Pirates of Silicon Valley
1999 · Film · 97 min
Directed by Martyn Burke
The story about the men who made the world of technology what it is today, their struggles during college, the founding of their companies, and the ingenious actions they took to build up the global corporate empires of Apple Computer Inc. and Microsoft Corporation.
64 positive4 negative1 mixed33 neutralfrom 102 commenters
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113 comments on Hacker News
This reads like a theatre announcement for a play. Whole sections on how they dressed. Are they planning a new "Pirates of Silicon Valley" like movie of this or what? How much of the AI bubble is performative?
> Everybody makes mistakes, and this is definitely a huge one to have made, and a sad aspect of his legacy, but if this is all you know about Steve Jobs, you don't know anything about Steve Jobs.
> He made up with Lisa - to the extent one can after all that - in the end. And he raised three other kids, after becoming older and wiser as a dad.
So about this, I remember watching pirates of silicon valley when I was in 6th grade and this is something which troubles me from watching it (multiple times as it was the only offline movie I had so much so that I once gave a mini speech in class about steve jobs haha & one of my teachesrs started calling me steve jobs haha!)
But in the movie, I really didn't understand the rationale behind what he did to lisa. I mean iirc he did try to connect with her later but still, I just don't understand why he acted so harshly towards his mother when everything could've been going fine.
Like there were definitely plenty of moments in the movie where steve jobs wasn't the right guy. I really can't find the rationale behind some of the things.
I feel like I still don't know what to make of the whole situation regarding Steve jobs. but when you mentioned this comment, while reading it I imagined the point where Steve jobs offered Lisa a flower.
I remember this because many years after watching the movies, this youtube video came to my feed (I searched it again by just searching some PoSV related thing with lisa flower to find it)
What is the name of this music? (Motion Picture Score): [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wm7btLayRZ4]
And even the director of the movie commented in the comments of this video which was pinned!
As well as using a lot of 70's & 80's classic rock and roll classics appropriate to the era when Jobs and Woz were starting Apple, we also went for "sound-alikes" (for the Ella Fitzgerald number) and created some of our own music. This piece is one of those creations. There is no name for it that I'm aware of. Martyn Burke Director-Pirates of Silicon Valley
I remember it being a part of the movie Pirates of Silicon Valley and thought it couldn’t be true. But apparently it was.
https://youtu.be/VyQEbLx6AEY?si=CwhqHQEdFGCsE33l
That's certainly one opinion, and is even right, to some degree. But there's also movies like the Imitation Game about Alan Turing, which is a movie, and not a documentary, but there are also countless documentaries about him. There's no shortage of hagiographies about Steven Jobs, in both book and film and tv miniseries format, along with Pirates of Silicon Valley which includes Microsoft's part. There's a movie about Aaron Swartz (The Internet’s Own Boy). The movie Antitrust(2001) is fictional, but in the same area.
Hackers (1995) is fictional but a cult classic. Freedom Downtime (2001) is about Mitnick and hacking culture. There's smaller documentaries too. There's that one about Wikileaks, that one about Cambridge Analytica. There's books like The Dream Machine (Mitchell), Unix: A History and a Memoir (Brian W. Kernighan), The UNIX‑HATERS Handbook (Simson Garfinkel et al.). There's http://folklore.org about the early days at Apple. Asiometry has https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ffh3DRFzRL0, a 20 minute bit about the Unix wars.
The source code to the original Microsoft DOS is at https://github.com/microsoft/MS-DOS. The Anarchist Cookbook is on Kindle, https://www.2600.com/Magazine/digital-back-issues goes back to 2010.
DefCON got too big for the Riv and the Sahara, and is now at the LVCC. Yeah it's not the same. It's never going to be the same, but some still gather for their yearly mecca and watch Hackers and get drunk in hotel suites paid for by corporate sponsors. Others stay home for various reasons.
Do we still keep what we're doing? I mean, I don't program in Z80 ASM assembly anymore. There are still classes in my code by the focus on OOP isn't what it once was. I'm not sure if I want to call it progress, but I don't program Win32 applications anymore. I can spin up a web app with an LLM in an afternoon, and have it web-scale to the whole world in less time than it used to take to get a computer racked in a colo.
It's not 1979, the cable I use to go from USB-C to HDMI is more powerful than the computer that took us to space. By like, a million times.
Look, I'm not saying we shouldn't respect our elders. By this point, though my beard's not yet grey, relatively speaking I am an elder. I learned to program from paper books. Before ChatGPT, before Stack Overflow, before Google. There are some here that predate me by decades. If you're competing with a $10 million Oracle db system, and going from 6 ASM instructions to 5 in the inner loop will eke out that extra percent of performance, and win you the contract, by all means, sit down, roll up your sleeves, and hand optimize assembly in order to figure out how to get rid of that one instruction.
The joke is oft made, that other fields stand on the shoulder of giants, while in computer science, we stand on their toes. And it's not wrong. I can't wait to for the next new language to pop up and reimplement a DAG solver for their package management woes, and to invent a better sandbox for running untrusted code. That's still an unsolved problem. If this stuff interests you, the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California is worth the visit. The only problem is that at the end of the tour is computers I grew up with, which has a certain way of making a fella feel old.
The travesty that is happening right now, is in the wake of Paul Allen's death, is the debache with his surviving sister and the Seattle Living Computer Museum.
Pirates of Silicon Valley, which famously features Steve Ballmer turning and talking directly to the viewer ala kevin spacey and Bill Gates Yelling At Steve Jobs also Woz gets gassed and runs like hell, that's not much of a spoiler because that's how it opens: Woz hauling ass away from a protest into the computer building. sweet, safe computer building!
anyway if we're putting herzon movies in here i say it fits :-)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirates_of_Silicon_Valley
One of the best movies about history of Apple and people involved is "Pirates Of Silicon Valley". Pretty accurate portrayal of Steve Jobs, Woz and the rest.
ARM only shows up on a white board on the background of a discussion towards the end. So it isn't 100% absent from this movie, but it is really about the conflict between Clive Sinclair and Chris Curry (just like "Pirates of Silicon Valley" is about the conflict between Steve Jobs and Bill Gates).
Nowhere near the same quality and actually (mini)series but:
- Halt and Catch Fire (actually pretty good quality and full series)
- The Playlist (creation of Spotify)
- The Dropout (creation of Theranos... do not get advice from this one though)
- WeCrashed (about WeWork, haven't seen this one though)
- Silicon Valley (silly comedy but might work)
Also some TV/movies/docs you might find in YouTube:
- Pirates of Silicon Valley (movie about bill gates and steve jobs)
- Project Code Rush (about the beginning of Mozilla)
- Aardvark'd: 12 weeks with geeks (doc about a startup by Joel Spolsky of StackOverflow fame).
Oh and also those two Steve Job movies that came out side by side.
https://tv.apple.com/mx/movie/pirates-of-silicon-valley/umc.cmc.3wu87xtpt91ssk22cdt7bj1w9?l=en
??
Not OP, but yes believe it or not it's impossible to find certain movies anywhere other than pirating them. One example is "Pirates of Silicon Valley", I watched it when I was young and recently wanted to watch it again. I pay for basically all the streaming services, I'm would have been happy to rent it from any service at all. I spent several hours trying to find a way to pay to watch it and never could.
"Us vs Them" was an actual line in the movie "Pirates of Silicon Valley", which was about Apple and Microsoft in the 80s. The phrase in the movie was referring to Macintosh vs Apple II camps within the company.
My first thought was that perhaps it could be a movie prop from perhaps "Pirates of Silicon Valley" or some other movie about Apple but the badly faked provenance proves that it is not even that.
Not quite what you're asking, but see this list I have: https://llm-utils.org/Movies+and+documentaries+about+startup+founders
e.g. Pirates of Silicon Valley, Startup.com, Silicon Valley - documentary about Fairchild Semiconductor (2013) - suggested by fullshark on HN
The Blackberry movie was also enjoyable
Startup.com was great. I've also heard good things about Valley of the Boom. And, while not exactly a dot com movie, Pirates of Silicon Valley is a classic about the Jobs vs Gates rivalry.
"The Aviator" [1] about Howard Hughes? Love to also talk about real startups movies without failure as a main theme. For example, "The Social Network" (includes Winklevoss and Eduardo Saverin "failures"). We have other non-fictional ones such as "The Founder" [2] about McDonalds. Classic: "Pirates of Silicon Valley". Ford v Ferrari (amazing if you have not seen it) [3].
[1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0338751/
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Founder
[3] https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_v_Ferrari
Made me think of the scene in the "Pirates of Silicon Valley" movie.
Steve Jobs: "We're better than you."
Bill Gates: "You don't get it, do you. That doesn't matter."
For those who find themselves suddenly with unexpected free time I recommend taking the opportunity to watch:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halt_and_Catch_Fire_(TV_series)
Pirates of Silicon Valley (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0168122/)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Valley_(TV_series)
And a couple of really long walks to recalibrate. This too, shall pass.
>movies that inspired you? To think about technology, business, entrepreneurship? Also open to "fun"
Since you asked:
"Pirates of Silicon Valley"[1] was talking to the camera before a certain streaming service made it cool, and "Hard Candy"[2] caused a minor drama bomb when I went off to college because I had no idea it was a CSAM search term.
(In retrospect, the friend giving me feedback was weirdly insistent that my stance of "Why wouldn't I want to list a movie about murdering pedophiles on my online dating profile?" was totally wrong, and I deeply value the many folks who came and watdched pirated episodes of Dexter in my basement back in the good old days before streaming services.)
Anyways, both are wonderful plane movies for spooky season, but maybe also throw a copy of that catbus movie[3] on your device in case there's kids around :-)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirates_of_Silicon_Valley#Historical_accuracy
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_Candy_(film)#Plot
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Neighbor_Totoro#Home_media
Top 5
1. First Contact (1982) - Possibly the best documentary ever made https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085544/
2. Rivers and Tides (2001) - Beautiful meditation on the art of Andy Goldsworthy, with music by Fred Frith https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0307385/
3. This is the Last Dam Run of Likker I'll Ever Make (2002) - The story of Popcorn Sutton https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glQjCKAI4gA
4. Alone in the Wilderness (2004) - Mostly original footage and commentary by Richard Proenneke https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0437806/
5. Apollo 11 (2019) - Narration-free documentary on the first moon landing https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8760684/
Bonus picks:
Pirates of Silicon Valley (1999) is a dramatization but an incredibly accurate one https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0168122/
If mockumentaries count, everything by Christopher Guest is obligatory. There's also this short gem on the Centrifuge Brain Project https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVeHxUVkW4w
Grizzly Man (2005) is not a mockumentary, but like most Herzog documentaries, it's not exactly straight https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0427312/
Finally, I'm a huge fan of first-nuclear-era documentaries made by the U.S. government, e.g.
Army Nuclear Power Program (1963) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPWDMHH4rY4
SNAP 8 Reactor (1963) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82nCRWawfhQ
SNAPSHOT (1964) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9jI1Hdl5Yw
Remote Maintanence of Molten Salt Reactors (?) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHT-w2x6dDg
and many more.
For those who haven't seen it, I highly recommend the movie "Pirates of Silicon Valley" which briefly covers this moment in history.
I haven’t read it, but heard good things about “The Soul of a New Machine” about Data Generals efforts create a new 32-bit superminicomputer.
https://www.tracykidder.com/the-soul-of-a-new-machine.html
Another comment mentioned “Pirates of Silicon Valley” as a good dramatization of MS/Apple and there’s also the miniseries “Valley of the Boom” about the rise and fall of Netscape and “Halt and Catch Fire” which is a fictional and thematic view of 80s/90s computer history.
> Pirates of Silicon Valley
Haven't thought of that movie in years. Not bad by any means, and I'd say it's worth the watch. Broad strokes Microsoft and Apple development, and stays entertaining. Not as deep as the Steve Jobs films (I always mess up the titles from the good and the bad one) from a few years ago, but still enjoyable.
Hacker Culture, to me atleast is somewhat broad.
Here are some places where I found good representations:
1. Halt and Catch Fire: 70s/80s tech scene. Full stack hackers building products, companies. Depicts the hackers, code monkeys, visionary types, managers, financers- everyone. Also shows the transition of the business scene from analog to digital.
2. Westworld (Season 1 only) is brilliant. It depicts the ambition, the hubris involved in creating something new and grand.
3. The Travelling Salesman: P vs NP is solved. What are the implications, what are the uses, how will the State react? What is the role of the people imvolved?
4. Primer: Mind bending movie on time machine.
5. and 6. Imitation Game and A Beautiful Mind: I believe most people on HN will like these.
7. Agora is a hidden gem not many know about. It is anout Hypatia.
8. Dangerous Knowledge is a documentary about paradigm changing science. Godel, Turing, Boltzmann are covered.
9. Fractals is also a nice documentary with interviews from Mendelbrot.
10. Codebreaker is a mich more accurate biography of Turing that covers other aspects of his, not limited to his codebreaking and homosexuality.
11. Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz: very nice and left a deep impression in me.
____
I am yet to watch:
1. Hidden Figures
2. Stand and Deliver
3. I'm In
4. TPB: AFK
5. Pirates of Silicon Valley
6. Triumph of the Nerds
____
Harvard Professor Oliver Knill has a list and clips from movies where math appears: https://people.math.harvard.edu/~knill/mathmovies/
____
I came to know a lot of these movies through Kagi search and Reddit search. "Best movies for mathematicians and computer scientists" and similar searches.
Halt and Catch Fire was a really fun watch! And I love these type of storylines though offhand I can only think of this and Pirates of Silicon Valley. I was wondering if you knew of other similar shows/movies? I'm highly interested.
I don't think mellosouls means that those portrayals left Jobs aside. I think they mean we should put the 2013 movie, Jobs, aside (hence their italics).
(Wise, though I personally think Kutcher did a good job with what he was given.)
Jobs very famously liked (or at least whimsically came to terms with) Noah Wyle's amazing portrayal of him in Pirates Of Silicon Valley, getting Wyle to repeat his performance on stage at a a Macworld keynote.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIClAanU7Os
At the time, people thought that was Jobs doing damage control because Pirates made him look like an asshole. At this point looking back, it seems more like part of his self-reflective pivot to what came next.
Either way I am not sure it needs more treatment and more demonisation, but they were all pretty lucky with the care that went into their portrayals in Pirates Of Silicon Valley.
Pirates of Silicon Valley. One of my favorite movies of all time.
Planning on watching Pirates of Silicon Valley today. Maybe not a 100% factual telling, but it strikes a good balance between facts and drama. I haven't seen the more recent Jobs-specific biopics because reviews were exceedingly mixed for all of them- if you haven't seen Pirates, check it out, it's great for a TV movie. I still have the VHS tape I recorded from the original TV broadcast, but I finally picked up the DVD- the downside is that there's definitely no HD version out there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirates_of_Silicon_Valley
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_about_computers
Favorites about real and fictional creators:
Micro Men https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXBxV6-zamM
Pirates of Silicon Valley
Halt and Catch Fire
... and some documentaries like "Mother of all Demos", the history of Internet Explorer vs. Netscape, and the creators of the spreadsheet
I wish we could do the same for Computer Science/Software. Movies like "Travelling Salesman" or "Pirates of Silicon Valley" or "Imitation Game" would be great suggestions but typically things like the Matrix or Ghost in the Shell are recommended which for me are great movies but poor examples of the discipline.
If you guys liked Halt and Catch Fire, I'd also like to recommend:
- Pirates of Silicon Valley (this largely follows Gates and Jobs): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0168122/
- Micro Men (this is about the British tech scene in the 80s): https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00n5b92 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1459467/
> It is why the show is so much better as both computing history and drama than all those films about Apple or Steve Jobs [...]
Loved Halt & Catch Fire
Pirates of Silicon Valley was pretty great, no? Idk about its accuracy though.
Yes - that's why I said it's not quite a fair comparison as that was probably more or less the best time in history to make an investment in Apple. Maybe akin to investing in Amazon in 1994 or in Google in 1998.
The drama "Pirates of Silicon Valley" covers MS & Apple from their founding in the 70s till the late 90s (the movie was made in 1999) and I believe it ends in that scene (I've last seen it when it was new so it may end a bit later but that definitely appears in the movie).
I can give you the names of a handful of books that might be useful. Some are more technical, some less so. Some are more about personalities, some about the business aspects of things, some more about the actual technology. I don't really have time to try and categorize them all, so here's a big dump of the ones I have and/or am familiar with that seem at least somewhat related.
The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering - https://www.amazon.com/Mythical-Man-Month-Software-Engineering-Anniversary/dp/0201835959/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=fred+brooks&qid=1595010976&s=books&sr=1-1
Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution - https://www.amazon.com/Hackers-Computer-Revolution-Steven-Levy/dp/1449388396/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=hackers+heroes&qid=1595010072&s=books&sr=1-1
The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage - https://www.amazon.com/Cuckoos-Egg-Tracking-Computer-Espionage/dp/1416507787/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=cuckoo%27s+egg&qid=1595010272&s=books&sr=1-1
Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of the Internet - https://www.amazon.com/Where-Wizards-Stay-Up-Late/dp/0684832674/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2VVOETG6ECK3Y&dchild=1&keywords=where+wizards+stay+up+late&qid=1595008923&s=books&sprefix=where+wizards+%2Cstripbooks%2C192&sr=1-1
Open: How Compaq Ended IBM's PC Domination and Helped Invent Modern Computing - https://www.amazon.com/Open-Compaq-Domination-Helped-Computing/dp/1937856992/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=open+how+compaq&qid=1595009400&s=books&sr=1-1
Decline and Fall of the American Programmer - https://www.amazon.com/Decline-American-Programmer-Yourdon-1993-06-16/dp/B01FKSGVQ8/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=decline+and+fall+of+the+american+programmer&qid=1595011243&s=books&sr=1-1
Rise and Resurrection of the American Programmer - https://www.amazon.com/dp/013121831X/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=rise+and+resurrection+yourdon&qid=1595011380&s=books&sr=1-1
Accidental Empires: How the Boys of Silicon Valley Make Their Millions, Battle Foreign Competition, and Still Can't Get a Date - https://www.amazon.com/Robert-X-Cringely/dp/0887308554/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2U1MSOCMFGBLX&dchild=1&keywords=accidental+empires+by+robert+x.+cringely&qid=1595011791&s=books&sprefix=accidental+empires%2Cstripbooks%2C216&sr=1-1
Softwar: An Intimate Portrait of Larry Ellison and Oracle - https://www.amazon.com/Softwar-Intimate-Portrait-Ellison-Oracle/dp/0743225058/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=softwar+ellison&qid=1595009420&s=books&sr=1-1
Winners, Losers & Microsoft - https://www.amazon.com/Winners-Losers-Microsoft-Competition-Independent/dp/0945999801/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=winners+losers+and+microsoft&qid=1595009438&s=books&sr=1-1
Microsoft Secrets - https://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Secrets-audiobook/dp/B019G2YO7M/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=microsoft+secrets&qid=1595009457&s=books&sr=1-1
The Friendly Orange Glow: The Untold Story of the PLATO System and the Dawn of Cyberculture - https://www.amazon.com/The-Friendly-Orange-Glow-audiobook/dp/B0777XSZKW/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=friendly+orange+glow&qid=1595009476&s=books&sr=1-1
Troublemakers: Silicon Valley's Coming of Age - https://www.amazon.com/Troublemakers-Silicon-Valleys-Coming-Age/dp/1451651511/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=troublemakers+silicon&qid=1595009493&s=books&sr=1-1
Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire - https://www.amazon.com/Hard-Drive-Making-Microsoft-Empire/dp/0887306292/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=hard+drive+bill+gates&qid=1595009517&s=books&sr=1-1
Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture - https://www.amazon.com/Masters-Doom-Created-Transformed-Culture/dp/0812972155/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=masters+of+doom&qid=1595009533&s=books&sr=1-1
The Supermen: The Story of Seymour Cray and The Technical Wizards Behind the Supercomputer - https://www.amazon.com/Supermen-Seymour-Technical-Wizards-Supercomputer/dp/0471048852/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=the+supermen+seymour&qid=1595009554&s=books&sr=1-1
Bitwise: A Life in Code - https://www.amazon.com/Bitwise-Life-Code-David-Auerbach/dp/1101972149/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=bitwise+life+in+code&qid=1595009570&s=books&sr=1-1
Gates - https://www.amazon.com/Gates-Microsofts-Reinvented-Industry-Himself/dp/0671880748/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=%22gates%22+paul+andrews&qid=1595009629&s=books&sr=1-1
We Are The Nerds - https://www.amazon.com/We-Are-Nerds-audiobook/dp/B07H5Q5JGS/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=we+are+the+nerds&qid=1595009644&s=books&sr=1-1
A People's History of Computing In The United States - https://www.amazon.com/Peoples-History-Computing-United-States/dp/0674970977/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=people%27s+history+of+computing&qid=1595009661&s=books&sr=1-1
Fire In The Valley: The Birth and Death of the Personal Computer - https://www.amazon.com/Fire-in-Valley-audiobook/dp/B071YYZJG5/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=fire+in+the+valley&qid=1595009680&s=books&sr=1-1
How The Internet Happened: From Netscape to the iPhone - https://www.amazon.com/How-Internet-Happened-Netscape-iPhone/dp/1631493078/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=how+the+internet+happened&qid=1595009697&s=books&sr=1-1
Steve Jobs - https://www.amazon.com/Steve-Jobs-Walter-Isaacson/dp/1451648537/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=jobs+isaacson&qid=1595009754&s=books&sr=1-1
The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation - https://www.amazon.com/Idea-Factory-Great-American-Innovation/dp/0143122797/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=idea+factory&qid=1595009769&s=books&sr=1-1
Coders - https://www.amazon.com/Coders-Making-Tribe-Remaking-World/dp/0735220565/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=coders&qid=1595010398&s=books&sr=1-1
Dreaming in Code: Two Dozen Programmers, Three Years, 4,732 Bugs, and One Quest for Transcendent Software - https://www.amazon.com/Dreaming-in-Code-Scott-Rosenberg-audiobook/dp/B00AQ5DOCA/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=dreaming+in+code&qid=1595010517&s=books&sr=1-1
The Pentagon's Brain: An Uncensored History of DARPA, America's Top-Secret Military Research Agency - https://www.amazon.com/Pentagons-Brain-Uncensored-Americas-Top-Secret/dp/0316371661/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=darpa&qid=1595010561&s=books&sr=1-1
The Imagineers of War: The Untold Story of DARPA, the Pentagon Agency That Changed the World - https://www.amazon.com/Imagineers-War-Untold-Pentagon-Changed/dp/0804169721/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=darpa&qid=1595010618&s=books&sr=1-2
The Technical and Social History of Software Engineering - https://www.amazon.com/Technical-Social-History-Software-Engineering/dp/0321903420/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=history+of+software+engineering&qid=1595010761&s=books&sr=1-2
Also...
"The Mother of All Demos" by Doug Englebart - https://youtu.be/yJDv-zdhzMY
"Jobs vs Gates" - https://www.amazon.com/Jobs-Vs-Gates-Hippie-Nerd/dp/B077KB96MC/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=pirates+of+silicon+valley&qid=1595009886&s=movies-tv&sr=1-2
"Welcome to Macintosh" - https://www.amazon.com/Welcome-Macintosh-Guy-Kawasaki/dp/B00E9Q2GG2/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=pirates+of+silicon+valley&qid=1595009886&s=movies-tv&sr=1-3
"Pirates of Silicon Valley" - https://www.amazon.com/Pirates-Silicon-Valley-Noah-Wyle/dp/B0009NSCS0/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=pirates+of+silicon+valley&qid=1595009886&s=movies-tv&sr=1-4
"Jobs" - https://www.amazon.com/Jobs-Ashton-Kutcher/dp/B00GME2NCG/ref=sr_1_5?dchild=1&keywords=pirates+of+silicon+valley&qid=1595009886&s=movies-tv&sr=1-5
And while not a documentary, or meant to be totally historically accurate, the TV show "Halt and Catch Fire" captures a lot of the feel of the early days of the PC era, through to the advent of the Internet era.
https://www.amazon.com/I-O/dp/B00KCXJCEK/ref=sr_1_1?crid=U6Z2PPRSDD0R&dchild=1&keywords=halt+and+catch+fire&qid=1595009969&s=movies-tv&sprefix=halt+and+c%2Cmovies-tv%2C188&sr=1-1
And there's a ton of Macintosh history stuff captured at:
https://www.folklore.org/
"Fire In The Valley (The making of the personal computer)" by Freiberger & Swaine (McGraw-Hill) is an excellent book telling many stories about individual companies in the early days of Micro computers.
A television film "Pirates of Silicon Valley" was based on parts of the book. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirates_of_Silicon_Valley
As a follow-up, anyone have any books written about the Dotcom era? I was still fairly young at the time so I don’t remember a lot of it and I can’t find any books or shows that cover it. Lots of stuff from the 70s/80s/early 90s (Masters of Doom, Cuckoos Egg, Halt and Catch Fire, Pirates of Silicon Valley), and lots of stuff from modern Silicon Valley (Bad Blood, Silicon Valley, the various Steve Jobs movies/books) but it seems like the startup world from 1995 to 2002 is just a blank space waiting to be filled.
What about Yahoo and Amazon and Pets.com and Webvan and eBay? What about stock being used for toilet paper and employees wheeling their Aeron chairs home when the company folded? What about Enron? How did 9/11 impact the Dotcom bust? Hell, what programming languages/frameworks were they using?
Haha! They've made several movies and written books about this drama. Whether or not it was traitorous depends on who you view as being a traitor first, Steve Jobs or John Sculley.
I recommend reading Walter Issacson's book on Steve Jobs, or watch the movie "Pirates of Silicon Valley" for a good take on it.
> every Steve Jobs movie
how about "the pirates of silicon valley"? I feel it's _by far_ the best movie made involving his figure, likely because it came out earlier.
One of my favorite movies growing up was Pirates of Silicon Valley (excellent movie, even today) and they portrayed that scene exactly the same as Gates recalled it.
It's portrayed very well in the movie Pirates of Silicon Valley. Wozniak says it's an accurate portrayal of personalities, unlike movies glorifying Jobs. One of my favorites is the scene where Gates and Jobs meet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yG4DvM0wxdk
I’m not going to miss a chance to suggest watching the (excellent) movie “Pirates of Silicon Valley”!
I really enjoyed this and after it was over had no idea I had been watching it for an hour. This story could make a good movie in the vein of Pirates of Silicon Valley.
That said, the note at the end about how Vladimir Pokhilko ended up killing his wife, son, and himself was more dark than I expected. What a shame.
The tv movie Pirates of Silicon Valley has a decent (if dramaticized) take on the birth of the personal computer, of which Microsoft, and its misdeeds, played a huge part in shaping for its own benefit. Microsoft under Bill Gates abused their monopoly position numerous times to force uptake of their own product which was often vastly inferior.
Yes let's make a movie about it. We can call it Pirates of Silicon Valley [1].
[1]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirates_of_Silicon_Valley
Needs 'Triumph of the Nerds' in documentaries, and 'Pirates of Silicon Valley' needs to move to any of the film sections (it's not a documentary).
In the movie Pirates of Silicon Valley, there is a scene where WoZ doesn't really care about the employee number but Steve does. That seems most likely to me having read iWoz too.
Probably because that aspect of the scene was so central to "Pirates of Silicon Valley"? It's etched in my memory too.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0168122/
A Beautiful Mind isn't as long ago as you think: less than 15 years. In the space of cinema (which was producing films about famous artists at least as early as the '30s) that's not very long. Takedown and Pirates of Silicon Valley are also a bit different: hacking has been part of "pop culture" since the mid 90s at least, and Pirates is a documentary anyway.
We have been making films about technical people for a while. A Beautiful Mind comes to mind first I am sure I can find some more.
Takedown, and Pirates of Silicon Valley are some others.
Funny as I search for more about actual people, a lot of fictional movies were created around the time the dot com bubble burst.
I think illustrating it might let you see the difference between family-like (see essay) and cult-like. Jobs ran Apple like a cult. According to Woz, Pirates of Silicon Valley is only movie that represents he and everyone else accurately. It a budget movie but great at showing key figures and moments in Apple vs Microsoft. It also depicted his ability to brainwash and control people in cult-like fashion.
Best example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yG4DvM0wxdk
So, maybe the scene above will illustrate the difference between cult-like leadership and leadership that's more like a family. If anything, the essay just describes a down-to-earth, genuine, tightly-knit approach to business and evaluating business partners. There's many companies like that albeit not as famous as YC. You don't see people suing them, writing exposes, and alleging all kinds of abuse like with the cult-like companies. Huge difference.
Nice write-up. Reminds me of the Steve Jobs portrayal on the excellent Pirates of Silicon Valley movie. Jobs and the other rebels mocked the "IBM types" in suits. Got nowhere in business world as "suits" dominated financing. Eventually, Jobs changes his appearance to look like a suit outwardly while inwardly being a rebel. Once successful, he reverts a bit to go back to rebellious appearance when inside of Apple while mocking IBM types and suits once again. While one suit with great poker skills, esp bluffing, straight up took his stuff and made a fortune off it working with other suits. That was Gates.
All in all, just goes to show that what a person could do was always more important than what they wore. Even worse, people often dress to deceive: pushing an image intended to influence observer for wearer's selfish benefit. Also called "dress for success." So, I have a bias where I watch out for that kind of thing. Interesting enough, Silicon Valley does the same thing with their dress styles aiming to fit in. Gets to the point that it's almost a survival strategy where people often wear expected stuff to avoid getting filtered out due to appearance.
Props to Greg for simply wearing what he liked and letting his actions speak louder than his words. He and Jonathan have nice suits, too. Reminds me I need to buy another one as I rarely wear a suit and occasionally like how it looks/feels. I'll be sure to get whatever style everyone else isn't wearing to satisfy the rebel in me. :)
A movie that went from her childhood through her days in school to quitting school, racing, opening her store and becoming a hardware engineer up to her recent successful funding would be great. Plus we can always have a second movie for what she does later instead of yearly reboots like those Steve Jobs biopics. Pirates of Silicon Valley was completed before the release of the iPhone, right?
Pirates of Silicon Valley? And it even has enough content to be a Gates/Microsoft movie!
As I mentioned in another comment "Pirates of Silicon Valley"[0] is worth a watch and.... (with tongue firmly in cheek) "Antitrust"[1] :) .
[0]: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0168122
[1]: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0218817
>How many Jobs/Apple movies do we need?
I know, and mostly agree with your sentiment. But I think this one has been in the pipeline for a good while (four years [0]), and is probably the one I've been waiting for because of the Boyle/Sorkin collaboration. The others seemed rushed out just to cash in on Job's life.
That said I'm still particularly fond of "Pirates of Silicon Valley"[1], I thought Noah Wiley as a younger Jobs was a fairly good effort..
[0]: http://thenextweb.com/apple/2011/10/25/steve-jobs-movie-could-be-written-by-the-social-networks-aaron-sorkin/
[1]: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0168122
Recommend anyone interested in this to watch Pirates of Silicon Valley. It's the only Jobs movie I recall Wozniak endorsing as accurate on overall events and personalities. Should be disturbing to Jobs fans given his portrayal:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yG4DvM0wxdk
Interesting part is that both Jobs and Gates were effectively psychopaths in action. In the movie, Jobs learned how to make people want what he made where Bill focused on making people need him. Interesting distinction. What do rest of you think about how accurate that was?
Amazing vision is true. Narcissist is true. Compassionate and Steve Jobs don't belong in the same sentence. He rejected his own daughter for many years - but he secretly admitted it (the Lisa computer). Pirates of Silicon Valley + feedback from Woz + Gates on the movie is worthwhile to understand Steve, as is Issacson's biography on Steve Jobs. I have very mixed feelings on the man.
- Steve Jobs' biographer wrote a book last year called "Innovators" which I found to be one of the best works I have read: http://www.amazon.com/Innovators-Hackers-Geniuses-Created-Revolution/dp/147670869X
- Robert X. Cringely's book "Accidential Empires" is definitely dated but you can read most of the chapters on his blog here: http://www.cringely.com/tag/accidental-empires/
- Cringely also did a three part special back in the 90s that I like revisiting every once in a while. Again, pretty dated but entertaining nevertheless: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuBXbvl1Sg4
- Skip the newer Steve Jobs movies and watch the history of Apple and Microsoft with Pirates of Silicon Valley. It's said to be mostly accurate: http://www.veoh.com/watch/v46093745wbEGkakh
- Kind of random but if you want a look back at what the 90s tech bubble was like then watch Startup.com: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibuiUXOTE4M
Highly recommended (though the Gary Kildall bit is very short):
- A movie: Pirates of Silicon Valley (https://youtu.be/BI-nzUIYIX4)
- A documentary: Triumph of the Nerds (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLudrw8Z7-gFa7Is4YZitOF7-AfLl2u8IA)
- Not involving Gary Kildall, but about open source, gnu, and linux: Revolution OS: (https://youtu.be/fxjElWL8igo)
"Pirates of Silicon Valley" is such a great film. It's even funny and the true story is told in a nice way.
Cringely's "The Triumph of the Nerds" documentary is great too (which lead to the "Pirates of Silicon Valley" film).
The only other awesome documentary style film about the computer age (that I know of) is David Fincher's "The Social Network". Sony Pictures tried get David Fincher to direct a new "Steve Jobs" movie (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2080374/) based on a screenplay written by Aaron Sorkin (same team as "The Social Network") but then something went terrible wrong (http://variety.com/2014/film/news/leaked-sony-emails-reveal-nasty-exchanges-and-insults-1201375511/). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs_(film)
Steve Jobs and Bill Gates also capitalized on someone else's idea. The "idea" is just one factor on a very complex equation.
Take a look at this great movie "Pirates of Silicon Valley"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirates_of_Silicon_Valley
When I was a little kid, I watched Pirates of Silicon Valley (1999) a bajillion times. Great soundtrack – love the In a Gadda da Vida scene –, editing and overall mood. That movie might be the cause for my obsession with all things HN.
Although No Time from The Guess Who still makes me extremely anxious.
Read this:
* Bill Gates's memoir/vision book, The Road Ahead (1995)
* Paul Allen's memoir book, Idea Man: A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft (2011)
Watch this:
* Pirates of Silicon Valley TV movie (funny but accurate, based on Triumph of the Nerds interviews)
* Triumph of the Nerds (TV docu, 1996, by R. Cringely)
* Nerds 2.0.1 (TV docu, 1998, by R. Cringely)
It's not knee-jerk hate. He was a business genius, but a fairly rotten person. The latter is why a lot of people don't like him. To see why, read about his behavior at Apple, his daughter Lisa, and check out the movie Pirates of Silicon Valley which gives a taste of both.
Doesn't surprise me. I don't think anyone with mainstream popularity will take this role. It's been beaten to death. Pirates of Silicon Valley, Jobs, and countless documentaries. Bill Burr has some poignant thoughts on the topic too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmbwR9J6-Yw
I tend to agree with you on this after having watched the first two episodes, but I'm keeping an open mind (I'm still keen to see what happens, so it hasn't lost me just yet).
The show just seems like this really weird combination where on the one hand it tries to be ultra-realistic (hey look here's a TED talk; here's something else mentioned in the netsphere! <insert other random SV/HN/tech cultural reference/buzzwords just because>) but then you have that stupid premise about the company inventing some kind of magically-impossible compression algorithm. Plus I think it was far too quick to show it's cards; BIG COMPANY vs LITTLE COMPANY?!?! REALLY WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT THAT?!?!
Maybe I don't get the humor either but I can't decide whether the show is actually trying to be a comedy or a drama. It definitely seems much more like a drama to me. I remember genuinely laughing more at parts of 'Pirates of Silicon Valley'.
Sneakers is a one of my favorite old movies. Have to give props to the above mentioned Pirates of Silicon Valley also.
I recently watched this movie (again) and can confirm that this is correct. Even though _Pirates of Silicon Valley_ also skims over a lot of stuff, it's a far better movie and way more factual.
I really enjoyed Pirates of Silicon Valley, which covers the early history of Microsoft and Apple.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0168122/
Since I've written so much about this topic now and gotten carried away I will say that for someone new to the field of Steve Jobs Studies, the best introductory sources are the Isaacson biography and Pirates of Silicon Valley (movie) in my opinion. In fact I could order them like iTunes does for genres of music:
Essentials: Books: Steve Jobs (Isaacson), General Apple Narratives Movies: Pirates of Silicon Valley, JOBS (Kutcher movie - haven't seen)
Next Steps: Books: The Second Coming of Steve Jobs (Deutschman), From Pepsi to Apple (Sculley), iWoz (Wozniak) Movies: Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview; Famous Keynote Moments
Deep Cuts: Books: My 500 Days at Apple (Amelio), A Regular Guy (Simpson), The Bite in the Apple (Brennan) Movies: 1984 Mac Introduction, 1985 NeXT Brainstorming Documentary, NeXT Videos, Other Long Form Interviews, 1997 MacWorld Fireside Chat, More Obscure Keynotes
In the field of Steve Jobs Studies we're so lucky to have several pivotal figures write books (Simpson, Brennan, Wozniak, Sculley) but for the genre to really shine we still need a more comprehensive professional narrative. It's time someone wrote a purely business book set from 1976 through 2011 that didn't get sidetracked on outside-of-work personal issues. It would probably need to be about 1000 pages!
I second your comments on Pirates of Silicon Valley. I always thought it was a spoof, but it's actually quite a good film - it's definitely a lot better than the new Jobs movie ... it gives you much better insight to what sort of man Steve Jobs was (good and bad).
One of the things that stood out from the movie was just how much Microsoft "stole" from Apple. I'm not making that comment as flame bait - it's common knowledge that Microsoft copied Apple ... but I didn't realise that Jobs gave Gates the actual computers before they were released ... including operating system and all.. It gives you an understanding of just how much copying actually happened.
Two sides to the same coin: Gates was most probably the more shrewd operator, but with little tech skills - he bested Steve Jobs who was much more of a visionary, but let his guard down with Bill Gates, and paid the penalty.
heh. i just watched Pirates of Silicon Valley the other day. Such a good movie. Gave me a lot of perspective on both Microsoft and Apple.
would suck to see Bill go. But I guess it will have to happen sooner or later. Idk how much he influences direction any more anyway.
We really need a Pirates of Silicon Valley 2. Unbeknownst to the film's creators, the movie ended just as things got interesting :)
I saw pirates of silicon valley a few years ago. I'd say that was the only movie to really get me excited about being in tech/silicon valley. The Social Network didn't even have close to the same effect for me.
I still really want to see it. I've just watched all the Steve Jobs documentaries on Netflix and I love Pirates of Silicon Valley.
Can't find details of when or if it's coming to the UK...
For a better film concerning the same topic, try pirates of silicon valley.
Its a bit old, but quite good.
Something that people forget about Steve Jobs was he was also a film producer. The films he produced at Pixar were in retrospect in the "timeless classics" category that appealed to a broad audience. On the flip side the Jobs film is more of a "story of the moment" that was rushed out quickly to capitalize on our recent memory of his death. And that to me is a very cheap thing, which is very un-Jobs like. Although in reality I suspect he wouldn't have taken the film too seriously if he were still alive judging by his good humored reaction to the Pirates of Silicon Valley film.
From the trailers & preview material I was worried the movie might be deceptive. Specifically the scenes with Woz and Jobs in the parking lot and later in the office. In an interview Wozniak said the parking lot conversation never took place and got the underlying feelings incorrect. That made me jump to the conclusion that the preview's portrayal of the office scene where Woz leaves Apple would be equally misleading. In context it is actually much more believable.
I was surprised by the technical accuracy (ha, what do I know?) and so I feel much better about recommending it to people who show interest.
There were parts that I enjoyed more than Pirates of Silicon valley, but also times when it felt long. Music was used to okay effect, but also drawn out.
Movie Spoiler: There is no recent history portrayed in the film.
Edit: A couple more thoughts. Contrary to the inaccuracies between Jobs and Wozniak mentioned above (and as noted in the linked article) the movie did accurately give Wozniak credit for doing the engineering on Breakout (and getting shortchanged in the process) which I felt was important.
The movie only really covers Jobs at Apple, a bit of University and family, so if you are interested in NeXT/Pixar/etc. you may be disappointed.
I don't think Woz needs the money, and every clip I've seen of the Kutcher film feels like a bad made-for-tv movie. And what's sad is that the Pirates of Silicon Valley movie was made for TV and looks superior in every way.
Yes.
More to the point, Woz has approved of the way people were portrayed in "Pirates of Silicon Valley", including himself.
"It's funny, but even with all the things that aren't said outright, a great number of people, like yourself, saw a lot of things in that movie that are totally true. The personalities were very accurately portrayed."
"The personalities and incidents are accurate in the sense that they all occured but they are often with the wrong parties (Bill Fernandez, Apple employee #4, was with me and the computer that burned up in 1970) and at the wrong dates (when John Sculley joined, he had to redirect attention from the Apple III, not the Mac, to the Apple ][ ) and places (Homebrew Computer Club was at Stanford Linear Accelerator Center)."
http://www.woz.org/taxonomy/term/2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirates_of_Silicon_Valley
I like that you ask for mindfck movies. They definitely hold a special place in my heart. A lot of the entries here have been very sci-fi. I tend to like more historical or present-day dramas with great acting that expose some sort of undesirable human behavior, but I snuck a sci-fi movie on the list ;). You can't take the nerd out of the cinephile!
There Will Be Blood - No "great movie" list is complete without a movie that stars Daniel Day Lewis. Go watch all his movies if you want to see what it's like to take acting to the extreme.
(M) The Spanish Prisoner - Probably my favorite suspense movie, along with a Hitchcock or two like Vertigo or Rear Window. This is one of David Mamet's best, in my opinion. All these random things happen in the beginning of the movie that make you question why they bothered mentioning them, and then the catalytic action ties it all together expertly.
Pirates of Silicon Valley - This is the lightest contribution on the list, but probably the most relevant to HN. For what it's worth, both Woz and Bill Gates have described their portrayals as fairly accurate.
Alien - Definitely plays out more like a space horror film than an action movie like the sequels, the acting and suspense is fantastic, not to mention the costume work that went into the alien on the part of HR Giger (if you want a true mindfck, skip the movies and go read his website--terrifying).
Grave of the Fireflies - I wanted to include an animated film on my list, but I really had trouble deciding between Interstella 5555 (Daft Punk's Discovery set to an anime with no talking whatsoever. Great concept) and a Pixar movie (personal favorite: Up). I went with this because I figured you've probably seen Pixar movies. Grave of the Fireflies is a super depressing Ghibli film about the aftermath of the Kobe fire bombings in WW2. The way the movie shows the horrible living conditions and bleak outcomes of the two main characters (the boy is in his early teens and his sister must be around 4 or 5--I can't recall). The movie manipulates your emotions more than any other film I've included on this list. I don't think I've ever had as strong an emotional reaction to a movie as when I saw this one.
Wow, Bill Gates thinks his portrayal in Pirates of Silicon Valley was very accurate (http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/18bhme/im_bill_gates_cochair_of_the_bill_melinda_gates/c8ddpwq?context=3).
Even Woz had said that the film accurately portrayed all the personalities.
However, we should appreciate Bill for his honesty. He is not shown in good light in that movie.
I'm disappointed in that unlike The Social Network, which had no other film as a reference to compare to, this film already has Pirates of Silicon Valley as a precedent. While Jobs didn't care for the film, Woz thought:
"The personalities and incidents are accurate in the sense that they all occurred but they are often with the wrong parties (Bill Fernandez, Apple employee #4, was with me and the computer that burned up in 1970) and at the wrong dates (when John Sculley joined, he had to redirect attention from the Apple III,not the Mac, to the Apple II) and places (Homebrew Computer Club was at Stanford Linear Accelerator Center) ... the personalities were very accurately portrayed." (http://www.woz.org/taxonomy/term/2)
That was very inspirational. Just when you start to feel the lull of success -- that's when you need to kick it up another notch. It is definitely a buzz kill hearing all of that, but this is exactly how it is. Complacency kills your company.
>The reason you’ll see new iPhone hardware in the fall and yet another iPad come spring is because Steve Jobs knew that he didn’t just need to out-design his competition, he needed to out-execute them.
There was a scene dedicated to the moment Steve Jobs learned this lesson in the movie Pirates of Silicon Valley (my preferred way of remembering Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Steve Ballmer). I don't know if things actually happened that way, but Bill made it pretty clear when Steve said "we're better than you" that "that doesn't matter."
These are some movies/tv series that I deeply enjoyed and (some I) wish I had known about earlier.
9.9 Hitchhiker's guide to the universe, BBC TV series
9.9 Contact (1997) based on a novel by Carl Sagan. Very few people seem to know about this movie.
9.3 War Games
9.0 most Akiro Kurosawa movies:
Seven Samurai
High & Low
The Bad Sleep Well
Ikiru
Red Beard
9.0 Terminator 1 (watch again)
8.8 Terminator 2 (watch again)
8.7 Pirates of Silicon Valley
8.7 Matrix 1 (watch again)
8.7 The Italian Job (featuring Napster's original inventor)
8.7 Live Free or Die Hard
8.5 Track Down or Takedown (about social hacker Kevin Mitnick)
8.5 Revolution OS (2001)
8.5 Dr. Strangelove
8.5 2010 A space odyssey
8.3 Antitrust (2001)
8.3 Sneakers
8.3 COSMOS
8.2 Minority Report
8.2 2001 A space odyssey
8.2 Paycheck (2003)
8.0 The Thirteenth Floor (1999)
8.0 The Net
I thought they already made a Steve Jobs movie called "Pirates of Silicon Valley"?
Alexander Armstrong did an amazing job. If not already done so, check out the pirates of silicon valley.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0168122/
Wow. While people like to paint Steve Jobs as sort of a one dimensional character ("Pirates of Silicon Valley" is a good example) he's actually fascinating in large part, I think, because he's really an enigma-- clearly brilliant and has accomplished so much, while being such an iconoclast. This is why attempts to portray him one dimensionally (like the book behind this movie, for instance) fail so miserably. People instinctively know he didn't create greatness simply by running around and being an asshole or lying to everyone.
This is the kind of role, that if handled by an actor with serious chops (and lets face it, I think about %50 of that is going to be having a good director) it could be a career making role with an oscar award attached.
While I like Kutcher as a person, respect his support for startups, I also recognize he's more of a social media celebrity, whose got comedic timing, but hasn't yet shown (or maybe had the opportunity to show) significant dramatic chops. Its quite possible he's got them, and he's suffered from being type cast. (Remember how Demi broke the mold by playing GI Jane... but then that also seemed to end her career.)
Sometimes unexpected actors can do great-- Tom Cruise in Born on the Fourth of July was a surprise to me, but I credit Oliver Stone for that one. The other example I can think of is Woody Harrelson in Natural Born Killers.
Harrelson's previous career was on TV as the good guy midwesterner kid, but Oliver Stone said "I saw something evil in his eyes."
I really don't think of Ashton Kutcher as having the necessary chops for this role (and the source material is itself so half assed and shallow that the project is starting from behind already.) This runs a very real risk of being of TV Movie-of-the-week quality.
I hope they get a great director and some serious work on the script, and that Kutcher dedicates himself to the role.
I'd love to see a biopic of Steve Jobs as on the nose as Val Kilmer's portrayal of Jim Morrison in The Doors. (Which is another Oliver Stone movie, but I promise you I'm not obsessed with Oliver Stone, he just handles this kind of material really well.)
Edit- I missed the part that this isn't based on Isaacson's work. So, whether the source material will be week (like almost everything written about Jobs since he didn't give people a lot of access) or not is open to question.
Also, as dlf notes, Kutcher was in The Guardian where he played a dramatic role, and did a damn fine job. I'd forgotten about that movie... But that convinces me that Kutcher has the potential to do a brilliant Jobs performance. Lets just how the script is good and the director is strong.
Key quote:
"A lot of people are saying [about Daisey] 'Oh you didn't experience this yourself,'" Wozniak continued, "but in his style of art he's trying to help the audience experience these things. I never expected the show to be real. The 'Pirates of Silicon Valley' [the film about the early rivalry between Apple and Microsoft] was not completely accurate. How could it be? But the movie is very true in the way that matters most."
What I do like about this is that you can't just dismiss an argument, or a representation, because it makes a couple of mistakes. You can usually form a model of it with the errors removed and see what's left. As an argument it can continue to persuade and compel you.
What I don't like about this is that journalists are operating on the front line of history, and introducing deliberate falsehoods is like rewriting history. If they're not exposed, they might sit there, wrong, forever.
Thrown into this, eyewitnesses are notoriously unreliable and will rewrite their own reflections mentally as they recall, on the slightest provocation. So it's important to know how far to trust but verify eyewitnesses.
I would put Daisey firmly in camp B, liar, and his argument firmly in camp A, truthy if not completely accurate.
The myth I'm referring to is that if you speak to geeks about the inception of the home computer, people often claim Apple and/or specifically Woz created either the first one, or the first mass market one.
To give a concrete example: Movies such as Pirates of Silicon Valley which presented the first West Coast Computer Fayre as some sort of triumph for Apple where people where flocking to their stand, when contemporary accounts, including press accounts, makes it clear that the big attention was around Commodore at the time, and attention for Apple was lackluster at best.
That Apple deserved credit for making it big later is not in dispute, but we're talking about history here.
And they receive far too much credit for their purported impact in the early years, when they were selling an over-priced (for the market at the time) product in tiny quantities while other people and other companies were laying the groundwork for the home computer market.
Really? Wow. I remember a spin-off of this in that terrible movie "Pirates of Silicon Valley," but in that scene the plane had started taxiing and Gates convinced the employees at the gate to call the pilot and have them turn back.
Robert X. Cringely has two documentaries that cheered me up a lot: Triumph of the Nerds and Nerds 2.0.1. There's also Pirates of Silicon Valley.
There are also two movies documenting the creation of Linux and open source (I forget the names right now) that you might want to look into.
Sony is reportedly looking into producing a film based on the book. Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, who wrote the script for Academy Award-winning "The Social Network," is said to have been approached regarding the project.
I was waiting for a "Social Network"-esque movie announcement. This is the first hint. When I said that people would be reacting to Steve's death for weeks and weeks when the news broke my classmates didn't believe me.
This movie would be extremely hard to execute accurately, at least much more so than a movie about Facebook, which is barely historical. Granted it can't be worse than "Pirates of Silicon Valley." I wish people would just settle down with the tributes.
Hopefully the choice in host will result in a focus the documentary on "garage" days with Woz.
On the subjects of cable specials, I REALLY hope TNT will make a sequel to "Pirates of Silicon Valley" soon!
I (along with countless other people) lost a hero today.
Steve Jobs was the person who inspired me to join the tech industry. I first really knew who Steve Jobs was after watching the (not so bad) made-for-tv movie "Pirates of Silicon Valley." I always knew I wanted to work with technology but after seeing that movie I knew I wanted to be part of the Silicon Valley culture that Steve helped create. Steve has inspired me for years and I am extremely sad about this loss. We will all miss him dearly.
RIP Steve Jobs
For those who can't remember, Noah played Steve Jobs in the infamous "Pirates of Silicon Valley" 1999 movie.
Pirates of Silicon Valley is a great movie. Noah Wyle makes a great Steve Jobs.
Not a documentary, but http://folklore.org is an incredible resource of true stories in Apple when they were starting out.
Also not a documentary (and exaggerated in parts), but I've always had a soft spot for Pirates of Silicon Valley. It's a good watch.
>>Also, how do cases like Steve Jobs and Harry Osborn occur where they are removed from their own company?
Check out the movie 'Pirates of Silicon Valley' - its about Apple and Microsoft and shows how Steve Jobs got fired.
Go watch Pirates of Silicon Valley. The movie is surprisingly good and pretty accurate (for a movie).
I love stuff like this. I get so inspired when I see "Pirates of Silicon Valley" or "Revenge of the nerds" or any other movie/documentary about computer history. Please tell me if there's any other good computer history movies/documentaries!
This was the first thing I thought of when I read the article. Do you think they don't get the reference to the movie?
P.S. This is a grab from a movie called "The Pirates of Silicon Valley." This guy is supposed to be Steve Jobs and he's interviewing a guy in a suit who works for IBM.
I can't find the quote; but this was funny -- From wikipedia:
Steve Jobs indirectly commented on the film during a practical joke at the 1999 Macworld Expo. This involved actor Noah Wyle (who portrays Jobs in the film). Wyle impersonates Jobs during the keynote speech, something which only becomes apparent when Jobs himself appears on the stage (to the wild applause of the audience). He corrects Wyle's interpretation of him and tells the audience that he "invited [Wyle] here today so he could see how I really act and plus because he's a better me than me." Wyle responds, "Thank you, thank you, I'm just glad you're not mad about the movie." Jobs laughs and states, "What? Me upset? Hey it's just a movie. But you know if you do want to make things right you could get me a little part on E.R." Then as Noah Wyle goes away, he turns and asks Steve "Are you still a virgin?" quoting a part of the film where Steve asks this to a guy who is being interviewed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirates_of_Silicon_Valley
A poor list. I would recommend 'Pirates of Silicon Valley' for anyone interested in a dramatisation of the intertwined histories of Apple and Microsoft (honestly, it's better than it sounds...): http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0168122/
while Pirates of Silicon valley was a cool movie, it wasn't exactly a good recount of the whole affair. In fact, Microsoft really mostly took their idea from the same exact place Apple did, Xerox. They even hired many Xerox employees to work on Windows.
Jobs seems incapable of believing that two companies can come up with similar products at the same time. The iPhone did not include any technology not already available elsewhere. It was the package as a whole that made it innovative.
The movie The Pirates of Silicon Valley does a pretty good job of telling this story.
No, because jobs has been around longer and pirates of silicon valley movie, i actually like jobs more. However, from an intellectual standpoint i think bezos is the better man for consumers.
This event is featured in the tv movie 'Pirates of Silicon Valley', if I remember correctly.
"Just tell me it’s not Google," Ballmer reportedly said according to court documents (for a case surrounding another Google ex-Microsoft hire). When Lucovsky said it was Google, Ballmer allegedly picked up a chair and threw it across the room.
What he apparently said next, will live on forever in Internet history.
"Fucking Eric Schmidt is a fucking pussy. I’m going to fucking bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I’m going to fucking kill Google."
Anyone else remember the old TNT made-for-TV movie Pirates of Silicon Valley? This kind of melodrama always reminds me of it.
You already had the best (Primer) After that, in no particular order:
Sneakers. Brilliant film.
Hackers - I think it's old enough now to be allowed but it was really laughable at the time - in the kind of way swordfish will be almost respected 20 years from now.
Wargames is the Hackers of the early 80s.
Pirates of Silicon Valley is also worth a watch.
Three Days of the Condor is a fantastic film if you're even slightly old school.
The nines is one of those films you'll either get and love or won't - I loved it.
Battle Royale is an amazing film that happens to have some hacking in it.
2001 is the ultimate hacker film, even though there's not much that you could associate hacking with it. The way it's put together, the dedication to realism, the way the special effects were implemented a year before man went to the moon defines it as a hacker film for me, although YMMV.
Antitrust: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0218817/
Pirates of Silicon Valley: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0168122/
Bill Gates managed to walk into IBM, tell them that Microsoft had an operating system to sell, retained ownership and received royalties on said software, yet didn’t once give away that he had nothing. That’s right, he didn’t have a single line of code to offer up on the chopping block. This feat lead to one of the greatest wealths in history.
This is totally wrong. This is the part taken from "Pirates of Silicon Valley", that movie was a work of fiction. IBM always knew Gates was buying QDOS from Tim Patterson of Seattle Computers. It is just that IBM couldn't strike a deal with Tim Patterson for QDOS or Gary Kildall for CP/M. Gates comes into picture, assures IBM that he would buy the OS from Seattle Computers, improve it and license it to IBM for a low fees. IBM didn't have any problems with that, as they never saw software as an integral part of a computer (They were all hardware companies).
Well, it _does_ help to have sociopathic tendencies. BTW did he ever acknowledge that the child he fathered was indeed his daughter? From the movie "Pirates of Silicon Valley" I got the idea he wouldn't even _acknowledge_ his child for years.
Must be great to have a dad like that.
1. Wargames. 2. Pirates of Silicon Valley. 3. Aardvark (cool documentary)
Dont forget:
- Forbin project ~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus:_The_Forbin_Project
- E-Money with Cringely ~ http://www.pbs.org/opb/electricmoney
- Nerds 2.0.1: with Cringely ~ http://www.pbs.org/opb/
- NerdTV: Cringely interviews ... ~ http://www.pbs.org/nerdtv/
- Doug Englebart Mother of all Demos ~ http://ross.typepad.com/blog/2005/06/doug_englebart_.html
- More Doug Englebart ~ http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8734787622017763097
SEEN
- Startup.com: 9/10: How things get all messed up b/w friends in startups, 'lets get to work'.
- Revolution OS: 8/10: Nerdy interviews with the GNU, Linux & Free software movement. Worth it to see Bruce Perens hair & Eric Raymonds 'we are your worst nightmare' speech to an MS exec in a lift.
- Pirates of Silicon Valley ~ 8/10: Very funny take on Gates, Woz & Jobs http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0168122
- The Triumph of the Nerds ~ 7.5/10: Cringley doing his stuff with web1.0 startups. Great to see Joe Kraus with Excite ~ http://www.pbs.org/nerds
- Apollo 13; 7/10: Brings back memories of my childhood & Apollo missions. Not long after I got this on DVD I got to see Jack Schmitt talk (last man on the moon). Best bit was on how they handled the complexity.
- The Fog of War ~ 7/10: Robert McNamara, how smart people can get fooled http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fog_of_War
- Walking with Dinosaurs: 7/10: Ok
- E-Dreams: 6.5/10: Dark, gritty and how did they get all that money?
- Project Aardvark ~ 6/10: Uneventful, nerdy guys building co-pilot ~ http://www.copilot.com/