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In July 1970, Xerox at the urging
of its schief scientist Jack Goldman, decided to set up
a long range research center in Palo Alto, California.
In September, Bob Taylor was hired to start a "Computer
Science Laboratory." Bob visited Palo Alto and we
stayed up all night talking about it. The Mansfield Amendment
was threatening to blindly muzzle the most enlighted ARPA
funding in favor of directly military research, and this
new opportunity looked like a promising alternative. But
work for a company?
These are the bean bags that were
so famous at PARC. And one of the reasons why we used
them we discovered it was impossible to leap to your feet
to denounce somebody after you sat in the bean bag chair
because you tended to sink into it further and further.
So it had a way of relaxing people and it was very good
for design.
Xerox management didn't really understand
what we were talking about and instead was interested
in "trends" and "what was the future going
to like" and how could Xerox "defend against
it." I got so upset I said to him, "Look, the
best way to predict the future is to invent." Don't
worry about what all those other people might do, this
is the century in which almost any clear vision can be
made!"
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