If there's one throughline connecting all eight stories, it's this: the pace of translating early-stage research into real, testable, sometimes fundable products has clearly accelerated. Mouse studies from years past are turning into human trials. Lab curiosities are turning into $15 million funding rounds.

his is the story of how a mathematics graduate with a taste for three-piece suits became known as the father of the internet, what he actually did to earn that title, and what he now thinks about the next technology poised to reshape the world: artificial intelligence. He has opinions, and unlike many executives who choose their words carefully for legal reasons, he tends to just say them.