How Steve Jobs got the ideas of GUI from XEROX

The first graphical user interface was developed by researchers at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) in 1973. Xerox's management did not understand the researchers' ideas, innovations and visions; and did nothing to make them into real life product. Steve Jobs visited PARC in 1979 and was impressed and influenced by the graphical user interface developed by researchers there, he walked away with a sackful of secret technologies; the very ideas that Xerox's managements didn't understand after years of persuasion by their researchers. Steve Jobs designed the new Apple Lisa in early 1980's based on the technology he saw at Xerox.
Clip Courtesy of: Triumph of the Nerds
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triumph_of_the_Nerds

[@maxell1221]

Xerox basically just left the door open on a multi-trillon dollar safe and said "hey competition, come right in and steal all our future profits"

[@gtv8643]

idol 🤣🤣

[@Ericthefilo]

Also its a bit of an oversimplification of the matter, yes they had the alto way ahead of everyone else but they could never figure out how to make it at a reasonable price, the whole system cost huge amounts of money. It was a failure to make a real business case for it.

[@gxgear]

@@JakDivinci Wealth distribution is a systemic issue of our society, and not relevant to the introduction of GUI. The alternative is Xerox keeping the idea for itself, becoming the sole benefactor of the concept (ie. all that wealth you're talking about), and setting the computing world decades behind where it's at now.

[@jrus690]

hhjhj How is this anything like the Louisiana purchase, you think that the USA would not have made the purchase anyways. Regardless of if the French or the Spanish had it, it was open space, they could not defend it, people could have gone into it largely unopposed.

[@k.t.5405]

"Xerox basically just left the door open" ...exactly, which makes me think there's much more to this story we dont know.

[@Zamolxes77]

Chilling thought that xerox could have been IBM, Microsft and Apple all rolled into one.

[@jendelapermai]

plus all laser printing machine company like Canon, HP, Epson etc...

[@Karboooo]

and Cisco with Ethernet lol

[@historionauta]

Why is it chilling though?

[@jrus690]

It would have actually been a disaster, because Xerox did not understand the technology, Microsoft and Apple did and took advantage of that.

[@mattrocde]

@@jrus690 They didn't become IBM, Microsfot and APple all in one specifically because they didn't understand the tech. Had they understood it, they absolutely would've dominated the market for generations.

[@richsalazme]

Sad thing about this is a lot of people worked really hard developing the GUI. I really don't know why the Xerox executives didn't see the potential of this tech. Imagine seeing a computer that isn't just a black screen with lines of text, imagine seeing how you can browse your files with just a click of a button instead of typing commands just to get from one directory to another. That's the difference between people who do it for money vs those who have vision.

[@szahmad2416]

Jobs explained how that happened right here. kzbin.info/www/bejne/hJ2lm4Gjjdukf68 Basically, it had to do with the marketing people getting the decision-making jobs while the product people got pushed out of those jobs. Why? Because making a better, product didn't mean a damn thing when they had a monopoly on the market. It didn't generate extra sales; didn't challenge competitors, etc. What did? Marketing, so that those customers would buy MORE products. So the vision and craftsmanship of those product people rotted out, ultimately, leaving bits and pieces of great technology to be picked up by anyone nearby.here.

[@dm8579]

You see the same thing happen all the time. The market changes and the former successful company is slow to adapt because they don't understand that the times are changing. Just look at what happened when the smartphone arrived.

[@richsalazme]

@@dm8579 yes.. that's why Google swiftly changed how they were developing android when iphone launched. It was supposed to be OS for those phones like blackberry, then they focused on developing it for touch screen. Funny because at the time, microsoft CEO Steve Balmer made fun of the iphone instead of actually capitalizing on the idea. Same for Nokia, they didn't accept android as an OS and decided to create their own. This is why Samsung has the biggest market share in smartphones now because they were early to use android as their main OS, also the good decision of abandoning touchwiz UI to create One UI

[@bitwize]

Xerox couldn't develop every technology into a product so they sublicensed them to other companies including Apple. Shed no tears for Xerox in this story. The royalties they made on the laser printer alone more than repaid all the money they put into PARC. If Xerox isn't relevant today, it's not because they missed some sort of golden opportunity with the PARC technology. It happened over *decades* of not finding a product-market fit.

[@shallex5744]

browsing files with a mouse is a handicap, not an increase in efficiency

[@LucidDreamer54321]

Ironically, XEROX’s greatest accomplishment was giving away the computer business.

[@yahyakhalid6160]

I think actually making the comp itself.

[@Soth021]

And getting there printers to print false numbers.

[@Soth021]

Scanners not printers,sorry.

[@LucidDreamer54321]

@Soth021 "there"?

[@MrBlaDiBla68]

I argee,.Because they were simply [not smart enough] to do it themselves, giving away their inventions for free has helped the computer industry globally the most.

[@BangMaster96]

Whoa whoa whoa, Xerox computer scientists came up with the Ethernet, Object Oriented Programming, and the Graphical User Interface, that's like the most fundamental building blocks of any software and computer network today, they could have literally patented these technology and ideas, and become the biggest tech company in the history. What the heck were the executives smoking??

[@uzefulvideos3440]

I doubt that any of these three things could have been patented.

[@MosesMatsepane]

The same thing they're smoking today. Cluelessness...

[@ElZamo92]

They were smoking rolls of bond paper and snorting lines of laser toner. They thought they couldn’t make anything that wasn’t a machine that spat out physical copies of documents.

[@fractalpilgrim1035]

The problem is in what they weren’t smoking

[@szahmad2416]

Jobs called them "toner-heads". Their brains were so far up the ass of the printer that they could not see beyond it.

[@anwitmondal6417]

GUI is something so universal nowadays, we just cannot imagine our life without it.

[@superviewer]

Almost imposible. I remember when the GUI was brand new in the mainstream. Around the time of the first Mac. Then with our Amigas we really felt ahead of both the Mac and those PC command-line heads 😂

[@lunardestruction]

so lemme get this straight, Xerox assembled these geniuses specifically to build the future. Then they brought them the future as requested, then xerox was like nah, i changed my mind

[@alejorostata3899]

Xerox is an example of "a lot of sacrifice has been made since the beginning to improve humanity ".

[@ZiggyMercury]

Important to mention that Xerox also didn't invent the GUI - they got their ideas from the lab of Douglas Engelbart (called "Augmentation Research Center"). BTW, Douglas Engelbart demonstrated his team's inventions in 1968: kzbin.info/www/bejne/r3unp2Cwmc2tg7s

[@thebadgamer1967]

Kodak had the first digital camera and refused to release it for fear of losing sales of film ...that worked

[@thecapone45]

Wow. Bean bags. Reminds me of the work spaces of early 2010s company’s. That’s so cool

[@azzajohnson2123]

Google built their whole thing for employee loyalty on bean bags and vending machines and working from home some days a week. The real joke is that people that could spawn their own venture capital now chain themselves to the big colorful alphabet instead of big blue, you know they removed do no evil from their motto?

[@gast128]

Legendary story about stone-age management failing to see the future. It happened multiple times in the beginning of the PC- and later internet era. Remarkable quote on 5:19.

[@ravi.annadurai]

Xerox is a real sad story of Technology Industry . So unfortunate that management didn't see how they can exploit great work of their PARC team . Moral of the story is You could be doing bunch of great things in silos , but if you donot have vision you are going to fall short . I guess SUN is another such story ..

[@SeanCC]

Happens quite often. Either because someone doing pure research doesn't understand the implications of what they've made or bad management. SUN...Motorolla...there's seemingly no end of tech companies who just didn't get it or couldn't act in time to save themselves.

[@NorthHollywood]

@@nothingtoseehere4902 How exactly did "turdskins" ruin SUN?

[@azzajohnson2123]

Kodak who made Camera's and Film extensively worldwide invented the digital camera. Then went bankrupt from their own invention.

[@highjim7778]

Agreed. As a Brit we see the war between sinclair and acorn back in the early 80s as another huge loss since had they worked together they wouldve been the British IBM

[@superviewer]

And Nokia. So many companies loosing because of being too sure of themselves.

[@markcarey8426]

Excellent. Had heard of PARC but didn't realise that it was so significant. Very telling the way the technology was right underneath the bosses' noses and they didn't pick it up. Places I've worked I have often felt management was a hindrance. Thanks for the video.

[@qazmko22]

The Genius and brilliance of the next 20-30 years of personal computing was sitting under their noses and they just couldn't see it.. I feel bad for those engineers.

[@richardrisner921]

"He wanted you to be great. And he wanted you to make something that was great. And he was going to make you do that."

[@k.t.5405]

min 7:45 In "Pirates of Silicon Valley" , the scene where Jobs visits Parc, there's a female engineer who refuses to show the Apple team what they've got. Steve looks at her and says "this won't hurt, I promise" , she looks at him "thats what you think". I believe this is THAT lady. LOL!

[@jkuhede]

😂

[@waxdrwest]

i can confirm it is

[@Tech_History_Channel]

Moments that changed history!

[@Flutterwhat]

EVEN THE FRENCH

[@adriande1]

Flutterwhat consider the French

[@irvingcarmonamata6275]

Jajajaja

[@irvingcarmonamata6275]

You did it first 3 years before i wanted to do it

[@azzajohnson2123]

WTF

[@LaurentiusTriarius]

Xerox gave the world a great present, you can't replicate accidental altruism...

[@largocorto3188]

Ever since watching "Pirates of Silicon Valley", I've been longing to see an interview of those execs who ignorantly gave away all that tech. And that's just for the same nasty emotions people have that pushes them to watch Jersey Shore. We just want the comfort of seeing people we think are dumber than us trying to explain why they did something dumb.

[@stevegordonson720]

i worked for a xerox subsidiary in 1979 we had a few of the windowed alto systems networked on ethernet that we played with. I was always amused about the fight over the IP for windowed GUI between microsoft and Apple .

[@DEXXXO]

For me Xerox and all Workers from there you are all the Real Heroes uf Industrie the intutrusion of the first Graphical User Interface Ever, incredible what a Revolotion and Helph to Using a Cumputer Quick and Allround for every Work , Paint , Video Cut, Music Creation, Work. Everyting with Point and Click and Mouse . AMAZING Realy Props to you All my Compliments Total .

[@pirjocheerio4016]

2:38 Dang... Such a cool nerd of the times!

[@lc9245]

The thing about PARC was that the researchers have the right idea, but Bob wasn’t a commercial guy. Bob was only interested in, in his mind, improving the world. In my mind, the lost of those assets are inevitable. Bob allowed his researchers complete freedom and collaboration, but also disallowed his team from producing anything concrete for Xerox to sell. Xerox executives look at the revolutionary softwares that they see and couldn’t understand how to sell these, because they are computer scientists. Bob’s work in public sector doomed the commercialisation of these products from the start. However, it is precisely because he allowed them so much freedom that they managed to develop their ideas to the direction that they want. I can imagine had the team been led by someone with more sense, they would have dropped OOP and simplified things like hypertext, internet and commercialise the mouse and computer as a companion to Xerox printers. Those would have made them a lot of money, but I don’t think they would have been pushed very far if there weren’t Microsoft and Apple to commercialise those inventions. Xerox can blame Bob for their failures, but it was he who enabled them in the first place.

[@danieln6700]

It's so interesting seeing stuff in early Computer days. So many things we take for granted but some ppl saw things other ppl didn't see and made new products when ppl thought it was not going to work or not the future etc

[@TheTPAmusic]

He said: "I feel my neuro-capacity already increasing"

[@user-kg1od9es5d]

This is a hidden gem!!!

[@emad3241]

Xerox story show us the importance of having great Entrepreneurs

[@mikewashington88]

This is why Steve Jobs is SOOO highly regarded,. He saw what great software, on great hardware, could do. No One else at that time took the personal computer seriously, not even Woz. Steve just knew where everything needed to be, look like, and function. Say what you want to say, but in regards to Apple, and the board of directors, he was right ALL Along! Apple is now the most valuable company on Earth, Do you think that was luck?

[@jitendratiwari6886]

no, it was not luck, the world we saw today was built by the visionary. and even in the future, it follows the same traits.

[@brianabella4322]

Change is too much for anyone. They stick of what they known. Thats where revolutionary, rebel and pirates come in. They think of them as troublemaker but they were conquerors

[@ayushsinha1813]

Not Woz, he in fact wanted a personal computer although he did believe that an affordable GUI based computer was a bit too soon for Apple because of which the Macintosh wasn't a powerful machine.

[@rabidbigdog]

Apple is the 'most valuable company on Earth' because they have perfected disapposable machines and creating suckers buying a logo rather than a tool.

[@DeathlyOwl]

I hate to use sports references but xerox fumbled the ball on the one yard line

[@johnpeterson4213]

Deathly Owl; yeah, for sure!

[@vancemccarthy2554]

It's worse than that. They held on to the ball, ran around the field and didn't pass it.

[@Daniel_WR_Hart]

They pulled their hamstring taking a dump right before the big game

[@shomz]

"got the ideas" is a really nice way to put it.

[@Walkman0007]

5:27 Twin Towers !

[@cubeflinger]

@A Fridge Too Far lol

[@LuisMendez-up5te]

3:49 answers sooo many questions.

[@TheElectrocar]

Watching this in April 2023, ChatGPT and artificial intelligence companies have started to release multiple versions of machine learning models that have changed the direction of computing. Jobs that were once secure are now in danger of being made redunant as these machine learning models become smarter and more able to answer complex questions. In less than 60 years, mankind has created the true first spark of artificial intelligence. We don't know where this goes but if you're reading this years from now, I hope we made the right decisions. Be well my future ancestors.

[@mosesnandi]

“Xerox could have owned the entire computer industry today…could have been 10 times its size” … kinda sad if you think about it…

[@TomPalissade]

If Jobs and it's team didn't visit the xerox park, there will still no be graphic interfaced computers. Xerox never intended to sell anything because they did not understand what their engineers were making lol

[@frank234561]

Bullshit. It would have eventually become stock on all their machines.

[@SeanCC]

@@frank234561 there is no evidence to support this. It was first developed in 1972/73 and Jobs got the demo in 1979. More than two cycles of Moore's Law later and they were nowhere near understanding what they had. Not one bit. Hell, they didn't even file suit until 1989. Are you kidding me? Xerox executives where the business equivalent to the old myth about the brontosaurus having two brains, one in the tail and one in the head, because it supposedly took too long for the signals from the head to get all the way to the end. The brain in their ass took ten years to move on their mistake after wasting almost ten years of research only to give it away.

[@uzefulvideos3440]

You really think that noone would have thought of a GUI in all these decades? I guess that the guys at Xerox were also not the first ones who thought that a GUI would be a nice thing to have in a computer.

[@travisbickle4360]

@@SeanCC They released one in 1981 Xerox Star. Too expensive and targeted at office workers who did not care about icons.

[@derekmanning5882]

"What you saw on the screen was precisely what you got on your laser printer"... Wait.. Does that imply they had laser printers BEFORE the PC?

[@AdhamOhm]

The first laser printer was in fact developed at the Xerox PARC laboratory in 1973 and was eventually manifested as the Xerox 1200. Of course it was a big bulky thing meant for datacenters, and not PCs.

[@azzajohnson2123]

Yes, Xerox Developed the Laser Printer, which is now their bread and butter as a result at the time. The only thing left unraided as a result of the pilfering at the time. They in turn made the paperless office dream mean that we now use 7 plus times more paper than ever imagined :D

[@igi-chan]

2:30 “the parts alone cost $10,000” Pc gamers be like “its worth it” lol smh

[@Joseph-mw2rl]

Console peasants be like:

[@azzajohnson2123]

Over 40k in todays money. And it still was not for sale at the time.

[@ringopebam]

"Xerox could have owned the entire computer industry today." said Steve Jobs. But, of course, Xerox wasn’t. The first graphical user interface was developed by researchers at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) in 1973. Xerox's management did not understand the researchers' ideas, innovations and visions; and did nothing to make them into real life product. Steve Jobs visited PARC in 1979 and was impressed and influenced by the graphical user interface developed by researchers there, he walked away with a sackful of secret technologies; the very ideas that Xerox's managements didn't understand after years of persuasion by their researchers. Steve Jobs designed the new Apple Lisa in early 1980's based on the technology he saw at Xerox.

[@coryducey2650]

That's because Jobs was a tech head as well as someone with vision. The tech heads at PARC knew what they had. Flipping suits didn't do the right thing and listen to the people in the know. Xerox would have been HUGE...

[@BigDixter2]

Cory Ducey I wonder if by making a generalisation or two "tech heads" "suits" and then just blaming some principle of the generalisation you risk losing a more interesting human truth in here. Easy and appealing to do and superficially informing but oversimplifies. Kinda like "Men are from Mars...". Might it not be better to think of the humans involved who all chose to behave in certain ways. A bit like two sets of golfers one with putters, one with drivers. If there is a lesson maybe it is we should all try harder to walk in others shoes, to assimilate and feel what others are seeing we should try other "thinking clubs". To make a call on should we be using a driver or a putter or what combination of them for the issue facing us. I'm a suit - by your shorthand - and the number of techies I meet who struggle to answer simple questions like "So what?". I know the arrogance and comfortable assumptions go both ways. What happened with the toner heads and the techies is just a brilliant example in the large of what happens every day in many organisations. Maybe we should run courses "Talking to suits" and "Talking to techies" for each group. Here's one principle for the techies. "If the suit doesn't 'Get it' then maybe you haven't explained it well enough!"... and well enough doesn't mean more detail it means better relevance and context and credentials and authority. I do see a lot of techies wheel in a huge big howitzer of an idea, load it up and pull the string and it kinda goes off with a the mildest pop. They then wander away thinking "My job's done! I told 'em". As Paul Tortelier (I think) said to a student musician who was playing faultlessly and poorly. You are playing notes not music.

[@BruinsNewf]

Dick Wall when one tells you he other "you are about to give away for he kitchen sink", that alone should have forced the suits to ask "why do you say that?" From this and other articles, it wasn't. There is a rule in the military...listen to the subordinates...from several articles PARC has tried to spell it out to them. They ordered her to demonstrate. I'm still shocked Xerox lost the ensuing lawsuit regarding this to be honest. Thankfully, Xerox is now keeping their cards close to their chests but imagine...just imagine how much bigger Xerox would have been.

[@hulkhatepunybanner]

+Cory Ducey Suits? No. The heads at Xerox were from a different generation. They understood computers from the punchcard days and they understood paper. They probably looked at a GUI and saw cartoons - something not appropriate for business. Xerox *senior* management should have split that division into a subsidiary company. Then hired designers to help the engineers to make the GUI user friendly. While finding a way to mass produce PCs like they did copiers. It would've killed Microsoft's ability to release Windows and killed Apple's ability to mass produce the Macintosh.

[@coryducey2650]

...which is exactly why I asked why they did not ask the eggheads why are they saying they are going to give away the kitchen sink...I don't care what generation you came from. A prudent Exec would ask the questions when they don't understand what is in front of them. The computer age was coming. The writing was on the wall at that time. Xerox is a big company but they would have been yuuuuuuge...

[@mhameedmmd]

"take open budget imagine the technology of the future and keep your mouth shut about it and we spread it for free " XEROX execs to researchers

[@belsoye]

How will you spend so much in research, get a break through and not utilize it. Instead you just give it all away. Vision is a powerful thing

[@azzajohnson2123]

If it's not given away, it's stolen, just look at CSIRO with WiFi.

[@robindobbermann]

I hope Steve Jobs employed some of these brilliant developers. They deserved to work on it for a real life usage.

[@fixups6536]

Oh yes he did!

[@pirjocheerio4016]

4:55 Ominous prediction... Goosebumps!

[@pirjocheerio4016]

Talk about CREEPY

[@vedant6633]

Xerox learned the art of research from bell labs

[@azzajohnson2123]

Absolutely, bell labs-- parc -- sun -- google

[@tacticaldentist6967]

F in the chat for xerox

[@mattmcfly2165]

"even the french" lol

[@hulkhatepunybanner]

*Triumph of the Nerds originally premiered in June 1996 and is no longer airing on PBS stations.* www.pbs.org/nerds/tvdes.html

[@BomazXD]

8:43 random attack towards France there…

[@YoungsterSkaymore]

"Even the French" lmao

[@Hertz72]

Basically Xerox researchers invented the Wheel in the world of computing. Managers saw it as a "weird device" and told Apple... "okay, just take it if you want." I wonder what those managers will think with the passing of time... 🤔

[@MrBlaDiBla68]

Yeah, this was the biggest corporate blunder of all time, everywhere, in the hisrtory of mankind. It simply cannot be overstated.

[@lunardestruction]

8:39 LMAO the french wtf

[@azzajohnson2123]

5:28 - As an Australian, Seeing the twin towers, still makes me so sad.

[@xpez9694]

I didnt hear them discuss the part where XEROX got a ton of apple stock to be able to use the all of the tech from the Xerox... Xerox did just fine owning many many many shares of early Apple stock.

[@supersimple1686]

Pennies in retrospect…

[@xpez9694]

@John Q. Bebtelovimab now thats a pretty penny!

[@user-nk6dc2wk6p]

in case everybody dont know that guy Bob Taylor also the head of the invention of the internet

[@arjunjassal929]

EVEN THE FRENCH!!!! LOLS

[@nayabsamar9944]

When he says, "Could be the Microsoft of the 90s", then his Evil smile 😎.

[@danieln6700]

It's kinda weird when a product or idea is created but either a company can't capitalize on it or don't believe its worth it and End up throwing a huge opportunity away

[@DinoboySeth]

Imagine gaming with a mouse like that in 8:40!

[@kamu747]

This is good stuff.

[@Ailsworth]

Whoa! That bit shown at 8:45 is NOT at XeroxParc, because the "regions" idea (the appearance of windows overlaying windows) was created by Larry Tessler.

[@Ailsworth]

@MF Nickster wow thanks for for that correction.

[@bmurph24]

Are we just not gonna talk about why Bob Metcalfe is on a fuckin boat?

[@davidgrisez]

This video shows how the decisions made by the management of a company can affect the very future of the company. Here in the 1970s was XEROX company with the very first graphics user interface with the Xerox Alto Computer, but they never marketed or sold this type of system. That was a bad decision by Xerox management. With what Xerox company had if this company had continued development and marketing this computer system, Xerox company would have become an early and significant computer maker, and would have had a head start as a major supplier of computers using a graphics user interface. Instead Steve Jobs saw what Xerox was doing and ran with the idea. The end result, today Apple company is a major computer manufacturer, and Xerox does not make computers.

[@RedHairdo]

Little Known Fact: The mouse and GUI concepts were conceived waaaaaaaaaay before any Xerox involvement. Look up Mother of All Demos (and even earlier efforts). Ironically, Apple was the only GUI developer that never "stole" anything: they picked up the ideas with due permission. Xerox, Microsoft, Atari and Commodore didn't.

[@rabidbigdog]

Hahaha. Jobs even admitted they 'stole' it. Shamelessly.

[@dm8579]

@@rabidbigdog He didn't steal anything. He paid for it. He paid Xerox with stock and he also paid Douglas Engelbart for a license to use the mouse. Apple is the only company who ever paid him.

[@la-ia1404]

Steve Blow Jobs

[@fullcirclekicks]

Being from Rochester, its sad to think about the potential Xerox could have brought to the area

[@janesmith7676]

Same here.

[@CharlieBoy360]

Ominous looking Twin Towers at 5:55

[@fixizin]

Is the MC/narrator one Robert X. Cringely, decades ago?

[@jogb9515]

The Apple engineer (9:00) says 'I think mostly what we got in the hour and a half was inspiration..and bolstering of our convictions.' Really, that's all? People have a way of misremembing the past in a way that diminshes others contribution and exaggerates their own.

[@jogb9515]

@@nicksterj I'd read that they had some desire to move in that direction (GI), but didn't have anything concrete, and certainly not fleshed out workable ideas like a clickable mouse (but who knows).

[@renatosantos3791]

Xerox had in your hands a treasure map but lets someboby(Steve) to look and to touch 😮😮😮

[@jendelapermai]

almost similar case like PIXAR ...George Lucas left his 'leftover' computer graphic department for sale..to Jobs

[@MUHOHAHA]

8:48 slight dig at the French for no apparent reason

[@alifakhroo5768]

What is the difference in culture between Palo Alto, California and Connecticut?

[@alifakhroo5768]

Who invented the computer network? The mouse? And personal computer

[@venum17]

Even the French!

[@azzajohnson2123]

Adele should have never sold out her integrity for believing that the Uppers were doing the right thing.

[@AlbertZone15]

Anyone know what the full documentary is called?

[@ganeshradhakrishnan51]

Triumph of the Nerds

[@HKashaf]

What do you mean the idea of GUI? He literally saw the damn thing in production! Working prototype of 100s computers working together. So he copied it. Also, I love how Steve Jobs and Bill Atkinson were down playing what they say in the demo. It was complete product that they were about to copy. The most important thing everyone forgets is that the entire vision on computation industry (software OOP, networking, GUI) was laid out bare in front of Steve and his team in an hour and half presentation, like a road map for the next twenty years and yet it is somehow called Steve's vision even though it clearly wasn't. So Steve Jobs wasnt a technical guy nor was a vision guy. He was a management and marketing guy, most importantly a execution guy. I am interested in anyone's opinion who disagrees. I would like to know what you think.

[@mattrocde]

Steve is called the visionary because he was the only person with money at the time who saw the future of the industry - to us, the writing is on the wall all the way down to the floor, and to many who worked hard at computers they also knew that it would be the future. The issue of the time was, and to a minor degree still is the case today, that many computer enthusiasts are living on an entirely separate world of functionality than most common folk. People working at offices had no friggin' idea what a GUI was, and even then Steve didn't foresee a future of this being an office tool, the GUI would open the doors to every casual market that had by that point been considered a waste of time trying to open. It was the will to market and actually package this thing as a product that he brought to the table, and that's exactly what he says in his Xerox interview. He doesn't claim that he invented the idea, in fact he mostly just insults the Xerox executives for somehow missing the opportunity of a century. Xerox literally had the chance to *own* these things, not just implement them, but exclusively hold the rights to their usage from everyone. And they, in the words of Steve, "grabbed defeat from the jaws of victory". Is Steve a remarkably unique individual of exceptional brain power? Not all, but he had the charisma and the attitude to set things in motion. You could just say he got lucky, but every individual in the history books got very lucky at some point to make it through. Very rare is it that someone can be remembered for something so important without actually being at least a little fortuitous, after all.

[@dm8579]

I disagree. Simply because the ideas behind the future office where you are working with a computer with GUI and mouse predates Xerox PARC. The next thing is that the Alto was never a secret. There had been thousands of visitors to Xerox PARC and there had been articles written about it in magazines with pictures of the system. Nobody did anything with it until Steve Jobs came along. He certainly deserves credit for seeing the possibilities. His vision was always to bring technology closer to people, and here he saw a set of tools that would make this possible. But of course Jobs wasn't alone. You must also remember that Apple implemented these ideas much better than Xerox. Apple hired many of the people from PARC and allowed them to develop the ideas further.

[@HKashaf]

@@dm8579 well I guess Microsoft and IBM had the same vision. There is no argument that Xerox grossly mismanaged the asset they had and Microsoft and Apple were both direct beneficiaries of it.

[@andreacoccoo]

Bellaaaaa

[@HardKore5250]

Why they build the GUI in the first place?

[@TSquared2001]

Talk about leaving it on the table with the door open

[@hemantd9349]

Whatever happens in this world is called a destiny and nobody can change the destiny. Xerox wasn't destined to enter into the computer industry. At the same time, half of the world - use the word "Xerox" to make a print copy. If Xerox had entered into the computer industry, half of the world would completely have missed the word "Xerox" from their dictionary - most people in India use the word "Xerox" to make a print copy. They even don't know Xerox is the name of the machine who does that. Thank you, Xerox!

[@heedfulnewt6625]

well at-least we know the truth. College doesn't make you a billionaire. stealing ideas does.

[@paulu_]

You mean *buying* the ideas, in which you see the future? That's called investing.

[@heedfulnewt6625]

水島幸 yes

[@arado240dd]

Gui in 1970,s way before pc, is this right, can't be

[@TimothyVincentStBarts-ls7ii]

this guy steve jobs died from his own anger, rage, hate for other people, narcissism. all those negatives turned on him and ate him alive via his cancer. (he denied his daughter for years, a-hole to deal with, ...etc.)

[@black_baron_net]

☠️BLACK BARON☠️ My Xerox WorkCentre printer driver has a glitch or is it Adobe? My prints are not centered on the paper whenever I make a printout out of the Adobe Photoshop application. Software and America ... a never ending buggy story ... "Infinite (Buggy) Loop"

[@SpecialAgentOso]

Was Xerox reduced to "continuing" to make copy machines? I wonder if Xerox could be revived, bigger and better than ever by going the FreeBSD rout and taking the world by storm? The code is literally "free beer". People like phones. Apple knew people liked "media" on the go and that it could be paired with a PC in a proprietary market (itunes) on a proprietary OS built on free beer (Mac OS/iOS)... c'mon Xerox, we haven't even reached 10% of the whole 100% of what the PC world CAN be, especially in terms of OS usefulness. MS' 2003 concept of Longhorn was genius, catalog everything instead of having draggable files (optional), ala the WinFS backend and "My Stuff" front end. DO IT XEROX!!!!!!!!! I would like this post to reach the folks at Xerox and encourage them to do what all the Linux retards have failed to do, DELIVER! Also do what Apple and MS failed to do, DELIVER WITHOUT THE RISK OF LOSS OF PRIVACY!

[@Odolwa2]

Xeros entering the PC market? someone's gotta egg them on :P that I'd like to see...

[@sumanthota]

Could have been the Microsoft of the 90s. 😊

[@BoothTheGrey]

The real sad thing is that Jobs did NOT change "the world" in terms of changing society. Yeah - he added a new technology paradigma with all the other guys in the 70s and 80s who created modern computer. But adding something to society is not changing it. We have the same fucked up corporate short-time capitalistic society like before that gives a shit about human dignity or environment issues. And the core sentence why this is and why he did NOT change "the world" (in terms of society) is: "I dont really care being right - I just care about success". Yeah. Great job. America still is this weird richest country in the world with an absurdly huge military budget but no health care for all and let people who drive this "great products" to their customers pee in the bottle cause... hey... time is money.

[@walidb123]

What's the name of this doc???

[@DavidRinkevich]

Triumph of the Nerds - Ep.3 "Great Artists Steal".

[@theodorberza9933]

Guys stop with "Apple stole from Xerox". The biggest dumbness from Xerox managers wasn't not promoting the idea. They actually allowed those 10-15 visits and demos in exchange for 20% Apple shares. You know how much 20% of the Apple shares cost these days? 20% of 860 Billion means 172 Billion. Exactly, Xerox could have made 176 Billion only with a couple of demos in 35 years IF Xerox managers were visionary enough not to sell them.

[@omerth4902]

20% of apple *today* is worth 180 billion, but the 20% they received back then has probably been greatly diluted. i believe they got around a million shares of apple, which today is worth around 150 million dollars.

[@jaymorpheus1111]

I like the way you put it, at least they got something.

[@Nightthefirst]

Theodor Berza they sold the shares like before 1980

[@stevebarlow3154]

@@omerth4902 In order to keep Apple shares affordable the original Apple share has been split numerous times. But when Apple split the one original share into two or three new Apple shares, the owner of the one share didn't miss out. They received two or three new Apple shares and this happened every time Apple split the stock. So if Xerox had held on to its 20% of Apple stock they would indeed be worth billions of Dollars now!

[@barbecueman6352]

What’s the point of having a research centre?

[@TimothyVincentStBarts-ls7ii]

Steve steals the GUI. 07:00

[@kaishinoskeortiz4489]

TimothyVincent StBarts The man stole nothing, Xerox gladly gave it away.

[@gtv8643]

Crazy

[@kasanggangdikit3348]

Wow

[@lunardestruction]

4:49 somebody send this to somebody

[@GPJhala]

In the field of science and technology, new research and new products are not spontaneous. They are using past work done by so many failures.

[@djcardwellai]

thanks goodness Xeros didn't listen to Adele

[@ubicular]

hey, Ringo, which documentary is this and what's it's year of release?

[@ubicular]

Triumph of the Nerds is a 1996 British/American television documentary, produced by John Gau Productions and Oregon Public Broadcasting for Channel 4 and PBS.

[@ubicular]

thanks!

[@SeanCC]

@@ubicular it's currently on Amazon Prime

[@ubicular]

Sean Cunningham hey, thanks!

[@maheshch1829]

XEROX should've visionaries rather than business people.