Silicon Valley is full of arrogant geniuses who are eager to change the world with their products: such as Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk...
There are successful people everywhere, but there is a movie that specifically recordsoneA true story of doing the right thing at the wrong time and ultimately failing——《Universal Magic》(General Magic).
Silicon Valley Future FellowsPaul Sarver(Paul Saffo)Describe the film like this:
“Innovators always lose their way for a short time.”
IMDB gave this movie a rating of9.8,Rotten Tomatoes Freshness 100 %, 6 professional film criticsAverage score: 9 points, the comments below are full of touching.
▲ Click to enlarge
"Universal Magic"It is a Silicon Valley technology company founded in the early 1990s, and the title of the film directly uses the company name.
Their product is the forerunner of the iPhone.
The startup was originally spun off from Apple to focus on designing aMobile devices like smartphones.
becauseThinking too far ahead,Technology limitations,Management is unreliableandSales performance is terrible, "Universal Magic" ultimately failed.
Maybe becauseIt has a close connection with Jobs, or perhaps it opened the most legendary glorious era of Silicon Valley., this company is full of drama.
The film "General Magic" uses 90 minutes to record the true process of the company's ups and downs.Tribeca Film Festival, New YorkPremiered, it was rated as "The top ten films of this year's Tribeca Film Festival.
The film is composed of a large number of video materials from the 1990s. This is due to the fact that "General Magic" firmly believed that it could create history when it was first established, so it specially hired a filmmaker to record its development process with video at any time, so a large number of precious historical shots were preserved.
The film has a strong and star-studded guest lineup:
Marc Porat, Megan Smith, Andy Hertzfeld, Tony Fadell, Joanna Hoffman, John Sculley, Kevin Lynch…
And - Steve Jobs forever.
Let’s sort out the basic context of this story.
In 1983, he graduated from Stanford UniversityMarc PoratTogether with others, he founded a company called Private Satellite Network(PSN)ofSatellite video data transmission company.The company was later acquired by Apple, and Porat became an Apple employee.
▲Marc Porat
In the late 1980s, Apple launched an internal project called "Project ParadigmThe project aims to develop a "personal communication terminal product".
Later, software genius and Mac OS architectAndy HertzfeldAndy Hertzfeld andBill Atkinson(Bill Atkinson) joined the project, and the strategic position of Project Paradigm was elevated to a new level.
▲ Andy Hertzfeld (first from left), Bill Atkinson (second from left)
Different fromMotorola's "Big Brother" and the ones under developmentApple Newton PDA(Apple Newton), the goal of this project is——Put the powerful computing power of a PC into something you can carry aroundOn a handheld personal mobile terminal! (It’s a smartphone)
This idea was quite revolutionary at that time, soMarc Porat convinced the famousJohn Sculley(John Sculley), spun off this project into an independent company.
▲ Steve Jobs (left), John Sculley (right)
With $10 million in start-up funding from Apple,General MagicThe company was founded in 1990 in Mountain View, California, USA.
As the name suggests,The team behind "Universal Magic" calls themselves "magicians" and believes they are using computer technology to "perform magic" and turn impossible illusions into reality.——These lovely clips are all included in the movie.
This group of "geeks" proposed the "cloud"concept.
Their idea is that users can connect to the cloud in real time through their mobile devices and obtain the data and information they want anytime and anywhere. They gave such devices a name, called ""Crystal in the Palm"(PocketCrystal).
Although the company's project was still in the low-key research and development stage, by 1992, many industry media had begun to talk about it.
Hiding it all the time is not a solution. In 1993, General Magic faced the media for the first time and described its vision like a science fiction movie - allowing everyone to have a mobile terminal that can make calls and perform cloud computing anytime and anywhere, and also showed off its concept product.
Look carefully, it was 1993! PCs were not yet fully popular, no one dared to think of "personal mobile computer assistants", and concepts such as the Internet and e-mail were not even a thing, so this demonstration completely conquered the media and was a classic.
General Magic suddenly became the most watched technology startup in the United States. Once the arrow was shot, there was no turning back. They immediately announced their powerful business allies:The General Magic Alliance,These include computer, communications and hardware giants such as Apple, SONY and Motorola.
With the "dream team" of the technology industry, the support of powerful business allies, money to do whatever it wants, and most importantly, "hope", "General Magic" is at its peak.
Despite their popularity, they have never publicly released any serious products.
But within the company, a man namedTelescript EngineThe cloud computing system has begun to take shape.
Later they launched Magic Cap(Abbreviation for Magic Communicating Applications Platform)It is a user-level operating system developed based on Telescript.
To make it easier for everyone to understand and get started, Magic Cap uses graphics to divide the application into different scenes. I never thought that Mac OS was designed by the guys who drew these graphics.
Don’t be fooled by these ugly designs. In fact, this kind of graphical interface was quite popular in the technology circle in the 90s:Microsoft Bob A similar interface design was also used, but it was later criticized for being too ugly and gradually faded out of history.
"General Magic" only provides technical solutions, while "hardware allies" such as Sony and Motorola are responsible for realizing the products.
▲ SONY Magic Link
▲ Motorcycle Envoy
By tapping the touch-screen graphical interface with a pen, you can connect to the "cloud" to transmit information, arrange schedules, process documents, and even send and receive faxes directly.
However, the market has been lukewarm about this device for two reasons:
First, the retail price of the equipment is ridiculously expensive:The price of Magic Link is $995. You can imagine how difficult it is to sell a device worth nearly a thousand dollars.
Second, the network does not support:For the first two and a half years after purchasing the device, you can only use AT&T's PersonalLink There was no wireless network in the United States at that time, so most Magic Links needed to be connected to the Internet through a "modem" + telephone line, while others had to use the more expensive ARDIS cellular network.
Despite this, "General Magic" still comes with extremely high expectations.In 1995, the company went public with a grand ceremony after raising $600 million through an IPO.
At this time, the technology industry ushered in a dramatic reversal.The Internet is here!
Mosaic and Netscape, allowing people to experience for the first time what it was like to open the www world with a browser.
Because browsers are simpler, lighter, and cheaper, this makes General Magic's products seem both difficult to use and unsexy.
The capital market immediately turned to embrace the Internet.
At this time, General Magic began to lose support - co-founders Marc Porat and Bill Atkinson left, and those business partners who chose the Internet also left without saying goodbye.
What once seemed like a solid founding team and business alliance quickly fell apart.
To make matters worse, Palm released a new operating system and took over the Magic Cap market in a big way.
The fatal blow came: in early 1996, AT&T gave up completely PersonalLink, causing mobile terminals to lose the most important network support.
General Magic quickly turned around and started developing Internet products. Unfortunately, they had already missed the best opportunity in the Internet wave.
In 1997, the company was in financial crisis;After struggling for several years,2002Universal MagicOfficially declared bankruptcy.
Except for the in-car voice assistant OnStar they developed in the last few years, which was bought by General Motors, all other patents and assets were taken to the court for auction.
▲ OnStar, the last-minute life-saving product
"General Magic" is a popular trick used by tech companies"Do it too early and you will become a martyr"A typical example.
However,Although the company went bankrupt, it nurtured a whole generation of top Silicon Valley talentAfter leaving General Magic, many of these people became top leaders in the technology industry:
The head of product at General Magic, who later became the first female chief technology officer of the White HouseMegan SmithMegan Smith）;
Co-founder of AndroidAndy Rubin;
Founder of eBayPierre Omidyar;
Product manager for Apple's iPod and iPhoneTony Fadell——He basically returned to Apple to complete his previous work at "General Magic".
Andy Hertzfeld(Andy Hertzfeld)I won't introduce this great God any more...
▲ Woz and Andy
Forbes magazine once wrote thatGeneral Magic is "A great Silicon Valley company that died with honor,It laid the foundation for the rise of Silicon Valley.”
The most touching scene in the movie "Universal Magic" is Marc Porat took out the concept map of the "smartphone" designed by the team in the early 1990s and compared it with the iPhone, which simply touched the softest part of every geek's heart.
Magic(Magic, magic) - this word embodies the purest idealism of Silicon Valley. Now looking back at the story of this "failed" company, you will find thatNo one was failing, and the whole Silicon Valley was taking off.
"Universal Magic" presents us with a picture of the entrepreneurial scene during the golden age of Silicon Valley, allowing us to relive that "passionate time" and draw strength from innovation.
Movie trailer for Universal Magic >>
This article is reproduced from: Geek Movie
