The story begun on the campus of UC Berkeley during the period of the Free Speech Movement, the film contrasted the trials and misfortunes of childhood friends Steve Jobs (Noah Wyle) and Steve Wozniak (Joey Slotnick), who eventually formed Apple Computer, and Harvard students Bill Gates (Anthony Michael Hall), Steve Ballmer (John Di Maggio) and Gates' high school friend Paul Allen (Josh Hopkins), who eventually formed Microsoft. Gates, Jobs, and Wozniak dropped out of college in order to take part in the growing personal computer revolution. The film was told from the point of view of Wozniak and Ballmer.
The movie is all about the rise and fall of the computer evolution. The cleverness of this people just to make their dreams come true and how determined they are just to reach their goal in any way as much as possible. The end doesn’t justify the means as the saying goes. It fascinated me for the fictionalized history revealed in this film is not made to make people snore in front of their TV screens but it makes you wonder that what if it’s true, then how could Apple, the most insanely great company back then went insane on letting Gates enter their company and stole their idea? That the world wealthiest man on the planet, Bill Gates was just a big hoax? That he doesn’t deserve all the glory and wealth he has now for the minds that make up Microsoft wasn’t all his idea afterall that he only stole that ideas just to earn all the fame! It’s not all fair. But who’s fair afterall? Those companies like HP and Xerox that didn’t believe on the fresh ideas laid off by youngsters, look how much money they could’ve earned if only they believed them. They didn’t foresee the techno revolution happening back then and now look at where they’ve landed? Apple, well they’re clever allright for when Xerox HQ only laughed and turned down the ideas of Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center that proposed the graphic interface design and the use of mouse, they made a deal on Xerox on letting them saw these concept in exchange of letting Xerox invest in Apple but these backfired to them for when they let them do this, they let the famous company (Apple) become even more famous for they develop and refined the ideas of PARC to make Lisa and the Macintosh which earned them a lot of fame and money. Apple Company gained respect from me especially Steve Jobs especially when he said: “We're here to make a dent in the universe. Otherwise, why even be here? We're creating a completely new consciousness, like an artist or a poet. That’s how you have to think of this. We're rewriting the history of human thought with what we're doing.” Why? Because without his out of this world dream, his immense passion, his fresh and innovative ideas and his uniqueness our history of advance and sleek computers won’t be made afterall. But his big dreams and ego didn’t predict the biggest mistake he had ever done, trusting Bill Gates. If Steve Job’s definition of a great artist is that he has to deal, Bill Gates’ definition of it is that great artist steal. He stole the whole idea of Apple and then he called it his own and boom! He’s the wealthiest man on earth now. Great story right?!
The movie all in all for me is really awesome it was worthwhile watching it and has greatly increased my fascination with the techno world even more. One thing that I learned from this movie is that trust and business don’t mixed that well, you can’t trust anyone outside the company (or even inside) for they are considered as a competitor. And also, having ideas is great but everyone can make ideas right? So I guess you can only call yourself “great” when you’re confident enough to turn these ideas into a reality and the last one would be is that this life like what Charles Darwin said “is survivor of the fittest”, you ought to fight and be strong to earn your right to remain and be respected here in earth.
