"I was threatened with legal action and personal attacks via email from the president of the Silicon Valley Historical Association over the above review (which is against not only the 1st Amendment, but also Amazon's policies), and then my review was removed. Therefore I am posting this review again (...)
In my opinion, if you are looking for a film about Steve Jobs, this is NOT it. In this hour-long film, there is only 15 minutes and 57 seconds of interview footage of Jobs. The rest is footage of the filmmaker himself, some cheesy stock video clips, interviews with other Silicon Valley founders, and historians/academics talking about the growth of Silicon Valley and comparing it to the Renaissance era and the invention of the Gutenberg printing press. After about 40 minutes into the film, there is hardly any discussion about Jobs at all. There is, however, a nearly 20 minute long segment of various random people explaining why they think the Information Age and Silicon Valley is EXACTLY like the Renaissance period, followed immediately by a clip of Jobs saying, "Nah, it's not like the Renaissance AT ALL." The film is wrapped up quickly with no real conclusion leaving the viewer wondering what the hell they just watched. And to make the whole thing worse, every interview has really annoying music (think screeching saxophones) playing behind it, which becomes so distracting that you stop listening to what the interviewee is even saying.
The one good thing I can say is that it is very interesting to hear what Steve Jobs has to say in these interviews...."
> There is, however, a nearly 20 minute long segment of various random people explaining why they think the Information Age and Silicon Valley is EXACTLY like the Renaissance period, followed immediately by a clip of Jobs saying, "Nah, it's not like the Renaissance AT ALL."
The computer industry kills art and it sounds like Jobs knew it. What perhaps the others saw as incredible works of art (like sculpted marble that will withstand the centuries) were actually just the most disposable consumer goods we've ever known. Computers are about cheap, disposable crap. For some reason, this also means software needs to be cheap and disposable, but that's another point entirely. The only layers of 'sediment' our creations will be found in are in the landfill. The only 'rare geologists' are likely going to be the picked-the-last-straw developer (or the terminally curious) that has to go knee-deep in the sewers of old code and comes upon a neat hack. This might sound real glass-half-empty, but it doesn't bother me. What's wonderful to know is that everyone else thinks we're all Michelangelos!
I bought the audio version a while ago and agree with most of this. I bought it through some other site (probably whatever the SV Historical Society site linked to) and found it virtually impossible to post a review, due to errors about illegal characters in the text. I did find the 15 or so minutes to be worthwhile, but I wished it had been clear that it wasn't an hour-long interview. The person who answered my e-mail was apologetic and comped me another interview.
I was referring to the fact that this was posted multiple times around HN after Steve Jobs passed away. It's definitely not "never before seen footage" of SJ.
You can pick up the full video here - http://www.siliconvalleyhistorical.org/#!steve-jobs-film/c1x...
I did a couple years back. It's like $5 & well worth it