Dealers of Lightning

In the 1970s and 1980s Xerox gathered a group of eccentric young inventors and engineers at its Palo Alto Research Center, known as PARC, and Michael A. Hiltzik, a Los Angeles Times correspondent, tells their story. The group produced the laser printer, the graphical interface and the first personal computer, only to see the corporation reject these breakthroughs, and the inventors went on to turn their ideas into businesses that changed the world. Drawing on many interviews with the people who lived the story, from scientists and engineers to executives, Hiltzik follows PARC from modest beginnings to its years as a hothouse for ideas and explains why Xerox never managed to grasp and exploit what the lab delivered.

Patrick Collison lists it among his Bookshelf picks.