zlacker

>>mfigui+(OP)
"I told them Xerox has got to get itself together, because there's no way a big company can take advantage of things moving this fast. People will get frustrated and start their own companies."

—Carver Mead, 1979 (employee at Xerox PARC), discussing why Xerox needed to focus more on adopting integrated circuits into the computers they had already developed, instead of continuing to just make increasingly-obsolete copiers.

>>Prolly+H1
I don't think that is an apt metaphor. Imo Openai is Apple and Google is Parc. Google experiencing a similar issue to parc where they invented transformers but have been unable to capture the value so far due to being focused on ads revenue.

>>zindle+M4
Great nuanced distinction.

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"Xerox's top executives were for the most part salesmen of copy machines. From these leased behemoths the revenue stream was as tangible as the `click` of the meters counting off copies, for which the customer paid Xerox so many cents per page (and from which Xerox paid its salespersons their commissions). Noticing their eyes narrow [at R&D's attempts at asking to market their computer, one] could almost hear them thinking: 'If there is no paper to be copied, where's the `click`?' In other words: 'How will I get paid?' "

—Michael Hiltzik's "Dealers of Lightning" (p272)

>>Prolly+U5
It seems odd that Xerox bothered with the research lab at all then. Why not only research how to make copier's cheaper and more compelling if company culture is Mad Men, copier edition?