MovieChat Forums > Pirates of Silicon Valley (1999) Discussion > Don't understand the next to the last sc...

Don't understand the next to the last scene...


...where Bill and Jobs are yelling at each other. Bill Gates says "we are both guys that had this rich neighbor, Xerox. And you go sneaking in to steal a TV set only when you get there, you realize 'I got there first'. 'I got the loot Steve'".

Where did this come from? Xerox agreed to show the technology to Steve Jobs and he got it first. There is no mention of a Microsoft-Xerox connection in the movie.

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I didn't understand this either. I was about to post the same question. :) This seemed fairly blatant, too; the story about Apple getting their ideas from Xerox, and then Microsoft getting ideas from Apple, has always been fairly high-profile.

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I think he meant he got windows on the market before the mac.

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"I think he meant he got windows on the market before the mac"

I'm pretty sure that's right. To be technical, neither Jobs nor Gates "stole" the GUI idea, because it was legal for both of them. Xerox licensed it to Apple and Apple licensed it to MS. Jobs just called it stealing because he was too dumb to read the contract he signed.

http://www.macobserver.com/columns/thebackpage/2004/20040708.shtml

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But didn't Mac get a GUI OS on the market first? Isn't that what Bill Gates sees when he gets so jealous and says, "I WANT THIS!", right before the Microsoft crew goes over to Apple to talk with Jobs and eventually get to work for Apple?

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I believe Windows was selling on computers in Japan before the Mac was released. And I believe those computers were in the process of being shipped to the U.S. when the Mac was announced at the show that is depicted in the film.

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The Lisa had a GUI interface but wasn't really sold that publicly and more of a "proof of concept" for apple's engineers. Windows was the first GUI operating system to be sold on a global scale. The Macintosh was released afterwards but at that point it had been too late. It was poor Mac sales and his attitude towards company ventures that eventually lead to John Sculley and Apples board agreeing to Steve Jobs being fired. Steve then went on to create a company called Next. It was the first company to make a Server Computer. After Next sales had been pretty decent, the board at Apple Decided to fire John Sculley for not being able to compete with Next or Microsoft. Later The had offered Steve Jobs his Position of CEO back to him in 1997. It was at this point that Microsoft had Bought a large portion of Apples stocks. The agreement was though that Microsoft could not change any business venture Apple wanted to do. Apple and Microsoft worked with each other for a short while creating such software as Office for the Mac and Explorer for the Mac. Even till this day Microsoft and apple still work together on a very small scale. A little info the movie didn't give.

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And how exactly do they work together? You mean that Microsoft Office is still licensed for the Mac, too?

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yes actually it is. Mac BU is a branch at Microsoft thats sole purpose is developing mac applications. Apple is adding Technology to there computers to allow dual booting of both Windows and Mac OS X on the same machine. They work together on both sides quite often.

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Windows really(!) did not work to version 3. It was useless. MacOS worked. Feel a difference between these things.

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Apple hired Microsoft to do work for the MacOS. It created MS Excel and MS Word as applications for MacOS.In the process,MS Windows was created. Then Apple sued MS for it and felt that it was an imitation of MacOS. This litigation took 6 years with MS winning in the end.

MacOS did work but it was exclusive for Apple Computers.MS Windows wasn't exclusive to one computer company. In the process,MS Windows became the standard operating system as it became widely used especially when it worked in version 3.

That is why in the last scene of Pirates,Steve Jobs told Bill Gates,"We have better stuff".To this,Bill replied,"You don't get it,Steve.That does not matter".

It does not matter which operating system has better quality but rather which will become widely used and which will become the standard in the computer industry.And Windows became ultimately the standard as almost all of the softwares run on it instead of the MacOS inspite of its inferior quality.

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[deleted]

This reminds me of the BetaMax and VHS rivalry not so long ago. VHS became standard despite BetaMax being technically superior. But of course now it becomes a moot point, the whole VCR market going into oblivion.

I am sure in 10 to 15 years' time, the rivalry between Windows and Apple OS would become moot as well, LOL.

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VHS came out ahead for the same reason too and that reason is affordability. Betamax and Apple may have been better but they were way more expensive. Thus their sales suffered because of that, allowing the inferior but still very good product to excel.

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This reminds me of the BetaMax and VHS rivalry not so long ago. VHS became standard despite BetaMax being technically superior. But of course now it becomes a moot point, the whole VCR market going into oblivion.


What I had always heard was that the porn industry settled the VHS/Beta debate, as well as the Blu-Ray/HD DVD debate.

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on the Xerox connection, it's long been rumoured about, the real history is shown in docu 'Nerds of Silicon Valley' as well as this webpage:

http://www.mac-history.net/the-history-of-the-apple-macintosh/rich-neighbour-with-open-doors-apple-and-xerox-parc

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they had developed it, but not gotten it to market yet.
the big scene where steve is screaming at bill, and bill talks about them both stealing from xerox is when they are presenting the new apple system including this gui.
Steve is freaking out, because he's heard that units of "windows" are being stocked, and shipped throughout the asian market already, therefore beating apple to the punch.

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[deleted]

What's funny is that Apple could have beaten Microsoft if it wasn't for Steve's complete and utter arrogance and his wanting to do that "1984" ad.

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The scene where gates is jealous and starts yelling "I want it" "I want it" was after using the lisa. He even says it is a lisa in the script.

Still enough there to know that his operating system was about to be obsolete.

If the scene of the microsoft guys at apple is even remotely true than steve jobs has nobody to blame for what happened because it shows him toying with gates and company just letting them see the mac for a minute the next thing you know there are 3 prototypes on their way to microsoft. That's incompetent! It's like saying I can't trust these guys so let's trust them anyway, with everything!



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Commodore Amiga was the first GUI.

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apple "stole" xerox's gui concepts, and the mouse and all. they rolled this into their computers. microsoft ripped off their gui, and even beat them to market with it. which was stealing from xerox by proxy.

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apple "stole" xerox's gui concepts, and the mouse and all. they rolled this into their computers. microsoft ripped off their gui, and even beat them to market with it. which was stealing from xerox by proxy.


Not exactly. Apple and Steve Jobs weren't the only ones visiting Xerox PARC, so were Bill Gates and some guys from Microsoft, even though it's not shown in this movie. So some of the so-called "stealing" wasn't by proxy, it was quite direct.

"I don't deduce, I observe."

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funny thing is, reading the job's biogrpahy it isnt a MOVIE LINE! bill gates did REALLY say that !

he meant it NOT literally, but more in the terms that we both had a the same inspiration, but mac f'ed it up and microsoft didnt!




An Idea is the most resilient parasite - Inception

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Steve Jobs got there first, but Bill Gates got the loot as he took the user-friendly operating system by Xerox that Steve used in his Apple Products, but made it accessible to everyone.

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It's a fairly clear scene.

Apple stole ideas from Xerox and then Microsoft stole those same ideas from Apple. The point is that Gates believed that, in the grand scheme of things, both of them were Pirates and Jobs was just angry that Gates beat him to the punch.

Yes Apple had already started shipping things but MS was able to get to more users and was also able to get to some markets before Apple. Hence, "I got the loot!"

I always assumed this scene was entirely fictional (since it's so well-done and dramatic). It's so interesting to find out that Jobs and Gates actually had this very same exchange almost word for word (at least, according do some sources).

I actually think the most interesting part of the scene is the end.

Jobs: We're better than you.
Gates: That doesn't matter!

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You remember those old mac commercials where they show a father who couldn't figure out how to use his computer with dos and the kid says he is going to his friends house because his friend has a mac? if windows came out first than what was the point of those commercials

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It was to show that Macs were easier to use. That was the whole point of Steve saying their stuff was better. Bill's reaction is perfect, he is saying that "sure, your stuff may be better but I got my stuff out there first and at a cheaper price."

Personally, I have never had a problem operating any Microsoft program and have had plenty of troubles with Macs when I was forced to use them in school.

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That whole scene was utter BS, Jobs quit Apple in September 1985, Microsoft launched Windows 1.0 in November 1985

When Windows came out Jobs wasn't even working at Apple anymore!

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You couldn't be more wrong! That scene was entirely "real" and "factual"... that confrontation between Jobs and Gates actually happened "word for word" -- Steve Jobs confirmed it in his biography.

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Nobody can say Apple stole the mouse interface technology because Xerox was allowed to invest in Apple before they went public and the agreement was that guys from apple would be able to look at their stuff. Xerox invested $1M in Apple which was worth $17M when the stock went public.

We also know that Xerox did little with their own technology. The only computer they made with the mouse interface cost $17,000 and was much harder to use than the Mac. It was a total failure. Xerox's mouse had 3 buttons and was hard to use vs the Mac mouse which only had one and was much closer to today.

As for Gates he did what almost all of us would have done. He couldn't let a superior product destroy DOS and Apple gave him 4 Mac prototypes to write software for it so of course they studied the thing.

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Yeah, as much as I dislike Apple, they didn't steal anything. Xerox let them see what they were doing because the higher ups didn't see the potential in any of it apparently.

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[deleted]

You are saying it like Apple got the rights to it... Of course as you well know the courts disagreed with that, neither company is the inventor.

This one ain't over 'til the
Fat lady dies

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Xerox really priced themselves out of the market with the Xerox Star. I mean, there's more expensive products with less value per dollar (Macs), then there's seriously expecting someone, even a company, to pay $16,000 in 1981 dollars for a client computer. The Star wasn't perfect (filesystem issues, slow hardware), but that all could be worked on, especially when considering how truly revolutionary it was in most other regards. Imagine if the Star had been affordable, how that would have changed things.

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