https://www.ecotopia.com/webpress/futures.htm By Alan C. Kay

Alan C. Kay is a fellow at Apple Computer Inc., a visionary, one of a few select scientists who have an independent charter to pursue far-out ideas. As he explains, his is a job which forbids him to grow up. The following remarks are taken from Kay’s address before the 20th annual meeting of the Stanford Computer Forum.

“Xerox PARC (a computer science think tank for which Kay was a founding principal in 1970) was set up in Palo Alto to be as far away from corporate headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut. as possible and still be in the continental U.S. We used to have visits from the Xerox executives–usually in January and February–and when we could get them off the tennis courts they would come into the building at PARC. Mainly they were worried about the future, and they would badger us about what’s going to happen to us. Finally, I said: ‘Look, the best way to predict the future is to invent it. This is the century in which you can be proactive about the future; you don’t have to be reactive. The whole idea of having scientists and technology is that those things you can envision and describe can actually be built.’ It was a surprise to them and it worried them.”