Here are some recollected observations of my Apple ATG adventures ...
:-)
Setting: It was the summer of '88, and less than a week into my Apple tenure. I had recently joined Apple's Advanced Technology Group, known as ATG.
After zipping into the parking lot at Any Mountain, I made my way to the small building behind the retail store, where our Apple R&D group was housed. I was trying to "tailgate" my way in to avoid using my key badge.
The guy ahead of me holding the door was David Nagel, who managed our group as well as a few others. He had also recently joined Apple ATG, within a week or so of me.
Steve Weyer was my manager and ran Apple ATG's Intelligent Applications Group. ATG itself was like a pastiche of Punk Rock and Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center). Punk PARC? And with a bit of old school hallucinogens thrown in for good measure. Just kidding! Or am I? We're still not sure ...
... but I did have Chinese food with Marvin Minsky in Cupertino as part of an Apple ATG group lunch. He was meeting with our group to inspire and cajole us while getting a free lunch. A very common act of respect back then and used even today.
Around this time, I had the privilege to give Carl Hewitt the Unofficial Apple Tour. Carl was interested in "squeezing the Apple money bag" as he so graphically put it back then. I could not help him there much since I was busy doing the same.
Barbara Bowen ran our Apple ATG External Research Group, which coordinated our affiliations with such organizations as the Santa Fe Institute and the MIT Media Lab. 
I was the so-called "champion" for funding some of Pattie Maes' agent work and the early Artificial Life program at the Santa Fe Institute.
Overall, it was my great fortune to work directly with very brilliant people in the Intelligent Applications Group. One such person was Allen Cypher, who built applications that "programmed" themselves.
Another genius is Tom Bonura, an expert in rule-based systems, among many other things like microbiology, for example. Tom cautiously introduced me to the legendary Hiram Gersehenfeld Two-Point Anaysis (HGTPA) , made (in)famous in many many many ATG strategy meetings, much to the dismay of most.
For novices, the Hiram ("Hymie") Gershenfeld Two-Point Anaysis can be summarized via two key questions, thusly:
(1) So What?
(2) Who Cares?
The HGTPA never fails to entertain. For some, at least...
At Apple ATG, Ruben Kleiman developed the most comprehensive and advanced multimedia authoring system ever conceived of by a single individual, called SK8. And also at Apple, Ruben truly was THE MOST misunderstood genius ... EVER!!!
During a business trip to attend Boston Macworld where Ruben wore an actual bandleader uniform on the exhibit floor, we managed to "ransack" the MIT AI Lab library where all the classic technical papers were made available for the taking. We shipped several boxes of booty back to Cupertino. Ruben, wherever you are, you are LOVED!!!
Joy Mountford ran Apple's Human Interface Group. Joy was largely responsible for retaining the Apple design "coolness" for much of her tenure at Apple, bless her valiant efforts.
Also at large in ATG, Brewster Kahle was a refugee from Thinking Machines.
Alan Kay was Brewster's ATG champion at the time, due to their mutual relationship with Danny Hillis, Thinking Machine's founder.
Our ATG Intelligent Applications Group did a lot of work with Alan Kay and the Vivarium team. This group did the most interesting and advanced thinking in all of Apple, at the time. Ok, I just MIGHT be a little biased on that one ... Alan Kay was responsible for the 1988 Knowledge Navigator conceptualization that drove much of our research.
Anyway, through Alan Kay, we represented Apple's interests when working with 
Doug Lenat and R.V. Guha on the CYC Project.
Vivarium's Ted Kaehler was another inspirational spirit who kept our focus on education and "the wonder of it all", which was 'core' to Apple back then, so to speak.
Larry Tesler eventually left ATG to run the Newton Project. 
Larry helped me personally to make the transition at Apple from R&D to "Product", a path he himself had freshly blazed. Larry is truly an Unsung Apple Hero. There are also many other forgotten Apple heroes, unfortunately.
Dave Fenwick is another such hero. Dave's company was acquired by Apple as part of the Newton Project development efforts. 
Dave and I played golf after a bomb scare at Apple, which also happened to be his last day at Apple. No connection ... as far as anyone can tell :-)
Another Newton luminary was Steve Capps, who introduced me to both Vivi's fine dining and altered states of consciousness brought on by extreme sleep deprivation coupled with random C++ code.
Well, it has been almost 8 years since Apple "shuttered" the Advanced Technology Group. Here is the CNET epitah from October 7th, 1997.
So now AT LAST we can wrap this rap up by invoking the Gershenfeld Two-Point Analysis recursively:
(1) So What?
(2) Who Cares?
:-)
... And for even more Apple Computer History, go here ...
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