Jim Rutt (born 1954) is an American businessman and entrepreneur, the former CEO of

Network Solutions Network Solutions, LLC, formerly Web.com, is an American-based technology company and a subsidiary of Web.com, the 4th-largest .com domain name registrar, with over 6.7 million registrations as of August 2018. In addition to being a domain name ...

, and the former chairman of the

Santa Fe Institute The Santa Fe Institute (SFI) is an independent, nonprofit theoretical research institute located in Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States and dedicated to the multidisciplinary study of the fundamental principles of complex adaptive systems, inc ...

Early life

In 1975, Rutt received a bachelor's degree in

management Management (or managing) is the administration of organizations, whether businesses, nonprofit organizations, or a Government agency, government bodies through business administration, Nonprofit studies, nonprofit management, or the political s ...

from the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

. He later ran technology operations for

Thomson Corporation Thomson Corporation was one of the world's largest information companies. It was established in 1989 following a merger between International Thomson Organization and Thomson Newspapers. In 2008, it purchased Reuters Group to form Thomson Reut ...

Business career

Rutt was the CEO of

, an American technology and Internet company. He was hired in 1999 during the

dot-com boom The dot-com bubble (or dot-com boom) was a stock market bubble that ballooned during the late-1990s and peaked on Friday, March 10, 2000. This period of market growth coincided with the widespread adoption of the World Wide Web and the Intern ...

, and negotiated the company's $15 billion acquisition by

Verisign Verisign, Inc. is an American company based in Reston, Virginia, that operates a diverse array of network infrastructure, including two of the Internet's thirteen root nameservers, the authoritative registry for the , , and generic top-level d ...

, where it continued operating as an independent subsidiary. In March 2001, after the acquisition, he subsequently stepped down from his position as a Verisign executive. After retiring, New Mexico governor

Bill Richardson William Blaine Richardson III (November 15, 1947 – September 1, 2023) was an American politician, author, and diplomat who served as the List of governors of New Mexico, 30th governor of New Mexico from 2003 to 2011. He was U.S. ambassador to ...

appointed Rutt to serve on the State Investment Council. In 2014, Rutt co-founded a makerspace in

Staunton, Virginia Staunton ( ) is an independent city (United States), independent city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), U.S. Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 25,750. In Virginia, independent cities a ...

with software engineer Dan Funk.

Activities

In 1981, Rutt was the first to use the term "

snail mail The mail or post is a system for physically transporting postcards, letters, and parcels. A postal service can be private or public, though many governments place restrictions on private systems. Since the mid-19th century, national postal sy ...

" to describe conventional

mail The mail or post is a system for physically transporting postcards, letter (message), letters, and parcel (package), parcels. A postal service can be private or public, though many governments place restrictions on private systems. Since the mid ...

services, in contrast with

email Electronic mail (usually shortened to email; alternatively hyphenated e-mail) is a method of transmitting and receiving Digital media, digital messages using electronics, electronic devices over a computer network. It was conceived in the ...

. Rutt is a trustee of the

, a multi-disciplinary research organization, and was its chairman before retiring in 2012. He does research into the scientific study of

consciousness Consciousness, at its simplest, is awareness of a state or object, either internal to oneself or in one's external environment. However, its nature has led to millennia of analyses, explanations, and debate among philosophers, scientists, an ...

and

artificial general intelligence Artificial general intelligence (AGI)—sometimes called human‑level intelligence AI—is a type of artificial intelligence that would match or surpass human capabilities across virtually all cognitive tasks. Some researchers argue that sta ...

. He hosts a podcast called ''The Jim Rutt Show''.

References

External links

The Jim Rutt Show

Lifeboat Foundation biography
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rutt, Jim Living people American computer businesspeople American technology chief executives American technology company founders 1954 births Santa Fe Institute people MIT Sloan School of Management alumni