Father of “cut, copy, and paste” Larry Tesler, dies at 74

Larry Tesler, a computer scientist, who is known for inventing the basic computer commands “cut, copy, and paste,” dies at age 74 on Monday.

Xerox announced the news of Larry’s death on Wednesday via Twitter.

“The inventor of cut/copy & paste, find & replace, and more was former Xerox researcher Larry Tesler. Your workday is easier, thanks to his revolutionary ideas. Larry passed away Monday, so please join us in celebrating him.”

Xerox announced the news of the death of Larry Tesler, but the cause of his death has not been released.

Tesler was born on April 24, 1945, in New York. After studying computer science at Stanford University, he worked for Apple, Yahoo, Amazon, and the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC).

During his time at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center in the 1970s, Tesler pioneered “cut, copy, and paste” command. Later in 1979, Tesler was asked to show Apple co-founder Steve Jobs around Xerox PARC. It is when Steve Jobs and some of the Apple employees got to see the Xerox’s Alto computer in action. 

A mouse, folders, pop-up menus, windows, network-based printing and games, WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) text editor, Ethernet-based local networking, and the command of “cut, copy, and paste” were some of the features in that computer. 

Apple co-founder Steve Jobs was impressed by the research there, and Tesler at a Churchill Club event in San Jose, California said,

“Steve was very excited and was pacing around the room, and occasionally looking at the screen,” Jobs also said, “You are sitting on a goldmine. Why aren’t you doing something with this technology… you could change this world.”

After this tour, Apple ended up making the graphical user interface (GUI) into the macOS. Tesler was persuaded by Steve Jobs to work for Apple that same year. He joined the company Apple in 1980 and worked for the company until 1997. Tesler was involved in major projects there, including QuickTime, Lisa, Macintosh, and Newton tablet.

He left Apple in 1997 and started working for Amazon as vice president of the shopping experience. He then worked for Yahoo as head of the user experience design and research. After leaving Yahoo, he worked for 23andMe for a brief period.