Vint Cerf

Vint Cerf, a cofounder of the Internet and, since 2005, Google’s chief Internet evangelist, regaled a packed house at the Hyatt Regency La Jolla with a history of the Internet, its state today and some predictions for its future. It is Cerf who is exalted in many engineering circles for his insistence that all traffic on the then-Arpnet use TCP/IP standards. He was once presented a T-shirt bearing the slogan “I P Everywhere” across the front.

In offering glimpses of the future at the San Diego Venture Group breakfast, Cerf says billions of cell phones are the new frontier for Internet businesses; predicts homes and workplaces will be filled with devices, appliances and perhaps even clothing, that talk over the Net, and that Net neutrality will continue to leave the most power in the hands of end users and innovators.

He treated seriously and with respect questions about whether the Internet would somehow become lethally self-aware as in the “Terminator” movies. He expects people would pull the plug first but worries about Americans’ willingness to trade personal information for convenience and Google’s impact on the environment. He said google.org is a sincere, broad-based philanthropic effort with true support from the top down.

Noting Google’s propensity to halt leaks of its next big thing, he said he had no secrets to share. He did marvel at how people are using products like Google Earth to layer on their own information. And he repeatedly referred to Darwin when offering tips to businesses confronting the digital age: adapt or die.

As to what it is like to work for a company (headquartered in Mountain View) where employment growth is scorching, Cerf addressed a question about employee parking problems with an old fashioned solution: Valets.