Xerox PARC to Adobe with Chuck Geschke; PostScript drove Hare's first LaserWriter, and PARC built the Star he used before the Mac existed
This is Jonathan Hare's account, with its provenance shown. The person or organization named has not yet claimed or corrected it.
Adobe co-founder — the role the film's own credits give, and all this page takes from the public record. In this record for one stated reason: John Warnock is one of the twenty-two credited narrators of the Silicon Valley Historical Association's Steve Jobs: Visionary Entrepreneur, and Jonathan Hare records having met and having connections to him (S-183). Where, when and through whom are not yet on the record; Hare's earlier account (S-182) is that most of these connections ran through Laurene Powell Jobs. The page is a placeholder that says so, and an invitation to either side to fill it.
A second statement (S-185), asked about the Adobe founders together: Hare has met many people at Adobe and knew many who knew Warnock and Geschke, but the two 'weren't the types to hang out with college students or wet behind the ear Stanford MBAs, and weren't really the evangelical types that hobnobbed at conferences.' Read with S-183, which lists Warnock among those met, the record cannot tell whether the connection to Warnock is direct or through those Adobe people; it keeps both statements and asks.
Settled, 1 September 2026 (S-188): Hare remembers meeting Warnock at some event or through someone, and never spent significant time with him — the emails that would name the introducer are his to dig up, and 'doesn't really matter.' What does matter to the record is the closer connection: Hare had one of the very first Apple LaserWriters, the PostScript printer that made Adobe, and used it for desktop publishing at Strategic Planning Associates, having used a Xerox Star there before the Macintosh existed.
The public record, at web grade. A University of Utah doctorate in the founding era of computer graphics; Evans & Sutherland; then Xerox PARC, where the page-description work Xerox declined to ship became, in 1982, Adobe Systems — founded with Charles Geschke. PostScript made the printed page programmable and, with Apple's LaserWriter, made desktop publishing; Illustrator, Photoshop under Adobe's roof, and Acrobat's PDF made the document itself portable. He was Adobe's chief executive into the 2000s and co-chairman with Geschke long after, and died in August 2023. In this record's network: the two machines of Hare's S-188 account are both Warnock's world — the Xerox Star he used at Strategic Planning Associates came out of the same PARC lineage, and his first-generation LaserWriter ran Warnock's PostScript; the Virtual Corporation's co-author narrated the same film. The Adobe people who knew Warnock and Geschke (S-185) are the standing route to this page's subject's circle.
There is no single root. This is one view of the graph, from this node — what you see depends on where you enter and what you are looking for.
Silicon Valley Historical Association, January 2013 — built on a 1994 interview at NeXT; twenty-two credited voices, twelve of whom Hare records having met
Open →the film's subjectHP as a teenager, Terman's Valley, an Oregon commune, India, Zen — the parallels the record can actually show; and the borrowed Ferrari, the Z8, and the woman who connects them
Open →the same film's shelfDavidow and Malone's book — the partner-assembled, information-integrated corporation; what the coordination architecture makes operable
Open →Everything above is a distillation. The primary source is published in full, so that any claim on this page can be walked back to what was actually said — and where the two differ, the source governs.
The account this page was distilled from, preserved as dictated.
Read the source →Primary source · S-185The account this page was distilled from, preserved as dictated.
Read the source →Primary source · S-188The account this page was distilled from, preserved as dictated.
Read the source →This entry is deliberately incomplete. The gaps below are the things only certain people can settle — and settling one is a contribution like any other: recorded, timestamped and attributed to whoever made it.
Correct anything wrong, add what only you know, or claim this entry as your own. Write to evidence@qpncatalyst.io and Jonathan directly (both are on the button) — a timestamped confirmation comes back with your submission attached, as your own independent record. No account, no permission, no institutional standing required.
Public contributions earn Publicity Premium; bringing others who were there earns Cascade Premium. Everything is valued retrospectively as outcomes verify, so nothing has to be priced up front.
Correct this entry → Add a story, photo or link → Browse the graph →