What was the working/creative environment back at your PARC tour-of-duty?
The usual office politics or a special environment where everyone got along and collaborated?
Minimal politics, at least as far as I could tell, and lots of collaboration. Since PARC made its own tools there was a fair amount of cross-lab communication but really I just talked to other people in ISL (intelligent systems lab). I was just a kid.
The labs seemed to be renamed and organized from time to time so maybe there was politics I was too naive to see.
It was like google’s reputation 15-20 years ago: although Jeff ( my colleague today) and I didn’t work together we knew each other, also later knew each other from Stanford KSL/CSLI and later worked briefly together and work together today. I later worked for Doug Lenat at MCC (another research lab) whose office had been down hall from mine. And I still see other former PARC colleagues who are all over the Valley. So not an ivory tower.
