Loren Steffy

What does retirement look like for a guy like Vint Cerf? https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/30/the-father-of-the-internet-is-finally-retiring/ I interviewed him a few times over my career, the last time, probably 20+ years ago, I asked what he was working on. "Interplanetary email," he said. He explained that "email in Earth orbit was easy," but getting to Mars was a challenge. I thought of that exchange recently when I heard the Artemis II crew was emailing from lunar orbit. Cerf's one of those guys who loves thinking about big problems. Those thoughts will still come in retirement, but here's hoping that now he'll only have to solve the ones he finds fun.

The 'Father of the Internet' is finally retiring | TechCrunch Vinton Cerf, one of the creators of the protocols underlying the internet, will step down as Google's chief internet evangelist next week.

"More than one-third of US workers have an employer with little to no stake in their future. For companies that need flexibility, there are better solutions." MIT Professor Paul Osterman writes about rise of arms-length work in Bloomberg Businessweek: "When I walk out of my condo every day, I say good morning to a concierge who works for a contracting company and not my building. If my car hits a pothole and the impact sends me to the emergency room, I may be cared for by a travel nurse employed by a third-party staffing firm. If I decide to sue the city, the law office may do document discovery using a part-time staff attorney. And if I hire someone to edit a video about the dangers of potholes, that person is likely to be a freelancer.
What all these individuals have in common is an employer with little to no stake in their future." What does this mean for the future of work, the reliability of the workforce, and the future of corporations?