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Comment by engfan | Hacker News Reader

Someone once said to Doug: “I don’t know what Silicon Valley will do when it runs out of your inventions.”

I had the pleasure of working with him. He was brilliant and kind. The world just wasn’t ready for him.

I met Mr. Engelbart once as a child when my mother worked at SRI in the 90s/early 2000s. At the time I had seen the mouse prototype while wandering the halls and on some open house day I was introduced to him. He listened to me, a young kid, talk excitedly about technology for what must've been awhile and was very encouraging and kind. While I was excited about computers at the time I had no idea the significance of his ideas until I was an adult.

Looking back on it, I am awed by the kindness he showed to some random kid.

This is a trait of many great people. I guess they realise at some level that inspiring another generation helps carry the work forward than being dismissive and focusing on one's own work. This is also why I admire Andrew Ng.

It's an alan-kayism: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/douglas-engelbart-... “I don’t know what Silicon Valley will do when it runs out of Doug’s ideas.”

There are so many systems thinkers from that time that basically understood how the world works and how it could or should work that basically no one today knows of or considers. It's a shame.

This demo us one of the most mindblowing things I've seen and especially so if you consider its date of arrival. I truly think the audience didn't really understand it.

Who's to say there aren't just as many such people know but we still have trouble recognizing them until well after the fact.

My point was more that these people wrote about things that predicted where we were headed but no one listened to them then, and no one listens to them now.

Username truly checks out. And yes, a prophet far ahead of his time.

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