Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age

During a period of mind—blowing frenzy in the 1970s and '80s, a group of computer eccentrics thrown together by Xerox at a facility in Palo Alto, California, nicknamed PARC, created such monumental innovations as the first personal computer, the graphical user interface, and one of the main precursors to the internet—yet were resented by their Xerox bosses for —fooling around.' Told that none of their inventions would ever amount to anything, many of the original PARC members went on to make millions on the very same ideas Xerox renounced. Focusing on this mythologized group whose genius propelled it to the cuttting edge of technohistory, as well as the corporate machinations that kept it from achieving greatness,Dealers of Lightning offers an exclusive, inside glimpse of business history that marks the dawn of the computer age and provides a prism through which to view the 21st century