Pirate’s Revenge
I was up late a couple of weeks ago working and to my surprise I saw on my IceTV widget that Pirates of Silicon Valley was screening at 2am.
While I’m a big fan of Apple and particularly their corporate narrative, I’ve never had the opportunity to watch this movie I’ve heard so much about.
I decided to stay up and partake.
For those unaware, the movie charts what is essentially the rise and fall of Steve Jobs and Apple (though we only see the dramatisation of events between the early 1970s and 1985, which is really the boom times for Apple as a company), while contrasting this with the rise and rise of Bill Gates and Microsoft. The last scenes we see are of the infamous Macworld at Boston in 1997 where Steve Jobs talks to Bill Gates via video link amid a chorus of boos, and how Bill is “smiling down” on Steve like an omniscient benefactor. I guess at the time it made for an interesting ending. But it wasn’t really the end - reality rarely ends so neatly.
My favourite piece of dialogue, which occurs near the end:
Steve: We’re better than you are (pauses)[;] we have better stuff
Bill: You don’t get it, Steve. That doesn’t matter!
Fast track to today and Apple is reborn a computer and consumer electronics powerhouse. Now designing and producing ‘better stuff’ does matter. Since 1997 - with the purchase of NeXT and the introduction of OS X, the creation of the iMac, the iPod, and now the iPhone - it makes for a very different story.
Anyone up for a sequel?