There were famously government and university programs that played important early roles too. But it was largely people working for companies that actually built these systems.

What organizations do you think created the switches, routers, servers, software, fiber optic backbones? Who created the new protocols?

It was companies like AT&T/Bell Labs, Cisco, 3Com, Sun, UUNET, Netscape, AOL, the major telecoms, and a thousand other companies we don't remember.

Something like 1% inspiration from academia and government, and 99% perspiration by people working inside companies.

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Munksgaard 2 hours ago | parent [-]

How many of those organizations you named were VC-backed?

	▲	jacobgold 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Cisco, backed early by Sequoia. 3Com, raised $1.1M from three venture capitalists in 1981. Sun, a Kleiner Perkins portfolio company. UUNET, raised from Accel, Menlo, and NEA in 1993. Netscape, backed by Kleiner Perkins. AOL, backed by Kleiner Perkins.