Pirates of Silicon Valley: Steve Jobs and Bill Gates

PIRATES OF SILICON VALLEY: A MASTERPIECE FOR 1 MILLION

Pirates of Silicon Valley has become an example of a low-budget, 1-million-dollar movie that has delivered a story about the richest companies in the world and gained cinematographic appreciation and respect. The screenplay of this movie was based on the ”Fire in the Valley: The Making of the Personal Computer” book. Nevertheless, Martyn Burke has objected to the initial raw variant of the script to shift focus from the boring documentary to the emotional narration about the modern digital revolution, which is still ongoing. The first and, in this respect, the last scene of the Pirates of Silicon Valley movie reflects the late 1990s events and the main plotline, which has a linear structure. Key actors do not like the 16-year-old teenagers as the real ones were in 1971 in Berkeley, but in this respect, it’s more impressive to perceive a scene of a student riot from the perspective of two technical geeks. At the moment, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak are a sand grain in the background of the anti-war movement, but in some 10 years, they will change the world forever, modernizing the common way of thinking and interest in technology.

Although the majority of the audience who deal with nothing in the IT sphere probably consider Pirates of Silicon Valley a cheap TV movie, the story itself is quite close to the actual events and characters, as it was one of the main goals of the director. Martyn Burke once claimed that the cinematic crew had performed seven months of research work, including interviews with the former staff of Apple and Microsoft, studying books, and examining old articles and photographs. Some unnamed sources (Steve Wozniak in particular) also confirmed the accuracy of every main scene of the movie.

All three main digital revolutionists gave their positive attitude to the movie in a different manner of expression. Steve Jobs objected to taking part in the movie, but he was pleased with the performance of Noah Wyle. Steve Wozniak has been given some compliments in the years past from the premier and is still admired for his “screen version.” Even Bill Gates commented on the movie in 2013 and concluded his character to be “quite precise”. Pirates of Silicon Valley, like the Steve Jobs and Bill Gates movie, also appreciates Paul Allen, Steve Ballmer, John Sculley, and even Ridley Scott.

While getting closer to the movie itself, we are satisfied with the almost Shakespearean characters of Jobs and Gates and with the satirical way of narration. Soft storytelling, a variety of satiric situations, brilliant, sophisticated characters, and unexpected combinations of circumstances. Martyn Burke has taken the most interesting facts and events from the two-decade history. We appreciate the emphasized contrast between untrimmed future billionaires and high-profile officials of IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and Xerox. Bureaucrats just can’t get the sense of selling a personal computer, keyboard, and mouse. They could not imagine a future where every kid or teenager would be keen on getting the newest gadget. The movie strongly deals with the conflict between Steve Jobs and Bill Gates for the palm of victory in this digital revolution.

HISTORY BEHIND PIRATES OF SILICON VALLEY

Steve Wozniak experienced a plane crash in February 1981 and suffered amnesia. After getting to the hospital, he had not yet felt the work tonus and decided to finish his college education. Woz then decided to teach pupils, which was depicted in the Pirates of Silicon Valley epilogue.

Reddit portal once had an “authorized” section of questions for Bill Gates, which were selectively answered. Gates has characterized his in-movie character as pretty precise, and we still appreciate Pirates of Silicon Valley as a movie about Bill Gates.

‘Pirates of Silicon Valley,’ like the Bill Gates and Steve Jobs movie, reflects in detail the process of the Xerox technologies being absorbed by guys from Apple and then by Microsoft in the same respect. The woman depicted in the movie has a real historical prototype. Adele Goldberg was among the few employees of Xerox who were extremely unsatisfied with what was going on with the revolutionary findings of the team. Steve Jobs was amazed by the graphical interface and the “mouse” and behaved like a young boy in love with the technology.

A disturbing scene with Steve interfering with the job interview was not part of the screenwriter’s imagination. Jobs could put his legs on a table and shock the applicant with inappropriate questions about sexual life.

Noah Wyle indeed has a lot in common with the legendary Steve Jobs. Even the members of the film crew acknowledged that an actor looks like his prototype. Daniel Kottke, Steve’s college fellow and close friend of the early 1970s, was amazed by the level of similarity and praised the acting by Noah Wyle.

Pirates of Silicon Valley pays attention to the fact that Bill Gates was mostly rude to his Microsoft colleagues and even to close friends. At the same time, Bill was always very attentive to Steve Jobs and always controlled his voice and behavior. Bill Gates was among the few people who could successfully stand against the so-called “reality distortion field” of Steve Jobs and make his opponent calm. On the other hand, Jobs had always been the one among these two who dominated the relationship, or, anyway, he wanted things to seem like that.

Pirates of Silicon Valley opens with a scene within the filming location of the famous “1984” TV spot, directed by Ridley Scott. Sure enough, the scene reflects an important page in the story of Apple Computers, as Steve Jobs was fascinated with the process of launching the Macintosh in all possible respects, including a TV advertising campaign.

The movie story is presented by two people who were very close to the famous owners and creators of Apple and Microsoft. Steve Wozniak is full of enthusiasm about the revolution of the personal computer and the graphic understanding of the formerly well-known process of coding. He is still excited about Jobs’ talent to present computers as a revolution, as a piece of art. Steve Ballmer is a bit of a comedian character who mostly tells the story of the success of Microsoft and a group of geeks, with Bill Gates in the lead, ironically. He admits the fact of the truth distortion to make history and be a part of it.

Pirates of the Silicon Valley movie imaginarily depicts the initial steps and the first office premises of both Apple and Microsoft. Two of the most profound technological companies of the era have started their walk to the stars in garages and motel rooms.

Another two parallel lines of the plot depict the background sides of both geniuses: Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. Jobs indeed had experienced drugs and later told a story about the classical music in the wheat field (the moment was also depicted in the Jobs 2013 movie). Bill Gates had an accident with the earthmover and Paul Allen’s new car, and he was also stopped for speeding.

The next parallel narrative deals with the image of XEROX and MICROSOFT, both as companies without creativity, imagination, and a sense of style. As the men who could not distinguish anything extraordinary and use it.

Steve Jobs indeed was an inspirer and initiator of a conflict within APPLE after he was dismissed from the LISA project. He encouraged the struggle between the teams of Lisa and Macintosh, openly greeted his employees, and humiliated the others. We can examine this conflict in several movie scenes, such as a kick-off in a bar, the pirate flag on the Apple campus, and Steve’s speeches in front of the staff. T-shirts with the number of working hours per week.

Most of the viewers have paid attention to the scene with Steve Jobs as a tribune and Bill Gates as a “Big Brother” on the screen behind. This Macworld Expo presentation scene is next to the allusion to Orwell’s 1984. In 1999, Microsoft seemed to win the battle with the closest opponent.

Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, and Paul Allen had indeed hidden the truth about the revolutionary operational system they did not have at the moment of the negotiation with IBM. Tim Paterson was a man who sold his MS-DOS for 50,000 dollars. In actual circumstances, IBM was the one who asked Microsoft to assist in the project of the personal computer.

Other scenes that happened to be in reality

• Blue boxes and a phone call to the Vatican
• TV jammer by Steve Wozniak
• Work as activity organizers by Jobs, Wozniak, and Chrisann Brennan
• Polish humor of Steve Wozniak
• Student anti-war strikes in Berkeley in 1971
• Homebrew Computer Club and the first presentation of the personal computer
• Steve Jobs’ attempts to gain credit from the bank and his outlook
• San Francisco Computer Expo 1977 and two different performances
• John Scully and his famous joke about Jobs’ suggestion and sugar water.
• The proportion of Apple stock shares and Wozniak’s reaction
• The plotline with a pregnant girlfriend, Chrisann Brennan as Arlene, daughter Lisa, and the fruitarian farm
• Bill Gates is late for his flight.