9 ms·

Anytime Woz comes up, I can't help but think of this sentence that he wrote, way back on Google+, sometime in 2013, after the release of the Jobs film: "And wh

by Arjuna 6y ago

Anytime Woz comes up, I can't help but think of this sentence that he wrote, way back on Google+, sometime in 2013, after the release of the Jobs film: "And when Jobs (in the movie, but really a board does this) denied stock to the early garage team (some not even shown) I'm surprised that they chose not to show me giving about $10M of my own stock to them because it was the right thing. And $10M was a lot in that time."

jagged-chisel 6y ago
I had the same disappointment when I watched. I thought it would have been a splendid bit of drama ...
- uniqueid 6y ago
  "Pirates of Silicon Valley" is the only Apple docu-drama that actually cared about the docu- part. https://youtu.be/L4zE7WGfnuw https://youtu.be/L4zE7WGfnuw
  - baryphonic 6y ago
    Such a good movie. I have a copy on my machine, and I'm sometimes sad that it's a 4x3 analog cable TV broadcast before HD. On the other hand, the fact that it's so good despite the constraints speaks to how well made it was.
    - LeonM 6y ago
      The Pirates of Silicon valley DVD was the first item I've ever bought on Amazon. This was circa 2001, I was 15 and living in Europe. Ordering something from the US over the internet and having it delivered 2 weeks later was very exciting back then. I also had to 'hack' my DVD player to circumvent the region lock. Anyway, my point being is: there is a 572p 16:9 version available on DVD.
      - BuildTheRobots 6y ago
        I wonder if it's a real 16:9 version or if they just cropped the top and bottom off the 4:3 cut. Some early DVDs had a lot of love put into their production, some others did pretty heinous things to the source material though.
    - emteycz 6y ago
      Perhaps we could remaster it using machine learning?
  - 29athrowaway 6y ago
    I think the ending aged like milk, i.e.: "Steve Jobs capitulating to Microsoft". First of all, it's simply a mischaracterization, and second, today we interpret that moment very differently to the way it's portrayed in that movie. Steve Jobs turned Apple around spectacularly and went on to create the company with the highest market capitalization in the world, surpassing even Microsoft for many years. Other than the ending, that documentary does a better job representing Steve Jobs' life than recent biographical movies. There should be a documentary that covers Steve's life in his NeXT years.
    - mnky9800n 6y ago
      I think that is a fair criticism in retrospect. I also think that the ending was exactly on point with where people thought Apple and Microsoft were going at the time the movie was filmed and released (1999 release). I would love to see a documentary about NeXT. I feel like there is a missing component in the YouTube technology discussion which is actual documentary films. If you go and look up NeXT computers, there are people talking about something they bought on ebay, there is old footage of steve jobs pitching next computers, but there isn't any sort of scripted narrative documentary told via old footage, current interviews, etc. This is true basically across the space of technology videos on youtube. It's not limited to NeXT. Ironically, I made something like this for scientific models. Maybe if I want this, I should hunt down people willing to tell stories on camera and make it myself. lol.
      - namdnay 6y ago
        > there isn't any sort of scripted narrative documentary told via old footage, current interviews, etc. I suspect this is because of the economics of youtube. I don't think there is enough money in it for niche documentaries to be profitable. Either it's quick cheap solo stuff, or it's big documentaries but with a nice broad appeal (e.g. Vice or food stuff)
        mnky9800n 6y ago
        Yeah I thought about that. I never thought about monetizing it because you could take lots of found footage from youtube anyways and then build a narrative from additional interviews. I guess it requires so much effort that it ends up becoming a job though.
fiftyacorn 6y ago
The scene was just showing what a dick Steve Jobs was I dont think Woz's actions would have lowered your opinion any more on Jobs
ChrisRR 6y ago
It always makes me sad that Wozniak, the real brains behind the operation get completely ignored in favour of Jobs who was just a salesman. Similarly to Dennis Ritchie who worked on the C programming language and Unix, and dies a week after Jobs gets completely ignored and yet arguably has had more impact than someone who's just known for arguing about tech not being pretty enough
- jimbokun 6y ago
  Not as famous as Jobs, but still well known and probably more beloved. Woz is kind of a living patron saint of engineers. > someone who's just known for arguing about tech not being pretty enough If you think that's all Jobs did, I don't know what to tell you. He is in the running for most successful businessman in history.
  - icedchai 6y ago
    Young folks probably don't remember how close Apple was to dying in the late 90's. It was bad. Jobs is directly responsible for that huge turnaround.
    - danmg 6y ago
      Jobs created the initial problem by undermining the Apple 2 GS.
      - bitwize 6y ago
        Jobs had a long-term vision in the future of Apple as a consumer electronics company, as opposed to a techie company. The explosive growth of Apple in the 2000s and 2010s would never have happened if Apple hadn't matured out of being the company that made the Apple II line.
        danmg 6y ago
        Computer companies getting into consumer electronics is a result of average consumers wanting devices that behave more like and interact with computers. It's not the result of some messianic insight that no other company had. We can't speculate on what a Apple Prime would have done without Jobs. But we do know that his single mindedness about making arbitrary changes cost them several years in the 80s and led to the slump in to the 90s.
randcraw 6y ago
A better film than "Jobs" is the documentary "Steve Jobs Man in the Machine", free to see at: https://www.documentarymania.com/player.php?title=Steve%20Jobs%20Man%20in%20the%20Machine https://www.documentarymania.com/player.php?title=Steve%20Jo... Mentioned in the CNN doc is the trick Jobs played on Woz in their first business deal. Jobs told Woz that Atari had paid them $700 to build the game Breakout and paid him half, or $350. But in fact Atari had paid them $7000, not $700. Yet even after learning this, Woz continued working with Jobs and later co-found Apple. That says a lot about both men.

by Arjuna 6y ago

jagged-chisel 6y ago

I had the same disappointment when I watched. I thought it would have been a splendid bit of drama ...

uniqueid 6y ago
"Pirates of Silicon Valley" is the only Apple docu-drama that actually cared about the docu- part. https://youtu.be/L4zE7WGfnuw https://youtu.be/L4zE7WGfnuw
- baryphonic 6y ago
  Such a good movie. I have a copy on my machine, and I'm sometimes sad that it's a 4x3 analog cable TV broadcast before HD. On the other hand, the fact that it's so good despite the constraints speaks to how well made it was.
  - LeonM 6y ago
    The Pirates of Silicon valley DVD was the first item I've ever bought on Amazon. This was circa 2001, I was 15 and living in Europe. Ordering something from the US over the internet and having it delivered 2 weeks later was very exciting back then. I also had to 'hack' my DVD player to circumvent the region lock. Anyway, my point being is: there is a 572p 16:9 version available on DVD.
    - BuildTheRobots 6y ago
      I wonder if it's a real 16:9 version or if they just cropped the top and bottom off the 4:3 cut. Some early DVDs had a lot of love put into their production, some others did pretty heinous things to the source material though.
  - emteycz 6y ago
    Perhaps we could remaster it using machine learning?
- 29athrowaway 6y ago
  I think the ending aged like milk, i.e.: "Steve Jobs capitulating to Microsoft". First of all, it's simply a mischaracterization, and second, today we interpret that moment very differently to the way it's portrayed in that movie. Steve Jobs turned Apple around spectacularly and went on to create the company with the highest market capitalization in the world, surpassing even Microsoft for many years. Other than the ending, that documentary does a better job representing Steve Jobs' life than recent biographical movies. There should be a documentary that covers Steve's life in his NeXT years.
  - mnky9800n 6y ago
    I think that is a fair criticism in retrospect. I also think that the ending was exactly on point with where people thought Apple and Microsoft were going at the time the movie was filmed and released (1999 release). I would love to see a documentary about NeXT. I feel like there is a missing component in the YouTube technology discussion which is actual documentary films. If you go and look up NeXT computers, there are people talking about something they bought on ebay, there is old footage of steve jobs pitching next computers, but there isn't any sort of scripted narrative documentary told via old footage, current interviews, etc. This is true basically across the space of technology videos on youtube. It's not limited to NeXT. Ironically, I made something like this for scientific models. Maybe if I want this, I should hunt down people willing to tell stories on camera and make it myself. lol.
    - namdnay 6y ago
      > there isn't any sort of scripted narrative documentary told via old footage, current interviews, etc. I suspect this is because of the economics of youtube. I don't think there is enough money in it for niche documentaries to be profitable. Either it's quick cheap solo stuff, or it's big documentaries but with a nice broad appeal (e.g. Vice or food stuff)
      - mnky9800n 6y ago
        Yeah I thought about that. I never thought about monetizing it because you could take lots of found footage from youtube anyways and then build a narrative from additional interviews. I guess it requires so much effort that it ends up becoming a job though.

fiftyacorn 6y ago

The scene was just showing what a dick Steve Jobs was I dont think Woz's actions would have lowered your opinion any more on Jobs

ChrisRR 6y ago

It always makes me sad that Wozniak, the real brains behind the operation get completely ignored in favour of Jobs who was just a salesman. Similarly to Dennis Ritchie who worked on the C programming language and Unix, and dies a week after Jobs gets completely ignored and yet arguably has had more impact than someone who's just known for arguing about tech not being pretty enough

jimbokun 6y ago
Not as famous as Jobs, but still well known and probably more beloved. Woz is kind of a living patron saint of engineers. > someone who's just known for arguing about tech not being pretty enough If you think that's all Jobs did, I don't know what to tell you. He is in the running for most successful businessman in history.
- icedchai 6y ago
  Young folks probably don't remember how close Apple was to dying in the late 90's. It was bad. Jobs is directly responsible for that huge turnaround.
  - danmg 6y ago
    Jobs created the initial problem by undermining the Apple 2 GS.
    - bitwize 6y ago
      Jobs had a long-term vision in the future of Apple as a consumer electronics company, as opposed to a techie company. The explosive growth of Apple in the 2000s and 2010s would never have happened if Apple hadn't matured out of being the company that made the Apple II line.
      - danmg 6y ago
        Computer companies getting into consumer electronics is a result of average consumers wanting devices that behave more like and interact with computers. It's not the result of some messianic insight that no other company had. We can't speculate on what a Apple Prime would have done without Jobs. But we do know that his single mindedness about making arbitrary changes cost them several years in the 80s and led to the slump in to the 90s.

randcraw 6y ago

A better film than "Jobs" is the documentary "Steve Jobs Man in the Machine", free to see at: https://www.documentarymania.com/player.php?title=Steve%20Jobs%20Man%20in%20the%20Machine https://www.documentarymania.com/player.php?title=Steve%20Jo... Mentioned in the CNN doc is the trick Jobs played on Woz in their first business deal. Jobs told Woz that Atari had paid them $700 to build the game Breakout and paid him half, or $350. But in fact Atari had paid them $7000, not $700. Yet even after learning this, Woz continued working with Jobs and later co-found Apple. That says a lot about both men.