Simonyi was recruited to Xerox PARC by Butler Lampson during its most productive period, working alongside notable computer scientists Alan Kay, Butler Lampson, and Robert Metcalfe on the development of the "Xerox Alto", one of the first personal computers. He and Lampson developed "Bravo", the first WYSIWYG document preparation program, which became operational in 1974. During this time he received his Ph.D. in computer science from Stanford University in 1977 with a dissertation on a software project management technique he called meta-programming. This approach sought to defeat Brooks' law by scaling programming through a formalization of communication among programmers. In the 1992 book "Accidental Empires" (), Robert X. Cringely gave this description: