Dr. Robert M. Metcalfe is a general partner in Polaris Venture Partner’s Boston office; he joined Polaris in January 2001. Bob had three other careers in technological innovation before becoming a venture capitalist. While an engineer-scientist (1965-1979), Bob helped pioneer the Internet. In 1973, at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, he invented Ethernet, the local-area networking (LAN) standard on which he

shares four patents. Now, 35 years later, about 350 million new Ethernet ports are installed each year.

While an entrepreneur-executive (1979-1990), Bob founded 3Com Corporation, the billion-dollar networking company where at various times he was Chairman, CEO, division general manager, and vice president of engineering, sales and marketing.

While a publisher-pundit (1990-2000), Bob was CEO of IDG's InfoWorld Publishing Company (1992-1995). For eight years, he opined about the Internet in an InfoWorld column read weekly by half a million information technologists. He pontificated at conferences, on radio and television, hosted his own weekly webcast, and produced events including ACM97, ACM1, Agenda, Pop!Tech and Vortex.

Bob's books include Packet Communication, Internet Collapses and Beyond Calculation, all still available down the long tail at Amazon.com.

Boards:

Bob serves on the boards of Polaris-backed start-ups including 1366, Ember, Greenfuel, Infinite Power Solutions, Mintera, SiCortex, and SiOnyx. Bob is also a director-trustee-advisor to Avistar, St. Mark’s School, USC Stevens Center, MIT, and MIT’s Technology Review Magazine, McGovern Institute for Brain Research, and Energy Initiative.

Education:

Bob graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1969 with bachelor degrees in electrical engineering and in industrial management. He received a master’s degree in applied mathematics from Harvard University in 1970. In 1973, he received his Ph.D. in computer science from Harvard, where his dissertation was Packet Communication.

Awards:

In 1980, Bob received the Hopper Award from the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). In 1988, he received the Bell Medal from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). In 1995, Bob was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1996, he received the IEEE's Medal of Honor. In 1997, he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering, and in 1999, to the International Engineering Consortium. In 2003, Bob received the Marconi Prize and was inducted into the prestigious Bay Shore High School Hall of Fame. In a 2005 ceremony at the White House, Bob received the National Medal of Technology for his "leadership in the invention, standardization, and commercialization of Ethernet". Bob entered the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2007. In 2008 in 2008, Bob received a prestigious Fellow award and was named to the Hall of Fellows at the Computer History Museum (CHM).