What I Learned from Bob Metcalfe

Listening to Bob Metcalfe speak last week at Mass Comm Week will definitely go down in the books in my mind as a memorable conversation. It was great hearing him re-tell his personal stories of the early days of Internet that we’ve been studying the last few months. Hearing that his personal motivations for coming up with Ethernet were simply to work towards his degree, made his world-changing invention seem like just another science fair project.

Another thing that Metcalfe spoke about that resonated with me (and I told at least five friends later as I kept thinking about it) was the five things he expects his students in his innovation class at UT to take away with them as they embark on their careers. The five things were: health, speaking, writing, selling and planning. These concepts resonated with me because like most jobs, they are areas that I am constantly trying to improve on in my own job. There will always be room for improvement, but mastering these five things will certainly lead to success. The most thought provoking of the three was definitely health. Maintaining a healthy lifestyle proves to be a difficult task while also working hard at the other four objectives, but as Metcalfe said you can’t do it “living on lack of sleep and ramen noodles.” This is just another helpful reminder that success will mean keeping all areas in my life in check.

From a personal standpoint, the most interesting parts of the session for me were his take on career transition and development. One of my questions I didn’t get to ask was if he ever got the urge to leave behind his days working in tech/engineering and try something completely new. He answered my question as he discussed his many career changes throughout the years and by telling us that he believes everyone should go through at least five career changes in their lifetime. Though he worked in different areas of tech innovation, he wasn’t afraid to start over in a new career path even if the choice wasn’t his, as he mentioned when he was demoted from the company he founded. This idea reminded me of Steve Jobs’ sage advice he gave at his Stanford commencement address, “you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.” These words from both Jobs and Metcalfe were very comforting to me and I imagine others on the verge of career transition sitting in the room that night that somehow it will all work out.