Pirates of Silicon Valley

Pirates of Silicon Valley is an American film directed by Martyn Burke released in 1999. It showed the story of the two most powerful and influential people in the field of computers, Steve Jobs (Apple Inc.) portrayed by Noah Wyle and Bill Gates (Microsoft) portrayed by Anthony Michael, on their rivalry and their contribution on the development of personal computers.

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak

"He always saw things differently, he saw the meaning of the universe", this was how Steve Wozniak, Jobs' friend and partner, described Steve Jobs. Together with "Woz", as what Jobs would call him, they once invented the "Blue Box" that allowed anybody to call internationally for free. Both Jobs and Woz and Jobs' girlfriend "Arlene" were broke, they had to do little shows for kids parties, but it didn't feel right for Jobs.

Bill Gates and Paul Allen

Bill Gates was then introduced in the film as someone who played a lot of poker. And just like how Steve Jobs had Wozniak, Gates had Paul Allen. It was also that time when ALTAIR 8800 was released, and fortunately they got hired by MITS (creator of ALTAIR) to write a program language for the new ALTAIR computer.

Steve Jobs' garage where their small
 company started

In 1976, Jobs and Woz went to the Homebrew Club in Brooklyn where people like them show off stuffs they built. People showed a lot of interest on their computer and sold 50 of it. Jobs was determined to  wipe out IBM. They started working on the computers in Jobs' parent's garage. One day, Mike Markkula, an entrepreneur, approached them on their garage and offered their small company a quarter of a million dollars to do something to expand their company.

the Apple logo with the rainbow scheme

In 1977, in the Computer Faire in San Francisco, is when Apple and Microsoft first met. And it was also the first time Jobs wore a suit and even shaved his facial hair. A lot of people came to the fair and went directly to the Apple Computers booth. They were the stars of the fair. Gates approached Jobs but was ignored. After the said fair, Apple became big and expanded. 

Meanwhile, Microsoft went to Miami to propose something to IBM. Gates convinced the IBM executives that he had what IBM needed, an operating system. And according to the narration, everything stared on that room. But Microsoft didn't really had the operating system that time. Allen approached Seattle Computer Company and told them they will buy their operating system for $50,000, and got it. 

Jobs approached Xerox research engineers in Palo Alto Reseach Center and got their idea on graphic interface and the use of mouse for their new computer, the new Apple Lisa. named after Jobs daughter with "Arlene".

Apple Macintosh

Apple is about to release its new computer Macintosh when Gates and his team went to the Apple Headquarters. Gates convinced Jobs that Apple needed them. Jobs was completely convinced because of his hatred against IBM, Gates used this reason to get Jobs' side. Gates and his team walked out with Macintosh's system. 


To heat up his employees' competitiveness, Jobs brought up "Macintosh vs. all other Apple" competition. It caused the company to slowly tear apart. Because of it, Wozniak, who just got into a plane accident, left Apple. 


Microsoft released Windows operating system which according to Jobs, is a pirated Macintosh software. But Gates seemed to be capable of calming Jobs down. When Jobs introduced Gates as a part of the "family" to his employees, he realizes how Microsoft really stole Macintosh's software. He confronted Gates. Gates reply was, "You and I are both like guys who had this rich neighbor - Xerox - who left the door open all the time. And you go sneakin' in to steal a TV set. Only when you get there, you realize that I got there first. I got the loot, Steve! And you're yellin'? "That's not fair. I wanted to try to steal it first."


The film was really interesting. And also very inspiring. I learned a lot and the fact that I'm not the type of person who's into this kind of films, I never got bored while watching. This is a must-watch film!