network quotes

   The Internet has taken shape with startlingly little planning† The most universal and indispensable network on the planet somehow burgeoned without so muchasa boardofdirectors, never minda mergers-and- acquisitions department. There is a paradoxical lesson here for strategists. In economic terms, the great corporations are acting like socialist planners, while old- fashioned free-market capitalism blossoms at their feet.

-James Gleick
  In the NewYork Times Magazine,1 May.