I was 34 years old when I first had the idea for the world wide web. I took every opportunity to talk about it: pitching it in meetings, sketching it out on a whiteboard for anyone who was interested, even drawing the web in the snow with a ski pole for my friend on what was meant to be a peaceful day out.I relentlessly petitioned bosses at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (Cern), where I worked at the time, who initially found the idea “a little eccentric” but eventually gave in a...