Xerox

Xerox launched the Xerox 914 in 1959 — the first plain paper photocopier. Before the 914, duplicating a document required messy carbon paper or expensive photographic processes. The 914 was so successful that "Xerox" became a verb in the English language — people "Xeroxed" documents the way they "Googled" searches decades later. It has been called the most successful commercial product in history relative to its investment cost.

Xerox opened the Palo Alto Research Center in 1970, assembling some of the most talented computer scientists in the world. Between 1970 and 1980, PARC invented the graphical user interface, the mouse, the laser printer, Ethernet networking, object-oriented programming, and the concept of the personal computer as it exists today. Xerox commercialised almost none of it. The gap between what PARC invented and what Xerox sold remains the most consequential missed opportunity in technology history.

In December 1979, Steve Jobs and a group of Apple engineers visited Xerox PARC as part of a deal in which Xerox received Apple stock. Jobs was shown the graphical user interface — windows, icons, a mouse. He famously said: "Why aren't you doing anything with this? This is the greatest thing! This is revolutionary!" Xerox management did not see how the GUI threatened their photocopier business. Apple incorporated the concepts into the Lisa and the Macintosh. The mouse and GUI became the foundation of modern computing.

Xerox announced in 2000 that it had improperly recognised $6.4 billion in revenue over five years — one of the largest accounting scandals in corporate history at the time. The SEC fined Xerox $10 million. The company was on the verge of bankruptcy, carrying $17 billion in debt. A new CEO, Anne Mulcahy, spent five years restructuring the company, refusing to file for bankruptcy and personally visiting customers to explain what had gone wrong.

Xerox spent decades navigating the slow decline of the photocopier market — the very market it had created. The company sold assets, reduced headcount, and attempted to diversify into IT services and document management software. By 2025, Xerox generated approximately $6 billion in annual revenue — a fraction of its peak — while the offices it had equipped were steadily replacing paper with digital workflows. The company whose PARC researchers had invented the personal computer and whose photocopier had made paper indispensable was now watching both paper and photocopiers slowly disappear from the offices it had spent 60 years equipping.