Film
General Magic
A hushed, elegiac Silicon Valley documentary about the 1990s startup that invented the smartphone a decade too early — and imploded before anyone noticed. Built from astonishing archival footage of Tony Fadell and Andy Hertzfeld as unknowns, it's less a tech triumph story than a tender autopsy of brilliant people who were simply, catastrophically, ahead of their time.
If you liked this
Halt and Catch Fire2014
A fictional drama that gets the texture of near-miss innovation exactly right — the same mix of hubris, camaraderie and heartbreak as watching a great idea arrive at the wrong moment.
But Slow first season; it takes a while to earn the devotion it eventually deserves.

The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley2019
The dark mirror image — a founder who lied instead of merely failing. Same Valley, same messianic pitch decks, wildly different moral outcome.
But Angrier and colder than General Magic; there's no fondness here, just fraud.

Something Ventured2011
A warmer, wider-angle history of the venture capitalists who bankrolled the Valley's founding myths, told by the people who were actually in the rooms.
But More talking-heads history lesson than character study; less emotionally involving.

The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
Touching the Void2003
Same narrative shape as General Magic: brilliant people, a plan built on real expertise, and a failure that comes not from stupidity but from the world simply refusing to cooperate.
A mountaineering disaster documentary told through re-enactment and testimony — meticulous planning, total confidence, and a catastrophe that unfolds anyway despite everyone doing everything right.
But Physically harrowing in a way General Magic never is; this is survival horror, not boardroom melancholy.

More like this (8)
Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine2015
Danny Boyle and Aaron Sorkin's dialogue-driven portrait of the man whose shadow General Magic never escaped — brilliant, brutal, and backstage before three product launches.
But Stagey and talky by design; if you wanted archival truth over theatrical invention, this isn't it.

The Social Network2010
The founding-myth energy of Silicon Valley distilled into a tense, quotable legal thriller about genius curdling into betrayal.
But Facebook's story ends in triumph, not tragedy — the emotional register is entirely different.

AlphaGo2017
The engineering-triumph version of this story — same obsessive brilliance and impossible ambition, but this time the machine actually works.
But Less human drama, more slow-building tension around a board game most viewers won't fully understand.

Silicon Valley2014
If you need to laugh after all that earnestness, this is the satirical flip side — the same delusions of grandeur played entirely for comedy.
But Broader and sillier; it skewers the culture rather than mourning it.

Downloaded2013no page yet
Napster's rise-and-collapse story, another case of technologists building something the world genuinely wasn't ready to receive, legally or culturally.
But Focuses more on legal battles than on the inventors themselves; less intimate than General Magic.
Jobs2013no page yet
A rougher, more conventional biopic covering the Apple years surrounding General Magic's rise and fall, useful mostly for context on the ecosystem it grew from.
But Widely considered the weakest Jobs dramatization; watch only if you're completist about the era.
Tucker: The Man and His Dream1988
Decades before General Magic, the same American myth: the inventor who was right, built it beautifully, and still lost to timing and power rather than talent.
Francis Ford Coppola's lush biopic about Preston Tucker's revolutionary 1948 car, crushed not by bad engineering but by an industry unwilling to let it exist.
But Old-fashioned Hollywood biopic pacing and a rosier, more heroic tone than the documentary's melancholy candor.

The Machine That Changed the World1992no page yet
The deep prehistory General Magic's founders were quietly building on — proof that the fantasy of a computer everyone carries was decades in the making before it finally, briefly, almost arrived.
A five-part PBS documentary series tracing computing's earliest dreamers, full of grainy archival footage of people imagining personal computers before anyone believed in them.
But Dated production values and a drier, more academic tone; it's history-lesson television, not character drama.
People
Cast
Megan SmithSelf- Tony FadellSelf
Marc PoratSelf
Andy HertzfeldSelf
Steve JobsSelf (archive footage)- Joanna HoffmanSelf
- John SculleySelf
Directing
- Matthew MaudeDirector
- Sarah KerruishDirector
Writing
- Jonathan KeyCo-Writer
Production
- Michael SternExecutive Producer
- Matthew MaudeProducer
Recommended by
Halt and Catch Fire, Something Ventured, Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine, The Toys That Made Us, AlphaGo