So Saturday (while we were killing ourselves moving boxes and searching for items in the storage unit), David started talking to me about when he worked at General Magic. I had absolutely no clue why he was so excited about that company. Or, to be honest, what that company did/made/produced. When he was talking to me about it, I figured it was something related to Disney World (the “Magic Kingdom”). So when I mentioned Disney to him yesterday, he gave me this blank-eyed stare. Then he started laughing non-stop.
Yesterday evening we watched the movie “General Magic.” They created the idea of a “smart phone,” a “touch screen,” universal serial bus, the idea of items being “wireless,” the idea of a “global wireless communication system” and so much more. One of their employees created EBay (although most people there mocked him for the “stupid” idea). They had the idea that we would carry around our entire office in our pocket. One of the employees told them about the internet, but they foolishly ignored him because they were contracted to Apple. I was stunned. Like open-jaw stunned. I do not remember anyone talking about General Magic when I was growing up.
David said it was the first company he worked for that paid him over $100k a year in the 1990s. (Wow.) And he said Steve Jobs, who was friends with a bunch of the employees there would show up a lot. And that Jobs was a horrible person to work around and kinda worshiped as a cult figure.