Engineers at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center actually invented the graphical user interface, featuring windows, icons, and a mouse, way back in the 1970s.

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Engineers at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center actually invented the graphical user interface, featuring windows, icons, and a mouse, way back in the 1970s. However, the Xerox executives were so narrowly focused on selling massive, overpriced copy machines that they completely failed to realize their nerds had just invented the future of personal computing. Steve Jobs famously visited the facility, saw the technology, and basically took the entire concept to build the Apple Macintosh, changing the world forever. It remains one of the most hilariously incompetent business blunders in corporate history, proving that even if you employ the smartest inventors on the planet, out-of-touch upper management will still find a way to completely fumble the bag