Vinton Cerf, widely considered one of the "fathers of the Internet" for his role in co-creating the TCP/IP protocols, will step down from his role as Google’s chief internet evangelist next week, Techcrunch reports. The character The Architect in the movie Matrix Reloaded was apparently based on Cerf and looks remarkably like him, btw.
https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/30/the-father-of-the-internet-is-finally-retiring/
I smiled when I read this because a few years back I was on a flight home to DC from San Francisco, and I learned as I was waiting to board that Vint was going to be sitting right next to me on the flight. Alas, my hopes were dashed when Vint -- who was flying standby -- got bumped again after graciously bumping himself from previous flight. He got pretty upset at this, and I was bummed, too. I posted about it at the time on Xitter, and someone replied: "It's ok, I'm sure he'll just automatically find another route."
