Xerox: King Lear or The Odyssey

By Robert G. Jordan | greg report Ai

Xerox has the old-king problem.

A once-commanding name gave away too much authority, got stripped down by market weather, watched its kingdom fracture, and now stands in the storm asking what power remains when ceremony, size, and reputation no longer protect you. That is Lear on the heath. The crown still means something, but only after the storm reveals what was real and what was theater.

For Xerox, the “storm” is the decline of print, the stock price, activist pressure, leadership turnover, the Fujifilm break, the Icahn years, and the Lexmark integration. The old court is gone. The robe is wet. The old script no longer works.

Xerox and Blade Runner - By Robert G. Jordan | greg report Ai

Xerox and Blade Runner share the same uneasy question: what remains human, useful, and valuable after the original world has moved on?

In Blade Runner, the future is built from old architecture, neon, corporate towers, rain, decay, and machines that behave too much like people. It is a world where the past never really dies. It just gets rewired, renamed, and left humming in the dark.

That is Xerox.

OFFICE TECH & AI – Artificial Intelligence in Your World: No Experts, Just Opinions

I felt a tingling sensation in my chest—the kind you get when you realize you’re witnessing a major historical event. It is not just a chatbot. It is a portal to a future where we no longer have to do the ‘boring’ work of thinking.” — Kevin Roose (The New York Times, December 5, 2022)

The fear of COVID had faded, but the power struggle between leadership and a remote workforce was in full swing. For the knowledge workers, the ones who used to stand in front of our photocopiers, the office was now a commute away. In this chaos, AI arrived. It wasn’t just fuel for the fire; for the salesperson, it was the most significant tool to arrive since Act! customer relationship management platform in 1987.