![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.internetsociety.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/David-Clark-Headshot.jpg\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\nClark is one those friends and former colleagues: When, in 1979, Vint Cerf asked Clark to take over as chairman of the Internet Working Group, which later became the Internet Architecture Board, he invited one other person do so: Jon Postel. \u201cHe wanted Jon\u2019s wisdom,\u201d said Clark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Clark is famous, among other things, for his 1992 quote, \u201cWe reject: kings, presidents, and voting. We believe in: rough consensus and running code.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The statement fast became an ethos for a community notoriously distrustful of top-down leadership. But Clark is quick to point out that if you keep<\/em> overthrowing your leader, you wind up with another kind of problem. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Questions of power have been central to\u00a0his thinking about the Internet and he has, over the years, immersed himself as much in questions of society and economics as he has in technical questions. \u201cYou cannot think about the future of the Internet as a technical question,” he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Clark sees the best of the Internet in its technical structure. And its greatest threats from its societal impacts. “The whole vision of the Internet was permissionless innovation. We had this techno optimistic view that good things would happen. But really, if you think about the techno optimistic view, it wasn’t optimistic about technology. It was optimistic about human behavior. And humans are really screwed up.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n He laments the centralization of the Internet and sees it as an accidental outcome of good intentions. “The secret of stabilizing a decentralized ecosystem is not how the packets flow but how the money flows,” he says. Designing for money instead would have shaped the Internet \u201cso that everyone is equitably compensated and no one becomes a monopolist.\u201d He attributes the overemphasis on packet flow for creating fertile ground for moneyed interests that benefit from centralized systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the words of Vint Cerf, \u201cit would be hard to overstate the contributions that David Clark has made to the creation and evolution of the Internet.\u201d The Internet Society honors and thanks him for his groundbreaking work and decades of service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The\u00a0Jonathan B. Postel Service Award<\/a>\u00a0is presented annually to an individual or organization that has made outstanding and sustained contributions in service to the Internet community. The award is named after\u00a0Dr. Jonathan B. Postel<\/a>\u00a0to recognize and commemorate the extraordinary stewardship he exercised throughout a 30-year career in networking.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAbout the Award<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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