Alan Kay at Demo: The Future Doesn't Have to Be Incremental
The core idea of non-incremental progress:  Xerox PARC accomplished what it did in large part by forcing technology 15 years into the future.  The Alto, of which PARC built around 2000, mostly for its own staff, cost about $85,000 in present dollars.  What it provided exceeded the general market personal computing capabilities of the late 1980s.  This enabled the "twelve and a half" inventions from PARC which Kay claims have created over $30 trillion in generated wealth, at a cost of around $10-12 million/year.<p>Kay also distinguishes "invention" (what PARC did) -- as fundamental research, from "innovation" (what Apple did) -- as <i>product</i> development.<p>Other topics:<p>• Learning curves (people, especially marketers, hate them)<p>• "New" vs. "News".  News tells familiar stories in an established context.  "New" is invisible, learning, and change.<p>• The majority acts based on group acceptance, not on the merits of an idea.  Extroversion vs. introversion.<p>• There are "human universals" -- themes people accept automatically, without marketing, as opposed to non-universals, which have to be taught.<p>• Knowledge dominates IQ.  Henry Ford accomplished more than Leonardo da Vinci not because he was smarter, but because humanity's cumulative knowledge had given him tools and inventions Leonardo could only dream of.<p>• Tyranny of the present.