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Early Apple Employees Talk Memories of Steve Jobs, Thoughts On New Movie
Nerval's Lobster writes "Daniel Kottke and Bill Fernandez had front-row seats to the birth of the personal computing industry, as well as the most valuable technology company in the world. Both served as employees of Apple Computer in its earliest days: Kottke working with the hardware, Fernandez developing the user interfaces. Both have some strong opinions about the new feature film Jobs, which dramatizes the personal and professional escapades of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and his more technically inclined partner, Steve Wozniak. Kottke consulted on early versions of the script, attended the movie's premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in February, and is currently planning to see it again shortly after its release on August 16. Fernandez, on the other hand, hasn't seen it and doesn't intend to, because he considers it a work of fiction and thinks it will upset him. In this lengthy interview with Slashdot, both attempted to distinguish the facts and longstanding geek legends from the instances of pure creative license exercised by the filmmakers."
Metacritic and Rotten don't seem to be encouraging this movie.
"For a man whose singular vision alienated many – a point illustrated by Kutcher's straight-talking, temper-riddled reading of Jobs – those closest to him are barely given time to voice their concerns, let along develop as characters. Jobs's Apple co-founder, self-taught software whizz Steve "Woz" Wozniak (Josh Gad), already a vocal critic of the film, is presented as a mere backdrop. We learn little about Woz: where he came from, how he met Jobs, or what happened after he quit Apple, dissatisfied with the direction in which the company was heading."
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/jan/28/sundance-festival-jobs-first-look-review
Heres a link to info about the film itself: Jobs (film).
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Oh, those were the days. We used to laugh, and then he would deny us stock options, and then we would go to a bar and drink, and then he would curse at us and fire us. Oh man, were those great times!
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
The one true geek character in the entire Apple saga. Well that is enough for me to not bother with it.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
That's going to take all the whitewash in the world. But, this is Hollywood, so I'm sure they'll find a way.
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
Woz is the legend. Jobs was the PR machine.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
...and yet you post as me, one of the most cowardly and despicable (but very good looking) personalities on the Internet
For balance here is comedian Bill Burr talking about Jobs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iGm4dl0Ys4
Bill Burr - Night of Too Many Stars 2012
It really amazes me how badly some people want history to read that Apple started the computer revolution. If there is any one group responsible for starting the home computing boom, it was the Homebrew Computer Club and the advent of the Altair . Please stop trying to make Apple history happen differently than it happened. If anything, Jobs and Gates were douc^H^H businessmen and acted as such trying to screw everyone else over in order to gain wealth and power.
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the man is more of a pop culture consumer electronics icon than he ever was a tech mogul
Well put. Non-techies go "ooh, ahh" because the end products are what they see. Meanwhile, how many people have heard of Nyquist, Bardeen, Brattain, Shockley, Shannon, Kilby, Noyce and all the other tech pioneers and inventors who made this stuff possible. Money? Sure, but there are others with more. Nor is Jobs even colorful enough to be interesting, like Howard Hughes. Please stop, this is getting worse than the 24x7 coverage of the OJ trial.
Woz gave St Jobs pancreatic cancer by spiking his yoghurt with polonium.[*]
[*] Payback for the breakout ripoff of 1976. Just you wait, it'll come out after Woz is dead. OK, I'm wrong about the polonium being the mechanism, that's just not correct. Revenge is a dish best served cold.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
it's not "pure creative license," it's revisionist history.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
I'll have to second that. Folklore.org has some awesome stories from the rank and file at Apple during the birth of the Mac. I love the story about the engineer working all night on code for the Mac only to realize the Apple II he was working on did not have a drive controller in it to save his work. The solution to the problem was awesome.
If you like this sort of thing, and want to get the story from insiders, check it out.
Let's not forget that, although he did have the excuse of desperation, he did use his wealth to put himself essentially at the top of the list for a transplant organ. A transplant organ which was mostly wasted on him. As I said, desperate. Maybe any of us would have done the same thing in his situation. But the very fact that their actions have such stronger effects on other people's lives are one of the reasons that many of us judge the powerful more harshly than we might others.
I hate to break it to you, but without Woz it is highly likely that nobody would even have heard of Jobs.
And without Jobs it's pretty unlikely most of us would have heard of Woz. It was a partnership and while it lasted a pretty remarkable one. Woz was a technical genius and Jobs was a sales/design genius. You need both to be successful, especially in a startup.
Let's not forget that, although he did have the excuse of desperation, he did use his wealth to put himself essentially at the top of the list for a transplant organ.
He didn't. He went on the list in another state, and waited his turn like everyone else in that state. And there are quite a few people doing the same thing. Anybody without money could have done the same thing, except they would have had to move to another state because once a transplant is ready, you have to be in the hospital in very short time.
Confusing isn't a word I'd apply to Apple products past or present. Maybe you're thinking of someone else? And the "chips from anyone actually good" -- you do know these machines really accomplished a lot with those chips, with their very wide data buses and relatively short pipelines, right?
Oh, and you seem pretty angry for some reason. I think a lot of that is caused by your confusion.