Alan Kay's Quotes

Alan Curtis Kay (born May 17, 1940) is an American computer scientist. He has been elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Royal Society of Arts. He is best known for his pioneering work on object-oriented programming and windowing graphical user interface (GUI) design.

Alan Kay's selected quotes:

Alan Kay about Time:

As far as Apple goes, it was a different company every few years from the time ...
Read More

Alan Kay about Deep:

All the companies I've worked for have this deep problem of devolving to something like the ...
Read More

Alan Kay about Technology:

People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware.

Alan Kay about Apple:

I've been a Fellow in a number of companies: Xerox, Apple, Disney, HP. There are certain ...
Read More

Alan Kay about Time:

If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough.

Choose your favorite language to see these quotes translated:

Alan Curtis Kay (born May 17, 1940) is an American computer scientist. He has been elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Royal Society of Arts. He is best known for his pioneering work upon object-oriented programming and windowing graphical addict interface (GUI) design.

He was the president of the Viewpoints Research Institute in the past its recess in 2018, and an supplement professor of computer science at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is also upon the reproving board of TTI/Vanguard. Until mid-2005, he was a senior fellow at HP Labs, a visiting professor at Kyoto University, and an auxiliary professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Kay is plus a former professional jazz guitarist, composer, and theatrical designer. He after that is an amateur classical pipe organist.

All quotes from Alan Kay sorted alphabetically:

Alan Kay about Deep:

All the companies I've worked for have this deep problem of devolving to something like the hunting and gathering cultures of 100,000 years ago. If businesses could find a way to invent 'agriculture,' we could put the world back together and all would prosper.

Alan Kay about Time:

As far as Apple goes, it was a different company every few years from the time I joined in 1984.

Alan Kay about Worth:

Context is worth 80 IQ points.

Alan Kay about Time:

I had the fortune or misfortune to learn how to read fluently starting at the age of three. So I had read maybe 150 books by the time I hit 1st grade. And I already knew that the teachers were lying to me.

Alan Kay about World:

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 about Apple:

I've been a Fellow in a number of companies: Xerox, Apple, Disney, HP. There are certain similarities because all the Fellows programs were derived from IBM's, which itself was derived from the MIT 'Institute Professor' program.

Alan Kay about Time:

If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough.

Alan Kay about Today:

Most software today is very much like an Egyptian pyramid with millions of bricks piled on top of each other, with no structural integrity, but just done by brute force and thousands of slaves.

Alan Kay about Technology:

People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware.

Alan Kay about Wisdom:

Perspective is worth 80 IQ points.

Alan Kay about Believe:

Quite a few people have to believe something is normal before it becomes normal - a sort of 'voting' situation. But once the threshold is reached, then everyone demands to do whatever it is.

Alan Kay about Time:

Social thinking requires very exacting thresholds to be powerful. For example, we've had social thinking for 200,000 years, and hardly anything happened that could be considered progress over most of that time. This is because what is most pervasive about social thinking is 'how to get along and mutually cope.'

Alan Kay about Love:

Science requires a society because even people who are trying to be good thinkers love their own thoughts and theories - much of the debugging has to be done by others.

Alan Kay about Time:

Some people worry that artificial intelligence will make us feel inferior, but then, anybody in his right mind should have an inferiority complex every time he looks at a flower.

Alan Kay about Technology:

Technology is anything that wasn't around when you were born.

Alan Kay about Wisdom:

The best way to predict the future is to invent it.

Alan Kay about Nature:

The protean nature of the computer is such that it can act like a machine or like a language to be shaped and exploited.

Alan Kay about Learning:

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.