Four years ago, UCLA chemistry professor R. Stanley Williams and computer giant Hewlett-Packard (HP) made mid-career changes at the same time. The company had grown into one of the world's leading computer and microprocessor makers, but it still didn't have a fundamental research group. Williams had spent the previous fifteen years in academia and feared he was losing contact with the realities of the business (earlier in his career he had worked for several years at Bell Laboratories.) The solution: a basic research lab at HP directed by Williams.

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