Pirates of Silicon Valley

Bonesaw thinks
this film is

Ratings Key

Disclaimer: 1) This article is taking the film verbatim. If parts of it are untrue, please disregard. 2) It's no secret around here where my evangelical loyalties lie; Steve Jobs is God. You could say I have a philosophical crush on him. Bill Gates is the 2nd coming of Satan incarnate.

This is the story of 2 guys that changed the world. Noah Wyle as Steve Jobs and Anthony Michael Hall as Bill Gates gave stellar performances as well as Joey Slotnick who played Steve Wozniak. The human parts of this film (as opposed to the historical technical/corporate parts) were the most fascinating for me. I already knew the story, hell I lived through and was personally effected by many parts of it. What I didn't know was the glimpse I got of the souls behind the intangible minds. It was like watching a Greek tragedy. The strange awe that Bill Gates is consumed by upon his first glimpse of Steve Jobs at a computer convention was the first time I've viewed Gates as human. The film shows a few of Gates' painful sufferings that would pulverize anyone's self-esteem like a "blender" (muahaha, I'm gonna leave that in, rosebud).

The relationship (or lack there of) between Jobs and Gates is cryptic and fascinating. Every rare moment that they are in the same room together the air crackles with electricity. I couldn't tell if they loved or hated each other half the time. Jobs was too inflated to notice the fleeting moments and impact he had on Gates. A strange thought ran through my mind. Is Gates the ultimate vengeful faux-postal worker? Or maybe a technological one-night stand gone rabid? I WILL NOT BE IGNORED STEVE!

The history of this film came into my life in the mid 80s when I was working at Citibank on Park Avenue South in Manhattan. It was a lush existance. De-centralized everything, money trees bearing fruit leaving piles of money to trip over everywhere, imported Italian marble in the lobbies, company credit cards all around, spend spend spend. I was writing fiendishly complex macros back then on an IBM using Microsoft Excel since I refused to use the archaic Lotus program. One day my supervisor pulled me into another cubicle across the floor. He sat me down and I met my first mouse. I was appalled. I typed over 100 words a minute, this was just going to slow me down. I and anyone who had a computer in their cubicle were told that we had one month to get used to it. New gear was coming in. After that, the IBM would be taken away and we'd have no choice. And sure enough, the next week, the entire floor as far as the eye could see had Mac's wheeled into their cubes. I was resistant for a day. I stared at it, circled it and poked at it, somehow knowing that it would change my life. By the end of the next day, I told them they could take the IBM now but I had to wait. We blew the power out in that skyscraper at least 6 times during that month. The building wasn't set up to handle 2 computers in every cube. Do you see how huge Apple was then? For a mega-corporation like Citibank to replace all of their computers with Macs? It was remarkable and I still to this day admire Citibank for making that decision. We were more productive and had great fun. I suddenly no longer felt like I worked for a bank; I worked on a Mac.

Contrasting my own experiences against the events of the movie is what made "Pirates" fun. Anyone who uses a computer on a daily basis could easily place their memories of this revolution within the context of the film.

My memories and overall vision of the battle between Apple and Microsoft was enhanced by a number key scenes. The following were some of my favorite moments from "Pirates:"

The historical Jobs keynote speech at Mac Expo in Boston a few years ago. I was working for a company at the time that I couldn't get away from for the expo. But Steve Jobs is coming back! He's giving the keynote speech! You have to let me go! They wouldn't and I didn't. BUT, they broadcast the speech live via Real Audio. I brought my headphones and attempted to work at the same time. Until I heard the crowd go ballistic. Apparently, a huge video screen had crept down behind Steve Jobs and Bill Gates was on it. I screamed. Everyone in the room with me jumped. I stuttered out what had happened and they rolled their eyes and left me to my misery. This very scene is depicted in the film.

Steve Wozniak talks to us during the filming of the famous 1984 commercial. It was great fun to see a dramatization of Ridley Scott directing the female marathon runner who lobs the sledgehammer into the big brother screen.

Steve Jobs has a consciousness altering experience on par with acid trips had by Hunter S. Thompson. He sees himself conducting a symphony in a wheat field. He saw his future. It all started out so promising. I'm still contemplating this. I don't understand how someone so ingenious and so enlightened could be so downright evil and cruel. I despise Steve Jobs' behavior in a few scenes. I now can't help but to think of him as yet another in my growing collection of evil geniuses. People whose vision and work I adore and admire and yet find some of their personal views and/or actions objectionable and even offensive.

The meetings, oh the meetings! Most of my fly on the wall dreams came true. Steve Balmer breaking through the 4th wall during the first introduction of DOS to the IBM executives. The bloated, fat-cat, executives in the Xerox meeting and how they were so utterly icked out by their first encounter with a mouse that they passed it down the executive line across the big table from one to the next, repulsed that they had to even touch it until it and the camera lands in front of the Grand Poobah. He snickers and wonders why in the hell the average consumer would ever want a computer?

For me, Pirates of Silicon Valley was very funny and heartfelt. The portrayal of the players seemed very true to form. Right down to the attitude of the redhead at Xerox Parc that was forced to demo the first graphical user interface for Jobs and his ragtag team of programming sorcerers.

If I take what I saw last night for true, I adore one and despise the other a little bit less.