These Are The Smartest Living People In The World Right Now

May 2024 ยท 2 minute read

Tim Berners-Lee is the wild card of this list. Why? Well, this is the man that invented the World Wide Web, according to the Internet Hall of Fame.

Believe it or not, Berners-Lee's invention was actually inspired by science fiction, notes Time, as he was reading an Arthur C. Clarke story at the age of 9, and that little tale gave him the idea for a world of interconnected computers. And while his intelligence hasn't been quantified, you could make a strong argument he's as qualified a genius as anyone in the world, considering the effect his creation has had on humanity. However, the man has some complicated feelings about his invention. When he first brought the baby World Wide Web into the world on March 12, 1989, he saw it as existing in "a simple, star-spangled, unicorn-sky world" (via QZ). Of course, over the years, people have found plenty of ways to use and abuse the technology, but despite the often graphic nature of his creation, he remains committed to a vision of the web as a boon to humanity.

Nowadays, he's the director of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which is "a Web standards organization founded in 1994 that develops interoperable technologies (specifications, guidelines, software, and tools) to lead the Web to its full potential." Every year on March 12, he writes an open letter on the state of the web and how it can be used for a better world. Though he opened Pandora's box, it's clear he's a good guy and won't be "Berning" for eternity for his creation.

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