“The Third University of Cambridge”: BBN and the Development of the ARPAnet

We’ve all heard that “DARPA invented the Internet.” But few have heard of BBN, the contractor that did the most work to bring the ARPAnet into existence. Today’s piece dives into the history of BBN and the firm’s unique structure. A firm like BBN winning the main portion of the ARPAnet project was a pivotal reason the ARPAnet project went so smoothly. BBN embodied the “middle ground between academia and the commercial world.” BBN’s early operating model provides an ideal management framework for...