Judy Estrin spent the morning of her 21st birthday collaborating on software that would become Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), the cornerstone of the Internet and the World Wide Web. She spent the afternoon at a computer communications seminar taught by Bob Metcalfe, whose networking scheme Ethernet is now used in computer networks throughout the world.

Since that day Estrin has cofounded seven technology companies, has served as Cisco Systems' Chief Technology Officer and on the Walt Disney and FedEx boards of directors, and is a member of the technology advisory boards of Stanford's School of Engineering and Bio-X campus-wide interdisciplinary initiative. Fortune magazine has thrice named Estrin one of the 50 most powerful women in American business.

Estrin holds a B.S. from UCLA in math and computer science and an M.S. from Stanford University in electrical engineering. She considers herself fortunate to have been born at a time when the nation understood the importance of science, technology, innovation, and risk-taking. Concerned that, with the country becoming increasingly focused on short-term gains, her son's generation would not have similar opportunities, she wrote Closing the Innovation Gap in an effort to remedy this shift. Business Week named it on of "2008's Top Books on Innovation."