by Alan S.
26. January 2011 09:41
I was flipping around on NetFlix and found a documentary on the Apple computer and the company in general. Stories like that are of great interest to me because I grew up watching the Mac and PC world blossom end then explode. I’ve been in IT for over 25 years and have been using PC’s since 1980 (a TRS-80). When I read the movie’s description, I immediately started watching it.
The movie is called, uninterestingly enough, Welcome to Macintosh. Despite the blasé title, the movie itself gave a fantastic and interesting inside look at how it all started. But it’s not done by people you usually see talking about Apple like Wozniak or Jobs or any other higher ups. It was done using interviews with people who held more obscure jobs like engineers and designers. One of my favorite guys interviewed is Jim Reekes. He definitely seems to have a love / hate relationship with Apple in that he loves the products but doesn’t understand the fan base and their undying love and devotion for their Mac’s. He has a great quote in the movie:
“Engineers are retarded. They have some kind of brain damage that allows them to not have social skills so that they could concentrate long enough to write code. But it's a disease. That's why I had to quit. I mean, I'm like an engineer in recovery. I don't want to write code anymore. It just makes you retarded. I mean, get a girlfriend, get a life.”
As a Software Engineer, I laughed quite hard at his remarks. Anyone who knows or has worked with Software Engineers or Computer professionals in general will attest that there is something not quite right about them… but in a good way!
Another great quote from the movie is from Guy Kawasaki, the man responsible for marketing the Macintosh in 1984. I couldn’t find the exact quote, so I’m going to paraphrase it here:
“Companies succeed and companies fail for the same reason, rigid adherence to ideology.”
If you get a chance, visit his blog. When he left Apple he went on to become a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley and continues to write about business and the computing world. Very good stuff IMHO.
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