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Somebody was telling me how Hal Varian was "evil" the other night and I added that Vint Cerf was one of the people Upton Sinclair meant when he said “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” [1]

[1] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/21810-it-is-difficult-to-ge...




> Somebody was telling me how Hal Varian was "evil" the other night and I added that Vint Cerf was one of the people Upton Sinclair meant when he said “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” [1]

This was probably metaphor, but, if meant literally, it seems unlikely: the "difficult" quote is from a 1935 publication (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upton_Sinclair#Political_caree...), and Vint Cerf was born in 1943 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vint_Cerf).


In what way does that relate to the works of Vint Cerf?

Genuinely curious.




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