My recent acquisition of a free Macbook and subsequent obsession over said laptop has led me to many Apple related stories and websites lately. The other day I ran across a video from last year’s All Things Digital conference which included a joint on stage interview with Bill Gates and Steve Jobs (there are actually about 10 videos you have to watch to view the whole interview, but if you’re a geek like me it is worth). It was quite fascinating and focused quite a bit on the beginning days of bot of their companies back in the late 70’s when both competitors actually worked together on a few projects. Hearing about those early days of Apple and Microsoft reminded of the made for TV movie Pirates of Silicon Valley starring Anthony Michael Hall as Bill Gates and Noah Wylie as Steve Jobs.
As far as TV movies go, this is one of the better offerings. I know I might be biased because of the subject matter but it is a fascinating look into the history of two of America’s greatest companies (even though I do prefer one over the other…by quite a bit). I am planning on picking up the book on which the film is based, Fire in the Valley: The Making of The Personal Computer, to be able to delve into the story even more. I am not sure how accurate the details are but both Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak (co-founders of Apple)have expressed their approval of the film, with Woz saying they did a good job getting the personalities right and most of the events as well. Wylie does a pretty good job portraying His Steveness but I guess it’s not that hard. Just act fracking brilliant and equally cool (Jobs is the only person I know that can rock a mock turtleneck that hard). But even though I prefer all things Apple, the real standout here is Anthony Michael Hall as Gates. It’s amazing how good he is at imitating Gates and all his little uber-nerdy quirks. Watch those YouTube videos and you will see that he isn’t exaggerating. And this is an interesting sidenote: the man playing Steve Ballmer (the sweatiest, craziest man in tech) is played by the voice of Bender the robot on Futurama, John DiMaggio.
It’s truly a great film and I would recommend watching it if you can find a copy.
[...] 7, 2008 by Chris Yeah, I know I just watched Pirates of Silicon Valley a couple of days ago but it’s chock full of nerdy goodness and I had to watch it again. It’s rare that a [...]