Internet Forefather Paul Baran Dies

Internet architect Paul Baran died of lung cancer Saturday at his home in Palo Alto. He was 84.

Baran pioneered what became known as Arpanet, the foundation of the Internet, in the early 1960s, according to a report by NPR news.

Baran sold his “packet switching” communications method to the U.S. Department of Defense—which is still the way emails are delivered today. He started seven companies, five of which went public, said Vinton Cerf, a vice president at Google, in a phone interview.

“This guy was wonderful,” Cerf said. “He knew so much. He was not afraid to design things, to push things to the edges.”

Baran earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Drexel University. He then obtained his master’s degree in engineering from University of California, Los Angeles.

In the 1970s, Baran ran a company called Cable Data, which predicated itself on the idea of running information through television cable, Cerf said.

Baran’s idea is what we now know as television broadband cable, according to Cerf. “He was doing this 30 to 40 years before anyone else,” Cerf said.

“As with many things with Paul, he pushed the envelope. He would suggest something that was iconoclastic or outrageous, or both, and later on it would turn out that he was right.

“He was the guy to go to if you needed solid engineering advice,” Cerf said.

Baran leaves behind a legacy of two wise mottoes, said Cerf. First, “You gotta break an egg to make an omelet." Second, “Don’t be too over-enthralled with your own contribution, because somebody else’s maybe be more important.”

Baran was a humble and modest person, said Cerf. “You had to force him to take credit for things."

His attitude was that to build a cathedral, it takes many people, said Cerf.

Baran's wife, Evelyn, died in 2007. He is survived by his son, David; three grandchildren; and companion, Ruth Rothman.