Pirates of Silicon Valley

Plot synopsis:
Partially based on the book "Fire in the Valley: The Making of the Personal Computer" written by Paul Feiberger and Michael Swaine, the director Martyn Burke jump cuts through key moments in time for the two companies in telling the tale of Apple's rise, Steve Jobs' business relationship with Bill Gates, the schism between Jobs and Steve Wozniak, and Apple's fall as Gates out pirates the pirates, and leads Microsoft to dominate the computer industry.From the very beginning of the movie you are given the core of Steve Jobs' (played by Noah Wyle) personality. The open lines are him speaking to the camera and saying, "I don't want you to think of this as just a film - some process of converting electrons and magnetic impulses into shapes and figures and sounds - no. Listen to me. 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. We're rewriting the history of human thought with what we're doing. That's how you have to think of this." His best friend, Steve "the Woz" Wozniak (played by Joey Slotnick), follows this with a narration describing how everything Steve Jobs ever did was something "between a religious experience and some sort of crusade."Both the opening lines and the narration are spoken over the back drop of the filming of Apples 1984 Super Bowl commercial. A commercial that was legendary even before it was aired, and set the standard for all other Super Bowl commercials. Directed by Ridley Scott, newly famous for directing Blade Runner, this commercial introduced Apple's Macintosh computer and, though it has never run again since that Super Bowl spot, few commercials have ever been more influential. It was even named the 1980s' Commercial of the Decade by Advertising Age magazine.The filming of the commercial fades to the actual ad as it opens on a gray network of futuristic tubes connecting non-descript oppressive buildings. Inside the tubes, we see the greyed-out downtrodden masses marching into an auditorium, where they bow before a Big Brother figure preaching from a giant TV screen. Then, from the back of the auditorium, one lone woman, the only object with any color, races down a hallway chased by storm troopers. She runs up to the screen, hurls a hammer and shatters the TV image. The screen explodes and everything flashes to white.The movie then transitions to a stage thirteen years later, where Steve Jobs is just announcing "the business deal that will turn Apple around," to a gathered audience, and introduces the other protagonist in the movie, Bill Gates who is currently being projected, via live feed, to a screen looming over the audience, in a very Big Brother manner, a not-so-subtle portent for events in the movie.The scene cuts to the University of Berkley campus, 1971, amidst a tear gas and students rioting, a young Jobs and Wozniak dash to safety. Once away from the crowd Jobs scornfully says, "Those guys think they're revolutionaries. They're not revolutionaries, we are." Wozniak resumes his narration, relaying that Jobs was never like, "you or me, he always saw things differently, he saw the meaning of the universe."Jobs and Woz's first entrepreneurial scheme was the development and selling of "Blue Boxes", one of the earliest phone line crackers that allowed anybody to call anywhere for free. After almost getting busted Woz decided to try building something that wouldn't land them in jail, a "computer". They have their first taste of fame as a reporter takes a picture of them when it catches on fire.Bill Gates' (played by Anthony Michael Hall) beginnings are just as unassuming. His story starts when he is a Harvard student more interested in poker than classes. However, for Bill and his friend Paul Allen (played by Josh Hopkins), there is one thing more important than poker or even Playboys, and that is, of course, computers. In following an ad in a trade magazine with some fast talking by Bill, and their collective genius, Bill and Paul are hired to start writing a program language for the new ALTAIR computer.At the 1976 Berkley campus, Homebrew Computer Club, Jobs and Woz unveil their latest computer. It is obvious that while it is Wozniak's genius that built the computer, it was Jobs' genius that sells it. During these scenes they reveal Steve Jobs' near obsessive desire to wipe out "the enemy", IBM. However, his dreams of guerrilla warfare victory over IBM, followed by world domination, is all but dashed by Wozniak as he divulges that because of a contract he signed with Hewlett-Packard, anything he invents, they can take. Fortunately the executives at the company do not have the vision of Steve, Woz, or even Bill as they pass on the "home computer" because, "This gadget is for ordinary people, what on earth would ordinary people want with computers?" While that was an initial victory for them, it seemed that bankers and business men had the same opinion and months went by as they were repeatedly turned down for a loan. However, Jobs was undaunted and persevered when venture capitalist Mike Markkula (played by Jeffery Nordling) offered the fledgling Apple Computers a quarter of a million dollars to do something (in Steve Jobs' words) "practically spiritual, about overthrowing a dead culture and dead gods."In Albuquerque, 1976, Bill and Paul had quit Harvard and Bill's fast talking at the computer company MITS (maker of the ALTAIR) earned them a signing bonus and a double in royalties for their BASIC programming language, with that, Microsoft is born. It is during these years in Albuquerque, fueled by his own manic personality that Bill does everything from having a midnight race with bulldozers, to racking up so many speeding tickets that he is arrested and jailed.Stepping away from his revolutionary counterculture style, Steve Jobs shocks his friends by changing into a business suit and shaving the last of his facial hair for the 1977 Computer Fair in San Francisco. Even more shocking to all of them was that Apple Computers Inc. was the star of the Fair. Drawn by belief that "there might be something going on in California," Bill Gates and Paul Allen attended the Fair, where Apple and Microsoft first meet, and, anti-climactically, Steve Jobs completely ignores Bill Gates. Jobs is too enamored with his sudden fame, and describes the experience as "insanely great", words that are used to describe him and his life repeatedly.Following the Computer Fair, sales of the Apple II brought Apple Computers to levels of attention, money, expansion and success that only Jobs could have predicted. However, while Woz seemed overwhelmed by the sudden success, Jobs took to it like a shark to water. Feeling justified in his obsession, there were few lines he wouldn't cross, from verbally abuse enthusiastic employees until they are mute with humiliation, to grilling a potential employee (with his bare feet casually resting on the conference table) about when the potential employee may or may not have lost his virginity, all in service of his grand vision and ego.Steve Jobs' level of self-obsession was put on display by his abject denial that girlfriend was pregnant by him, despite a positive paternity test, and dismissed her so she could go "play mommy". That callous vitriol made even more striking because he himself was orphaned and spent much of his adult life trying to find his real mother. Later on he tracked down his estranged-girlfriend demanding that she not name "their" daughter some weird name and they settled on Lisa. Not coincidently, he later named a series of computers Lisa, but it wasn't until over a decade later that he actually accepted Lisa has his flesh and blood.Bill Gates' own logic defying obsessive needs he revealed after he brought Steve Ballmer (played by John DiMaggio), an old Harvard friend, out to California. He lectured them, "You know how you survive? You make people need you. You survive because you make them need what you have. And then they have nowhere else to go." Declaring to (in mafia style) "keep your friends close, and your enemies closer," he takes Microsoft to go into business with IBM. He convinced the IBM executives that they needed what he had, an operating system, furthermore he told the execs that Microsoft would only license IBM the software, allowing Microsoft to retain ownership of it and could license it to other outfits. Astonishingly, Microsoft didn't even have an operating system at that time, and even more amazing, a deal the execs agreed to because "the profits are in the computers themselves, not this software stuff." And while the others marveled at Bill's brazen declaration, Gates said he knew it would work because, "IBM was successful, and success is a menace. It fools smart people into thinking they can't lose." Another omen for the future of Microsoft and Apple.Steve Jobs heralds in the next series of events by quoting Picasso, "Good artists copy, great artists steal." Xerox research engineers had developed the next evolution in computers, not only had they designed software that could display graphics on the computer screen, they had also invented the mouse. Unfortunately, these innovations were so completely distained by short-sighted Xerox executives that they invited Steve Jobs and his research engineers to the Xerox research center and all but handed Apple the next step in computers. Incorporated in the new Apple Lisa, this earned Apple an estimated $100 billion.Now it is time for the two to meet again, Bill Gates, repeating Picasso's quote (incorrectly attributing it to Van Gogh), took his team to the Apple Headquarters, and it is here that the rival obsessions clashed. Steve Jobs maintains the superiority of Apple because Microsoft lacked originality and culture, and his people echoing his line, "It is better to be a pirate, than be in the navy" (better to be a rebel than to be a part of the establishment). Bill then tries to convince Steve that Apple is economically vulnerable and that "Apple needed them, because Apple couldn't match Microsoft's diversity." Only for Steve to stay true to his cause saying, "You can't just have employees anymore. They gotta be into a crusade. It's like art, science, religion, all rolled into one." It was only by feeding into Steve's obsessive hatred of IBM that Bill was able to get the "in" he needed. Microsoft walked out with Apple's Macintosh system just as Apple had walked out with Xerox's system.Further cracks in Steve Jobs' management strategy caused greater rifts. To fuel internal competiveness he manipulated Apple employees into vicious "Mac vs All other Apple platforms, who's was better" rivalry. The strain of 90+ hour work weeks, and days of sleepless programing led to many employees rebelling against Jobs' verbal abuse, even to the point of assaulting him in one scene. By then Woz had had enough. Disturbed by Jobs' manipulations, he left the company he co-founded, and went on to teach computers to school children. Nevertheless, Jobs felt he was righteous and unstoppable, regardless of the pressure he put on everybody, his employees loved him for it, and he rewarded them for their loyalty.At this point Microsoft is desperately trying to cobble together the Windows operating system from pirated Macintosh software. Word of this eventually reached Jobs more than once, but no matter how angry or accusatory Steve became, Bill could always calmly explain away any such fears, weathering any of Steve's tirades meekly, placating Steve into, once again, believing that Microsoft was no threat, a level of manipulation that Steve Ballmer felt was where Bill Gates' true genius lay. Then again, Ballmer felt that Jobs' genius lay in making computers not a business, but a religion, and nothing scared him more.During the penultimate scene of the movie, Steve Jobs introduces an Apple T-shirt wearing Bill Gates as a part of the Apple family to an audience of Apple employees before giving them a sneak preview of the Apple 1984 commercial that was being filmed in the open scene. After the sneak preview, Steve was given concrete proof that Microsoft did replicated software from the Macintosh and when he confronted Bill with it, Gates famously replies with, "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." You're too late."The end of the movie relates the sad facts that Steve Jobs had disaffected so many of his former best friends that none of them wanted to toast him for his 30th birthday, in fact, three months later Steve Jobs was fired from the company he helped found. He was later re-hired in 1997 and became the architect of the second Apple Microsoft co-endeavor bringing the companies and the movie full circle.

Tags: historical

Review:
Nevertheless, it manages to capture the essence of how much of modern computing came to be: the cluelessness of Xerox about what its own computer scientists were doing; Steve Jobs' artistic vision at Apple; and Bill Gates' ruthless business practices at Microsoft.
Still, as long as you recognize that the portrayals are negatively slanted, you will be rewarded by witnessing the interplay among the famous triangle: Adele Goldberg (not explicitly named in the movie), the leader of Xerox's research team; Steve Jobs, who ripped her off and incorporated those technologies in the new Macintosh; and Bill Gates, who ripped off Jobs and incorporated those technologies in the newer Windows product.The movie does suffer from several historical inaccuracies.
But portraying it as a success made it simpler to explain why Bill Gates got interested in dealing with Apple at that time.While the movie is long, it would have been even better as a two-day or three-day miniseries.
(It airs in June -- premiere's on Sunday June 20.) It's the story of Steve Jobs (Co-founder of Apple Computers) and Bill Gates (Co-founder of Microsoft) and their competitive rivalry to dominate the computer industry.
Look for him on the big screen battling aliens any day now.The story is somewhat standard but filled in with cool details that keep it interesting  Jobs as a deadbeat Dad; Gates pitching his product to IBM (the IBM guy actually thinks all the money is in the hardware!), and the late-night screaming matches between Jobs and Gates.Here's the thing that just boggles my mind -- these two are pretty average guys  especially for their generation.
The story of how Steve Jobs and Bill Gates amassed such wealth and power is an interesting one.Noah Wyle (Jobs) and Anthony Michael Hall (Gates) fit their characters to a T.
It is also unfortunate that there are three main characters all named "Steve."  The story is told from the perspective of Steve Wozniak (Joey Slotnik), who is portrayed as a gentle head and caring foil to Noah Wyle's brilliant but cruel portrayal of Steve Jobs, Wozniak's Apple co-founder.
I don't know where you can find this film, but if you see it in your local video store and want to know how the computer world was set on end by a guy in his garage and a college dropout then rent this movie..
Put the two together and you've got ENTERPRISE.HOW TO WIN AT BIG BUSINESS: Step #1 - Show them (the customer) that YOU have something that they really can't live without, Step #2 - CAPITALIZE on their weakness(es).The movie is about how Steve [Steven Paul Jobs (2/24/55), Apple Computers; Cofounder, Steven Wozniak] and Bill [William Henry Gates III (10/28/55), Microsoft; Cofounder, Paul Allen] built their respective companies into their own view of what they wanted computers to be and then, in the end, who eventually gobbled-up whom.The high point in the movie, for me at least, was when Bill Gates found himself in jail and the door to his cell was closing in on him (for a traffic violation).In the last few scenes we hear Steve talking to Bill.
"You don't get it, Steve, THAT doesn't matter!" Bill Gates.The movie may have ended, but the STORY goes on ....Rating: 10 out 10 stars.
This movie did a good job of showing the genius of Jobs and Gates, as well as the missed opportunities of major companies like IBM, Hewlett Packard, and of course Xerox.
All in all, a superb bit of acting on the part of Noah Wiley (Steve Jobs) and Anthony Michael Hall (Bill Gates)..
Not since Weird Science and The Breakfast Club have I seen Anthony Michael Hall (Bill Gates) do such a great job acting.
Casting Noah Wyle as the beaten Steve Jobs, head of Apple Computers, was as brilliant as the Hall casting decision.
Gates created Microsoft and licensed an operating for IBM which would become MS-DOS, bought from a small fledging software company in Seattle for $50,000, although Wikipedia's article on the subject states it was $75,000.Then Jobs and his colleagues are brought to the Xerox development center where technicians were creating a computer with graphical interface.
I have appreciated both actors, and have enjoyed TNT films before.While "Pirates" will probably be a good adaptation of the early days of Jobs and Gates and Computers, to get the True Story of the Early Days, search and find the Wonderful Documentary Film "Triumph of the Nerds".
This documentary was filmed about 8 years ago (i think, IMDB may have actual info) and tracks the success of not only Jobs and Gates, but all the 'little people' who supported and suffered along the way.
We get no hint about why the names Apple and Microsoft were chosen (a trivial point, yes, but it would have been a good thing to put in a film about the history of those two companies).
You think you're looking at the early eighties, but the late 90s model Ford Broncos in the background can be very confusing.Pirates of Silicon Valley was a fairly informative look at how Apple and Microsoft came to be, and there were some very interesting looks at what the first personal computers looked like, but the film itself is not nearly as informative as it should be.
It's the story of Steve Jobs (Co-founder of Apple Computers) and Bill Gates (Co-founder of Microsoft.)  I gotta say, I really enjoyed it!
(Basically  I don't care who wins, as long as I can see movie trailers online!)First off  casting Anthony Michael Hall as the world's biggest geek, Bill Gates, is a total stroke of brilliance.
(That and the fact that they couldn't find a role for Molly Ringwald  but that's another story!)The film actually devotes much more time to Noah Wylie as the creepy Steve Jobs.
It was cobbled by IBM in a year to try and combat the march of the Apple II.Jobs is quoted in the film as saying, "Good artists copy.
This movie was confused it seemed to be conflicted as if it did not know for sure if it wanted to be a documentary on the rise of the micro-computer or if it was a tale about the personalities behind the scenes of the major software companies versus BIG BLUE/ IBM the once computer mainframe juggernaught.The movie is a good one but rather schizo in its story telling.
I mean the movie was good and very informative loaded with lovely info.I most love the way it made the young Bill Gates look like a plain grungy old geek who was not all together into cleanliness.
It was nice to see Bill Gates portrayed as human and not god made me like him a little.This movie makes one of the Apple founders look like a serious druggie fruitcake.
All the characters in the movie have been portrayed very accurately and all the actors have done a brilliant job in playing them, especially Noah Wyle for Steve Jobs.
No book, movie or documentary can give you a better insight into the lives of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates than this.
& Microsoft Corp.; the two companies that single-handedly spawned a revolution that went on to change the whole world, Pirates of Silicon Valley offers an insight into the lives of the genius founders of these two revolutionary firms and the differences in their operational methods.Spanning from 1971-1997 and narrated in non-chonological order, Pirates of Silicon Valley is a semi-biographical account of the very people who made the world of technology what it is today, starting with Steve Jobs & Steve Wozniak who co-founded Apple Computers in a garage before it became a billion-dollar firm, then moves to show the birth of Microsoft and the rivalry between these two future empires that only helped the computer industry boom.Written & directed by Martyn Burke, Pirates of Silicon Valley begins with the production of the famous 1984 TV commercial, a watershed event in itself, and culminates with the 1997 Macworld Expo where Jobs, after having made his return to the company he co-founded, announces Apple's new alliance with Microsoft.
Interspersed within this story are segments covering the life of Bill Gates, how Microsoft came into existence and its deal with IBM that began its lifelong feud with Apple.The production design team deserves kudos for the set pieces are so wonderfully detailed & refined that they almost qualify as exact replica for the most part, whether its Jobs' home or the garage in which Apple Computers was born or other stuff.
A few depicted events are inaccurate with shifted timelines or details but they are mostly done to enhance the drama, which is nicely captured by its camera, while its non-linear narration keeps its 95 minutes of story interesting for the most part.Coming to the performances, it's the very reason why Pirates of Silicon Valley works so well for the contribution by its cast is immensely convincing and all of them are highly believable in their given roles.
Absolutely nailing the personalities & looks of the characters they play, both Noah Wyle & Anthony Michael Hall leave a lasting impression in their respective roles of Steve Jobs & Bill Gates, while the supporting actors who play the characters of Steve Wozniak, Paul Allen, Steve Ballmer & others are no slouch either.But there is...
And in all honesty, the film isn't kind to either of them and places more emphasis on their negative qualities than the talent & vision they possessed.On an overall scale, despite a few artistic license taken to make the drama more immersive, Pirates of Silicon Valley is an enjoyable, entertaining & enlightening TV feature film that tries to bring on screen the history of two companies which forever changed the way we used to think, work & communicate.
Having worked on Windows PC for the major part of my life before switching to Mac some 5 years ago (one of the best decisions I ever made), I'd been wanting to watch this film for a long time and now that I've seen it, the nerd in me is highly satisfied!
Everything I've read and seen of Gates and Jobs in that time is absolutely nailed by Wyle and Hall.But most of all this was clearly a project made by a group of people with a true love of the subject matter.
Very good scenes, one scene in particular I'll never forget its the first time we see the Macintosh, that whole new, minimalist setting - almost sterile, yet fresh surrounding in the scene where Steve Jobs shows it off to Bill Gates, man that's what I remember feeling the first time I saw a Macintosh - this is the future.
The film survived well the almost decade since its making because it has pace, because it focuses on the characters of the founders of Apple and Microsoft and tells well the story of their ascension and of their conflict and because that conflict was really an important step in the hitech saga and remains to a large extent actual until today.
Makes you wonder if he was really like that.Anthony Michael Hall plays Bill Gates as you would expect him:  a passively shrewd, brilliant nerd.
Michael Hall was in the countless John Hughes' films from the 80's.Noah Wylie's performance was good; however, I saw a few hints of Dr. John Carter coming through.The story was inviting.
A really great yarn about the two most unlikely personalities to rule the world: Steve Jobs of Apple and Bill Gates of Microsoft.
Noah Wyle is superb as the arrogant Jobs, while Anthony Michael Hall, the former Brat Packer, is somewhat subdued as Gates.I highly recommend it..
For the multitude of people who know of Gates and Microsoft, and Jobs and Apple, but little else, this is a movie great for filling in the missing parts.
The film tried to create sympathetic characters out of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, and tell the "inside story" of these two uninteresting personalities.
Great film of an amazing story that just happens to be true!Steve Woz and John Draper have both said how Noah Wyle was EXACTLY like the real Steve Jobs - Amazing!Martyn Burke does another fine job here, after the underrated 'Pentagon Wars'.
But, Noah Wyle (Steven Jobs) and Anthony Michael Hall (Bill Gates) put forth a wonderful effort.
What's important here is this movie's portrayal of Jobs as an abusive hard-driven entrepeneuer (a scene shows him in cutoff shorts and a T-shirt interviewing a prospective employee who's wearing slacks and a tie, and Jobs seems unimpressed) who has a deep-rooted phobia of "corporate business" and Bill Gates (shown as a shrewd businessman who has to "one-up" Jobs every time a new Apple PC product hits the market).
Both actors are quite believable in their roles as Steve Jobs and Bill Gates; but their best contribution to the film is portraying how the inner characters of these two people motivated the successes and failures of both Microsoft and Apple Computer.The film is disappointing for a couple reasons: 1.
The film struggles at balancing the personal subtext of Jobs/Gates with a history of Apple/Microsoft.
Also, there is almost nothing about Gates's personal life outside his company (as with Jobs/Arlene/Woz) except for a humorous moment at a roller rink.Overall, the film is worth seeing - especially for its anecdotal quality and the performances of Wyle and Hall, but don't expect to come away with much..
Steve Wozniak ran a forum about this film, he stood by it as a fairly accurate depiction of it representing the beginning of Apple and Microsoft.I also heard this film had a lot of additional scenes of early childhood some of those scene you could hunt down on youtube showing a young Bill Gates at about the age of 9.I love this film and rewatch it usually once a year, great performances and great at capturing the time period, although it was filmed at the end of the nineties it captures the return of Steve Jobs to Apple perfectly..
Noah Wyle and Anthony Michael Hall did phenomenal jobs, playing Bill Gates and Steve Jobs respectively.
Compare it to the real story that it's based on (The rise and subsequent rivalry of Apple Computer's Steve Jobs and Microsoft's Bill Gates), and you have a movie with very little that is based in reality.Want to know the real story?
The Microsoft of Bill Gates and Paul Allen is a mongrel, culture-less company, while the Apple of fanatic Steve Jobs is a corporate artist.Wyle and Hall give stunning performances, each capturing the essence of their 'characters' in an almost scary way, right down to the funny walk and the (to us the viewers) obvious duplicity of Gates, and the personal aura (some might say madness) of the Apple visionary.
It's a good thing we know bill gates and steve jobs.
steve jobs versus bill gates , absolute the movie didn't show the whole story behind them but over all it was fascinating and interesting .
But, you will find a compelling story of how Steve Jobs (Noah Wylie) and Bill Gates (Anthony Michael Hall) got started, first as partners, and then as rivals.Both actors do a credible job of presenting the eccentricities of the two giants of the computer world.
Then Gates steals it from Apple for Windows.Jobs was not a very nice person in this film.
I will make this very short: "Great TV movie with outstanding performances by Noah Wyle and Anthony Michael Hall!"I loved watching the "fights" between Steve Jobs (Apple) and Bill Gates (Microsoft) and also showing that Steve Jobs was not always a very human / kind person in his early years makes this movie believable and watchable.Please make a sequel: I wish they would consider making a sequel showing the period from 1997 until now for the world to see what Steve Jobs actually accomplished after returning again to Apple (in 1997) after he was more or less kicked out by the board of directors in 1985!!!.
Anthony Michael Hall was uncanny as Gates, but that was the worst fake-bald head on the actor playing Steve Ballmer that I have ever seen in the history of film..
Anthony Michael Hall and Noah Wyle portray Gates and Jobs (respectively) in ways that make me feel like I've squished a caterpillar in my hand.
Anthony Michael Hall really did a good job as Gates, though I do not think anyone can get Mr. Bill's mannerisms down....
This movie is an overly hyped but fascinating look at two characters central to the development of the personal computer as a modern icon rapidly becoming indispensable to our society: Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.
Unlike most documentaries/dramatizations, which are usually nothing more than a filmed history lesson, 'Pirates of Silicon Valley' achieves something more: you want to keep watching past the first scene.Both Anthony Michael Hall and Noah Wyle put forth good performances and the plot is intriguing, as if it weren't for these two (not so much Gates, as all he did was steal Jobs' idea, who stole it from Xerox), you wouldn't be reading this online review.The movie feels much longer than it is (in this case that's a good thing), and by the time it's near the end, I didn't want it to finish, I didn't even expect it to finish, as it skipped out on most of the 90's.
The main characters are the late Steve Jobs,played excellently an actor known from "E.R" Noah Wyle, and Bill Gates,played wonderfully by an actor known for his nerd roles during the Brat Pack days,Anthony Michael Hall.It was an adaptation of the book,Fire In The Valley.The story centers on this life with Jobs starting the company Apple Computers and Gates starting the software company Microsoft.
It wasn't until the 1990's that Windows was developed enough to compete with the Mac system.There are more stories from the actual employees who worked for Apple at during the time this movie is set.