It's worth reading the Xerox story: http://www.gatesnotes.com/media/features/books/Bill_Gates_John_Brooks_Business_Adventures_Xerox_Free_Chapter.pdf http://www.

It's worth reading the Xerox story: http://www.gatesnotes.com/media/features/books/Bill_Gates_John_Brooks_Business_Adventures_Xerox_Free_Chapter.pdf http://www.gatesnotes.com/media/features/books/Bill_Gates_Jo... Xerox was essentially the hot startup of the 1960's, and it's interesting how similar many of the issues and attitudes were back then, including fears that copying would destroy the publishing industry, struggles with no longer being a startup, and resentment from older industries. In the opinion of some commentators, what has happened so far is only the first phase of a kind of revolution in graphics. “Xerography is bringing a reign of terror into the world of publishing, because it means that every reader can become both author and publisher,” the Canadian sage Marshall McLuhan wrote in the spring, 1966, issue of the American Scholar. “Authorship and readership alike can become production-oriented under xerography.… Xerography is electricity invading the world of typography, and it means a total revolution in this old sphere.” ... Dr. Dessauer threw a retrospectively distracted glance at the ceiling and went on, “Hardly anybody was very optimistic in the early years. Various members of our own group would come in and tell me that the damn thing would never work. The biggest risk was that electrostatics would prove to be not feasible in high humidity. Almost all the experts assumed that — they’d say, ‘You’ll never make copies in New Orleans.’ And even if it did work, the marketing people thought we were dealing with a potential market of no more than a few thousand machines. Some advisers told us that we were absolutely crazy to go ahead with the project. Well, as you know, everything worked out all right — the 914 worked, even in New Orleans, and there was a big market for it. Then came the desk-top version, the 813. I stuck my neck way out again on that, holding out for a design that some experts considered too fragile.” ... McColough said that since he came to Haloid, in 1954, he felt he’d been part of three entirely different companies — until 1959 a small one engaged in a dangerous and exciting gamble; from 1959 to 1964 a growing one enjoying the fruits of victory; and now a huge one branching out in new directions. I asked him which one he liked best, and he thought a long time. “I don’t know,” he said finally. “I used to feel greater freedom, and I used to feel that everyone in the company shared attitudes on specific matters like labor relations. I don’t feel that way so much now. The pressures are greater, and the company is more impersonal. I wouldn’t say that life has become easier, or that it is likely to get easier in the future.”