A Tale of Xerox, Apple & Microsoft.. among others
At any rate, Jobs decided that he wanted to bring a team of Appleniks into PARC to see what was causing such a buzz – but again, the idea of Jobs coming in like a kid on tour at Epcot with a tape recorder hidden under his shirt is far from the truth. Apple negotiated a deal with Xerox; in return for a block of Apple stock, Xerox allowed Jobs and his team to tour PARC, take notes, and implement some of the ideas and concepts being bounced around at PARC in their own creations. I’m not sure how Xerox felt about Apple subsequently hiring half — the better half — of PARC’s staff away from them, but the process was relatively above-board no night kidnappings or bribes under the table at Jack In the Box. Xerox allowed Apple to use their ideas in Apple machines.
This is a really great article/narrative about the history of the GUI and why the simplistic view of Microsoft stole it from Apple stole it from Xerox really isn’t all that true. Just skip the first part about the cavemen.