Big news today: Internet pioneer Vint Cerf has taken on the role of Chair of the StopBadware Board, which is seriously great. Furthermore, the esteemed Esther Dyson is our new Clerk (what some might call Secretary of the Corporation). Here's a brief dramatization of how this all happened:
Scene: A board meeting
Us: Hey amazing board of directors, thanks for being so great. What's going on?
Previous Chair Michael Barrett (PayPal's super cool CISO): Hey, you guys. It's probably time for a change of the guard because I've held this title for like three years, y'all.1
Us: Okay. Thanks for being our Security Spock for the past three years. You're gonna stick around, right?
Michael Barrett, a.k.a. Security Spock: Heck yeah, I'm gonna stick around. Internet security is really important, and I'm in it for the long haul!
Us: Excellent. Well, who will take up the mantle of Board Chair now?
Board: We all nominate Vint Cerf, because he's basically the Yoda of the entire Internet, and also he's been around for three years being all active and great, too.
Us: Awesome. We love that guy. He calls himself Al Gore at conferences sometimes as a joke.2 Vint you game?
Vint, a.k.a. Internet Yoda: Heck yeah, I'm game. But actually I'm more like Gandalf3, because I help StopBadware marshal the Web's forces into defending our collective Internet Helm's Deep from the armies of viruses, spyware, and other badware. And I look majestic doing it.
Us: Radical. We don't disagree with the Gandalf bit, we just really wanted to get a Yoda reference in there.
Board: Actually, Esther Dyson is more like Yoda, since she's always making wise comments and predictions about technology and training the young ones in the ways of tech wisdom. She's much better looking than Yoda, though. Hey, we should make her clerk!
Us: Best idea yet. Esther, you down?
Esther, a.k.a. Real Internet Yoda: Down, I am.4
Us: Perfect. Hey Eric Davis from Google and Brett McDowell from PayPal, will you guys come be our Han Solo and Luke Skywalker? Philippe Courtot was named Aragorn a while back, so that spot's taken.
Eric Davis and Brett McDowell: As long as neither of us has to be Gimli or Legolas, we're in.5
Yup. We just referenced Star Trek, Star Wars, and Lord of the Rings in a single blog post. If we'd had a little more time, we probably could've gotten Harry Potter in there, too. You're welcome.
You can read the pop-culture-reference-free press release here. And here are our board's official bios, which are also blissfully free of sci-fi references.
1 We really doubt Michael Barrett has ever said "y'all."
2 Get it?
3 Vint Cerf would never actually call himself Gandalf, or refer to himself as majestic, so we're doing it for him.
4 In no reality would Esther Dyson talk like this. In case you haven't gotten it by now, we're paraphrasing.
5 For legal reasons, we should probably disclose that this didn't really happen either.
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