Great Artists Steal

Steve Jobs loved to quote Pablo Picasso's famous line that good artists copy but great artists steal. That mindset explains the biggest heist in computer history. In the late 1970s, scientists at a company called Xerox invented the first modern computer screen with windows and a mouse, but their executives failed to see its value. When Jobs saw their invention, he noticed it was powerful but still too clunky to use easily. Apple took the core concept and rebuilt it perfectly for the Macintosh. Execution is everything. Xerox built the technology first, but Apple stole the credit because they actually knew how to make it work for the world.