施乐CEO Peter McColough找来了福特的首席科学家Jack Goldman,让他组建一个研究超前10年的技术的团队。PARC的老大Pake找来了ARPA的一个主管Bob Taylor管理PARC的计算机科学实验室CSL。虽然Taylor只有本科学位,但是却有超强的领导能力。他利用以前在ARPA时构建的关系网,用高薪和自由的氛围网罗了本书中的技术天才们。当时最顶尖的计算机专家中的2/3都被Taylor拉拢到了PARC。比现在的MSRA强多了。
现在当我们用Charles Petzold的经典著作”Windows程序设计“学习Windows下的GUI编程的时候,大部分人不会想到,其中的图标、鼠标(严格的说应该是恩格尔巴特实验室的,不过后来该实验室精英都被挖到PARC了)、bitblt图形加速(Dan Ingalls, Larry Tesler, Bob Sproull, Diana Merry在Smalltalk-72 上实现)、层叠的窗口(Kay受到桌面上叠放的文件的启发)等,都是PARC的发明。这些伟大的发明给俩个聪明的小偷给抄袭了。这些本该属于施乐的荣耀和利润,最终却肥了外人田。
以太网发明人之一Lampson对以太网的比喻:
Imagine you're at a party and several people are standing around having a conversation, One person stops talking and somebody else wants to talk. Well, there's no guarantee that only one person wants to talk; perhaps several do. It's not uncommon for two people to start talking at once. But what typically happens? Usually they both stop, there's a bit of hesitation, and then one starts up again.