Quote

Technology is anything invented after you were born, everything else is just stuff.

Alan Kay

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Alan Kay
Age: 84
Born: 1940
Born: May 17
Computer Scientist
Jazz Guitarist
Jazz Musician
Programmer
University Teacher
Springfield
Massachusetts
Alan Curtis Kay
Alan C. Kay
Invented
Technology
Born
Stuff
Else
Anything
Everything

More quotes by Alan Kay

Image
Having an intelligent secretary does not get rid of the need to read, write, and draw, etc. In a well functioning world, tools and agents are complementary.
Alan Kay
Image
The future is not laid out on a track. It is something that we can decide, and to the extent that we do not violate any known laws of the universe, we can probably make it work the way that we want to.
Alan Kay
Image
In computers, every 'new explosion' was set off by a software product that allowed users to program differently.
Alan Kay
Image
When the Mac first came out, Newsweek asked me what I [thought] of it. I said: Well, it's the first personal computer worth criticizing. So at the end of the presentation, Steve came up to me and said: Is the iPhone worth criticizing? And I said: Make the screen five inches by eight inches, and you'll rule the world.
Alan Kay
Image
There is the desire of a consumer society to have no learning curves. This tends to result in very dumbed-down products that are easy to get started on, but are generally worthless and/or debilitating.
Alan Kay
Image
The tree of research must be fed from time to time with the blood of bean-counters, for it is its natural manure.
Alan Kay
Image
The Internet was done so well that most people think of it as a natural resource like the Pacific Ocean, rather than something that was man-made. When was the last time a technology with a scale like that was so error-free? The Web, in comparison, is a joke. The Web was done by amateurs.
Alan Kay
Image
Any company large enough to have a research lab is too large to listen to it.
Alan Kay
Image
The result is - document destruction - we're really not going to be able to prove beyond a truth the negatives and some of the positive conclusions that we're going to come to. There will be always unresolved ambiguity here.
Alan Kay
Image
A change in perspective is worth 80 IQ points. Perspective is worth 80 IQ points. Point of view is worth 80 IQ points
Alan Kay
Image
Perl is another example of filling a tiny, short-term need, and then being a real problem in the longer term.
Alan Kay
Image
Don't worry about what anybody else is going to do. The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
Alan Kay
Image
In success there's a tendency to keep on doing what you were doing.
Alan Kay
Image
I think the trick with knowledge is to “acquire it, and forget all except the perfume” - because it is noisy and sometimes drowns out one's own “brain voices”. The perfume part is important because it will help find the knowledge again to help get to the destinations the inner urges pick.
Alan Kay
Image
Any medium powerful enough to extend man's reach is powerful enough to topple his world.
Alan Kay
Image
I hired finishers because I'm a good starter and a poor finisher.
Alan Kay
Image
The only way you can predict the future is to build it.
Alan Kay
Image
As far as Apple goes, it was a different company every few years from the time I joined in 1984.
Alan Kay
Image
If you're not failing 90% of the time, then you're probably not working on sufficiently challenging problems.
Alan Kay
Image
The real romance is out ahead and yet to come. The computer revolution hasn't started yet.
Alan Kay