Pirates of Silicon Valley (1999)

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Directed by Martyn Burke.

Starring Noah Wyle, Anthony Michael Hall, Josh Hopkins, Joey Slotnick, John DiMaggio.

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This tech-world biopic traces the fortunes of personal-computer companies Apple and Microsoft from their obscure dorm-room and backyard origins to their very public battle for corporate supremacy. Writer/director Martyn Burke follows the parallel lives of Microsoft founder Bill Gates (Anthony Michael Hall) and Apple co-founders Steve Jobs (Noah Wyle) and Steve Wozniak (Joey Slotnick) -- the former a crafty Harvard dropout, the latter a pair of hippies with jobs at Hewlett-Packard and a yen to sell miniature versions of corporate mainframes to small businesses and at-home enthusiasts. Much like the personal-computer industry itself, the action starts with Apple then gradually shifts to Microsoft. The former plot thread recounts how Jobs and Wozniak "borrowed" key concepts from a Xerox computer lab, eked out their success as countercultural businessmen, and finally fell out with one another over the pressure of success. The latter thread focuses on the way Gates learned from, then surpassed, the brains behind Apple and turned his company into the global powerhouse that it is today. Based on Paul Freiberger and Michael Swaine's Fire in the Valley: The Making of the Personal Computer, the film actually focuses only on that book's final chapters. Produced for cable channel TNT, Pirates of Silicon Valley debuted June 18, 1999. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide

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Reviews and discussions

what every movie about inventor ...
by peeter in peeter Blog

loved it.

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"I love this movie. Growing up I have always been a huge supporter of Apple, even if we didn't own one half the time. Pirates of Silicon Valley tells both sides of the story, Bill Gates and MIcrosoft, and Steve Jobs and Apple. I used to despise Microsoft, and I still do, but this made-for-tv movie does a good job at showing how MIcrosoft started and what it had to do to get to where they were. Sometimes I end up liking that half of the story more than the Steve Jobs-Steve Wozniak story. Noah Wyle does a great job as Jobs. Not only does he look very much like Steve, but he acts the way Jobs did back in the 80s. If you like movies about origins of products, in this case the personal computer industry, of movies about two groups of people who ultimately collide with each other to make history, then do not pass up the opportunity to see this. It has become one of favorites through good replay value and quotable lines. I can't go a week without quoting it! " [More]

hometown
by susieQ in el mar blog

hasn't rated it.

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"Growing up in the valley, being a valley girl in the 70's (that's the last century, baby) and moving away to Missour"a" and after that, Austin, but then seeing others moving there, to the valley, and work for mac or dotcoms or geekdoms, it's sad...new folks never got to see the apricot orchards and the mustard plants flower, in the valley - it was a good place to grow up and a good place to move from, before it turned silicon...of course, then Central Texas became silicon hill country, for a time, and now that is gone, thank god - I pray the movie has a message beyond evil. " [More]

Review by All Movie Guide

All Movie Guide

is neutral about it.

Thanks to inspired casting and strong writing, this well-oiled TV biopic managed to transform the unglamorous genesis of the personal-computer industry into solid entertainment precisely at the moment when dot-com mania was sweeping the nation. Perennial '80s geek Anthony Michael Hall gets his best screen role since Six Degrees of Separation in the form of Microsoft founder Bill Gates, the ultimate embodiment of the revenge of the nerds. Meanwhile, ER star Noah Wyle gets to step out of Dr. John Carter's skin and into a quietly intense portrayal of Apple guru Steve Jobs. Hall's smarmy intellect and Wyle's tortured-yuppie temper may conform closely to public perception of the men they portray, but neither performance sinks into infotainment schtick. And unlike a lot of true-life TV movies, Pirates of Silicon Valley doesn't telescope its complicated plot into a series of irritatingly unconnected vignettes. Instead, it meticulously traces the key events that shaped the Apple/Microsoft struggle and laid the foundations of today's business (and, increasingly, personal) world. There is a bit of Wired magazine-style hyperbole in the script's awe of the computer world -- a flaw that's especially obvious now, after the Internet stock crash. The overwrought treatment of Jobs' personal life, too, could have used a rewrite. But for the most part, writer/director Martyn Burke treats his subject objectively, with a dose of humor -- exactly what the material needs. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide

Tags: geeks , supergeek , changed-world , who-knew , Steve
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