Pirates of Silicon Valley
By Putu Deny Pratama Saputra
Photo by Pirates of Silicon Valley
Does anybody wondered how Apple can be so successful and how is Bill Gates could be the wealthiest man in this world? There is a movie called Pirates of Silicon Valley and it is about Apple and Microsoft career history! The movie is taking plot from the early development of Steve and Bill career and how it ended up to be like today.
Photo by Pirates of Silicon Valley
The apple company was started because of the passion of Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. Wozniak was obsessed to create first personal computer. They then started creating the personal computer from the bottom. Computer was really brand new innovation back then and many people still have doubt about the usage of computer. This creates a barrier of doubt for Wozniak because he is afraid of this product will not sell well in the market. His doubt become bigger when Steve Jobs cannot find any loan from bank because they misunderstood that Steve and Wozniak are creating refrigerator. Because of this situation, both Steve and Wozniak decided to create their personal computer by themselves without the help from bank. They created the first personal computer in their garage and promote their product on several events to promote inventions and computer.
Short story, their computer was a big hit and it does affecting the other company. Microsoft was one of the small company founded by Harvard drop out, Bill gates. He drops out from Harvard because he wants to focus to develop Microsoft to be one one biggest computer company. Microsoft was not popular company and has been behind apple for a long time. But they are surely a rival. Apple is not treating Microsoft as enemy, but Steve Jobs address IBM as their mortal enemy. IBM was the biggest computer company back then and Steve Jobs dislike this company for its vision. However, the actual enemy was Microsoft. Microsoft address them as family, but they are actually tried to follow apple innovation and product.
Photo by Pirates of Silicon Valley
The first computer created by apple was called Macintosh. And the first Macintosh product was named Lisa. Lisa was actually addressed for Steve Jobs’ daughter, but because of Steve Jobs was hiding his family issues, he then creates another meaning for Lisa, which now stands for Local Integrated Software Architecture. In the development for further expansion, Steve Jobs targeted the new invention created by Xerox Company called mouse and Graphic User Interface. Both of these inventions were rejected by IBM and Apple seek the opportunities of the usage of the inventions. Mouse is a tool to freely move the cursor on the screen, without mouse, the only way to move the menus are typing the codes, but with mouse, the user can freely move anywhere on the screen. The second was Graphic User Interface or known as GUI. GUI allows the computer to have images and better interface. The user can experience better interface when using the computer. Apple then applied the two new inventions to their new product. By the new interface, several games are available in the computer and on the movie, we can see that Wozniak plays a game that looks like aircraft. A shooting simulator game by using aircraft model.
When Steve Jobs successfully developed the personal computer, there were actually big mess behind the scene. During the development, Steve Jobs recruited the best of the best only and he has trust issue for many people. He also harasses his employees by not treating them well. Steve Jobs push his employees to their limit like threaten them and force them to work overnight. Steve Jobs also is too bossy and this creates barrier between he and Steve Wozniak, his best friend. Wozniak was trying to persuade Steve to not harass and force his employees, but Steve never listen to him. Until one day, Wozniak cannot accept the mess created by Steve Jobs and then Wozniak decided to quit Apple. When Wozniak quits, Steve keeps continuing his work until he launched the product.
Photo by Pirates of Silicon Valley
Steve then trust Bill Gates as “family” and he shared his creations and even saying that Microsoft and Apple is a family in his press conference. Sadly, the good intentions of Steve Jobs were misused by Bill which is Bill is copying the Apple Product. In one of the Apple press conference, Bill Gates was featured in the Apple Commercial. His appearance was very awkward for the apple supporter because they know that Microsoft was Apple competitor. In addition, Bill Gates was actually mocking Steve Jobs in the commercial by showing his Product unintentionally which then leads into Steve knowing the hidden message from Bill gates. That is resulting both Steve and Bill are not working anymore together.
After watching the whole movie, we can relate many things to how entrepreneur way of thinking. Steve Jobs is an innovator and Bill Gates is not. But both of them are successful because they are never give up and choose to fight in their own strength. Steve creates innovative product, that is his way, and Bill is copying Steve works, that is his way. None of them are wrong, as we know Bill is not totally wrong as well. The current market is not original anymore, and that what Bill Gates tried to implies. Nothing new, the only new thing is the upgrade version of the old product. It is hard to find the original, but we can be successful by redesigning the original. Steve Jobs is an artist and he tried to keep his work original. In the entrepreneur, it is not about being original or not, but being creative. Both Steve and Bill used the opportunities to seek more profit. With the new inventions and many ideas comes in and out, both of them tried to compete in the market. They used the technology to create fortune because technology was new thing in that time and few people only who can develop it. As in the movie, computers are not accepted well in the first place, it is still new and people are afraid to use them. But Steve and Bill are risk taker and they are engineer as well. They create and operates technology and thus makes them entrepreneur in that time. Taking risk is important because what comes after that is unknown. Many profitable results are coming from risking big thing, the bigger the risk, the better the result.
Putu Deny Pratama Saputra 