 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #297: Bob Metcalfe — The Man (and Lessons) Behind Ethernet, Metcalfe’s Law, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Scobel's a genius, so I do whatever he says. But it's true. If you answer an email, you're guaranteed to get an answer to your answers. So don't answer it.”
2018-02-14 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #297: Bob Metcalfe — The Man (and Lessons) Behind Ethernet, Metcalfe’s Law, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And you know the algorithm. You go and you start with the newest one. You start working back older and older and older and older and older and you go as far as you can before you run out of time. And then the next day there's a whole bunch of new ones have arrived. And so sometimes you never get. And that's how you accumulate 12,000 unread emails.”
2018-02-14 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #297: Bob Metcalfe — The Man (and Lessons) Behind Ethernet, Metcalfe’s Law, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because my assistant would carry, you know, Bob should, should meet with these people. So therefore, I'm going to schedule the meeting. But I have a different evaluation criteria for should. And so I have many fewer meetings. That's another way of... pawing through the urgent and the important is to not delegate that, but to take it upon yourself because you can take responsibility for ignoring really important things and people and so on Right at the moment, I have 12,000 unread emails in my inbox.”
2018-02-14 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #297: Bob Metcalfe — The Man (and Lessons) Behind Ethernet, Metcalfe’s Law, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So I've had a personal assistant. This is somewhere in the 70s. And then when I came here to the University of Texas, I have an endowed chair, and there's enough money in the chair for me to have an assistant. And so I got an assistant. Seven years ago. And I would come, and I was hoping to have a new life as a professor and find out what that's about. And I would come to work every day and my day would be full of meetings that my assistant had arranged. So after two years of this, I outplaced my assistant, found him another job, and now I don't have a personal assistant. So any appointments I make. And you'll be surprised how few appointments they have.”
2018-02-14 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #297: Bob Metcalfe — The Man (and Lessons) Behind Ethernet, Metcalfe’s Law, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Leaving things, failing to copy things that had not been done onto the new page was a big breakthrough for me when it began to be okay for me to not transcribe something that had not been done, my life got a lot better. So there's just some things that get on your to-do list. You just have to suffer the consequences of ignoring them.”
2018-02-14 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #297: Bob Metcalfe — The Man (and Lessons) Behind Ethernet, Metcalfe’s Law, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, there's two dimensions, and you've heard all this because you especially have heard all this dimensions are urgency and importance. And so things find their way onto the list by virtue of one or the other, some combination of urgency and importance. And the thing I learned a long time ago is to take the list and break it into three pieces, the stuff you must absolutely do as soon as possible. Then there's the stuff that you can do if you get to, and then there's the stuff that you just forget that list and throw it out So, what I used to do, actually, when I was growing three come in the very early days, like the day of founding, it was my practice to do a to-do list every day. When the next day came, I would turn the page and I would transcribe. The things that were left on this list onto the new page”
2018-02-14 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #297: Bob Metcalfe — The Man (and Lessons) Behind Ethernet, Metcalfe’s Law, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I frequently suffer from that feeling, said Being overrun, and that's generally because I overcommit, and I haven't learned after all these years how not to overcommit. I forget that you commit to something now and then again. But the remedy is to make a list. than prioritize and just focus on the top item of the list and get it done. So prioritize. concentrate on that and just Ignore everything else, sometimes to your detriment, because sometimes things need taken care of. But that's my way out is to concentrate on one thing.”
2018-02-14 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #297: Bob Metcalfe — The Man (and Lessons) Behind Ethernet, Metcalfe’s Law, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“and her principal use is to circumnavigate islands near our island. So we leave our island and go around Hurricane Island or just circumnavigation of small islands in the Penobscot Bay of Maine. And then we have a bevy of dinghies and stand-up paddleboards and kayaks, which we keep generally out on the island camp. So we ply the waters of the North Atlantic like my Scandinavian forebears.”
2018-02-14 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #297: Bob Metcalfe — The Man (and Lessons) Behind Ethernet, Metcalfe’s Law, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So teak is a yachty wood, and the boat is a working boat hull, a lobster boat, but it's teaked out, so it's called a lobster, it's not called a lobster boat, it's called a lobster yacht. It has a head, it has bunks, which are things that you don't have in a lobster boat. That's the big, that's the flagship of the fleet. And then I have a 15 foot runabout with a plastic runabout. We call her Tupperware. And she has a 50 horsepower engine, so she moves right along. And then we have a 12.5 foot wooden sailboat called Flash.”
2018-02-14 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #297: Bob Metcalfe — The Man (and Lessons) Behind Ethernet, Metcalfe’s Law, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“on Long Island. We had a 14 foot runabout with a 10 horsepower motor, which I used every summer while growing up. So that would be it. My fleet is in Maine. So we go to Maine in the summer and we have an island camp ten miles out in the ocean. And the big boat is a lobster yacht thirty two foot lobster boat thing with a little teak on it that we use to say.”
2018-02-14 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #297: Bob Metcalfe — The Man (and Lessons) Behind Ethernet, Metcalfe’s Law, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm just arch Darwinian person. I love that book. It just seemed to explain everything. Just trace it all back to the math of natural selection and mutation and so on. So the selfish gene is another one that I recommend highly frequently. I read him a long time ago.”
2018-02-14 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #297: Bob Metcalfe — The Man (and Lessons) Behind Ethernet, Metcalfe’s Law, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I read it for the first time right after it was written. And I was, I think in eighth grade or so. impressionable age. And I fell in love with Dagny Taggart, and I always wanted to be Howard Rourke. And there was something Was some feelings I had at the time that it said we're okay. Gave me permission to feel a certain way about myself. And related to competitiveness and that winning and how this, and it touched on the invisible hand of free enterprise and capitalism and of that whole package I bought into lockstock and barrels. So I've been giving out Atlas shrugs since the 60s. And I understand that that labels me a cook of some kind, but I don't really care much about that anymore. That's my favorite book.”
2018-02-14 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #297: Bob Metcalfe — The Man (and Lessons) Behind Ethernet, Metcalfe’s Law, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Buffalo Bills defunct who used to ride a watery smooth silver stallion and shoot clay pigeons one, two, three, four, five just like that Jesus he was a handsome man but what I want to know is how do you like your blue eyed boy mister Death? And occasionally somebody dies, and that's my way of lamenting their departure. And I have blue eyes. Personal connect How do you like your blue eyed boy, mister?”
2018-02-14 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #297: Bob Metcalfe — The Man (and Lessons) Behind Ethernet, Metcalfe’s Law, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm not nearly the most creative, but some of them are poems, just long poems So it's an opportunity to. Occasionally, somebody dies, not at the camp, but we acknowledge, well, not yet at the camp And so that's when I use, I have an E Cummings poem that I've memorized that I use as my toast in that case to remember them.”
2018-02-14 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #297: Bob Metcalfe — The Man (and Lessons) Behind Ethernet, Metcalfe’s Law, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“20 years ago. I have this island off the coast of Maine. It's a beautiful place. It's empty. And I began to share it with friends. I would invite them to come out. We would get my boat, go out there and pitch tents. And there's a little camp there. A camp in Maine is a little cottage without electricity. And then we've been building it up since about Only twenty or thirty of the big boys show up, and more and more there come by boat, so I have many moorings in this little cove, and there were nine moorings last year, but I'm going to have 11 moorings this year because the big boys sometimes come by boat. And that's kind of, then they can sleep on their boats, and then I don't have to pitch a tent for them. And then we have adventures and tell stories and toasts. We do toasts now that you mention it.”
2018-02-14 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #297: Bob Metcalfe — The Man (and Lessons) Behind Ethernet, Metcalfe’s Law, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So I run a summer camp. The average age of the attendees is sixty ish. And we have toasts and we're encouraged. We encourage really elaborate toasts. And they're much longer than that, but much of the same sentiment that is around adventure and fellowship.”
2018-02-14 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #297: Bob Metcalfe — The Man (and Lessons) Behind Ethernet, Metcalfe’s Law, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I believe it was Edison who convinced everyone to use hello instead of a hoy. And in a previous life, won the Alexander Graham Bell Medal. So in loyalty to Bell, I say ahoy. And I like to say it three times actually, but”
2018-02-14 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #297: Bob Metcalfe — The Man (and Lessons) Behind Ethernet, Metcalfe’s Law, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“First of all, according to twenty three and me, I am mostly a Viking. And ahoy is the ancient Viking war cry. So to be true to my heritage, I must say Ahoy. The second reason is I have a fleet of boats in Maine, a tiny little boats, they're not Russian oligarch yachts. My big boat is 32 feet long And when you're a C, a hoi is a way of greeting someone on the ocean, which you can see is not too far from a Viking war cry. But the third reason is a really killer, when Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, the question arose, what do you say when you pick up the telephone? You have to say something or they won't know you're there. And Bell proposed that the word be a hoi.”
2018-02-14 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #297: Bob Metcalfe — The Man (and Lessons) Behind Ethernet, Metcalfe’s Law, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But you see how I can say happy to many more people than before because I have a computer helping me, reminding me and delivering it. So I'm still betting that this new number will be bigger than that sociologist assessed.”
2018-02-14 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #297: Bob Metcalfe — The Man (and Lessons) Behind Ethernet, Metcalfe’s Law, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I wish there was a tool. I could just press a button and it would automatically say many happy returns. But right now I type it each time and I think that's more authentic for me to type it each time.”
2018-02-14 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #297: Bob Metcalfe — The Man (and Lessons) Behind Ethernet, Metcalfe’s Law, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, another reason it should be lower. Is that Facebook is growing still, and especially then. So a lot of those networks of friends are just brand new and they haven't finished growing out yet. So that would be another reason. And it was 140, not 150, but so it was a little bit below. But yours is another reason. But the reason should be higher. Is that we now have tools for Like it's my practice to wish people a happy birthday. And there's a tool in Facebook that prompts you when the friends' birthdays are and I type in many happy returns, exclamation point every single time.”
2018-02-14 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #297: Bob Metcalfe — The Man (and Lessons) Behind Ethernet, Metcalfe’s Law, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Total number of connections divided by the total number of people, which is the average number of friends per person was about the same as this sociologist had predicted.”
2018-02-14 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #297: Bob Metcalfe — The Man (and Lessons) Behind Ethernet, Metcalfe’s Law, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT