September 13, 2024 • 35 mins
How can failure fuel future success? To answer this question, Ed McNamara meets with two remarkable guests: Michael Stern, the former General Counsel at General Magic and CEO of Spellbound Productions and Veronica Miles, COO of General Magic Workshops. The conversation revolves around one of Silicon Valley’s most iconic "failures"—General Magic—a company that was far ahead of its time and whose work laid the foundation for much of the technology we use every day.
Together, Miles and Stern reflect on General Magic's legacy, the revolutionary innovations it brought forth, and the valuable lessons it offers to the next generation of innovators.
Featuring: Michael Stern, formally General Counsel at General Magic and executive producer of the General Magic film, and Veronica Miles, COO of General Magic Workshops
SHI's Innovation Heroes is a podcast exploring the people and businesses driving change in our drastically disrupted world.
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Episode Transcript
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Veronica Miles (00:00):
What is the recipe for a great team?
How do we, how do youbring people together?
How do you make sure they'recreating a culture of innovation
Ed McNamara (00:07):
in the world of technology?
Heroes are everywhere.
They're overcoming disruption, deliveringsustainable outcomes, and fearlessly
forging the future to solve what's next.
Join me.
Ed McNamara, as we meet the peopleand businesses driving change in
our constantly disruptive world.
This is innovation heroes, apodcast brought to you by SHI.
(00:32):
Long before Android and iPhone,a visionary company called
general magic set out to createthe world's first smartphone.
Despite groundbreaking work in the1990s that impressed technology
and business leaders and investors.
The promising company ultimatelyfailed to successfully bring their
revolutionary device to market, butthe story remains hugely influential
(00:53):
in Silicon Valley and beyond.
General Magic's epic vision would be thecatalyst for some of the most significant
technological advancements of our time.
Welcome back to Innovation Heroes.
Today, I'm joined by Veronica Miles,COO of General Magic Workshops, and
Michael Stern, CEO Former generalcounsel at General Magic and executive
(01:15):
producer of the documentary filmabout General Magic's rise and fall.
We'll unravel the true meaning of theGeneral Magic story, a combination of
bold ideas, formidable challenges, andlessons learned from how an amazingly
capable, talented, and visionarygroup of people struggled to sustain
a company that was ahead of its time.
We'll discuss how the team of so calledmagicians influenced modern technology
(01:39):
and changed the lives of billions.
Veronica and Mike, welcome to the show.
Michael Stern (01:44):
Thanks for having
Veronica Miles (01:44):
us.
Thanks so much for having us.
We're happy to be here.
Ed McNamara (01:47):
Thanks for being here.
Uh, first and foremost, forthose who haven't heard the
story, Or watch the film.
Can you tell us the snapshot versionof the story of General Magic?
Michael Stern (01:58):
Sure, I'll try to keep it brief.
Um, Apple in 1989 was tryingto figure out what was going
to come next after the desktop.
What was the next big thing after the Mac?
They hired a futurist, Mark Peratt fromthe Aspen Institute, who put together
a project for something that hadnever really been thought of before.
A handheld device that wouldbe able to communicate anytime,
(02:20):
anywhere, um, wirelessly.
Which would have applications on it thatwould let you shop, let you communicate,
let you seek out information, and, um,which would, um, be something you'd carry
with you at all times because it wouldbecome part of your life, an intimate
way of managing everything that you did.
(02:43):
Uh, Apple eventually decided it couldn'tdo it inside and it needed to spin it out.
So I helped spin it out of Applein 1990 as a separate company.
And, um, it actually started in adisused garage on Copper Street in
Palo Alto, a really classic SiliconValley startup story where there
were, you know, where Bill Atkinson,Andy Hertzfeld, um, the, um, key
(03:04):
contributors to the creation of theMacintosh and Mark started the company.
Uh, it was across the street from my lawoffice and, um, I used to hang out there.
Ed McNamara (03:14):
It's ironic that you said, you know, Apple couldn't do it inside,
um, and, and now they, you know, they're,they're all about the iPhone now.
So, um, in, in terms of why doyou think that they couldn't do it
inside is because resources dedicatedto other places, politics, what,
what, what's your impression there?
Michael Stern (03:30):
All of the above.
Um, um, they understood the desktop,but they didn't really understand
what mobile would mean, and, um,they didn't think they could make it
either, um, and the idea that Scullyand his team had was to create an
alliance to, um, Take on Microsoft.
Um, everybody understood the mistakethat they made with the desktop and
(03:55):
giving Intel and Microsoft and Windowsand IBM control of the desktop.
So the question was how to bring togethera consortium of consumer electronics
companies who could create a worldwidestandard for this communicating device.
So.
You would use outside people.
Sony would make it.
Motorola would make it.
Panasonic would make it.
(04:15):
The telephone companies wouldcreate the communication system.
It was to create this worldwideeffort to not repeat the
mistake of losing the desktop.
To the windshield, uh, axis.
Ed McNamara (04:28):
And not to, not to really, I mean, literally
shoot for the moon on this one.
But when I was re when I saw thedocumentary and I saw the number of
companies that had to be forced towork together, I'm like, this is just
reminding me of the moon launch right now.
I mean, every, every single differentcomponent has got a different manufacturer
that's under contract somehow.
Is that fair?
Michael Stern (04:46):
Yeah.
I mean, Motorola, youknow, supply the chips.
Um, um, uh, Toshiba helped us developthe ASICs and the touchscreen.
Um, but again, it was an alliance ofeverybody who was good at something,
including the international telcos.
You know, we had the national telephonecompanies of England, France, Japan.
Um, they, you know, and, and atand t in the US and again, they all
(05:08):
knew how to talk to each other andso they could build a backbone for
this worldwide communication system.
Ed McNamara (05:15):
So, a question for both of you, and thanks so much
for that background information,but what in, what inspired you to
help tell the story of General MaMagic through a documentary film?
Michael Stern (05:25):
Um, I had gotten a book contract to
actually write a book about it.
But the board wouldn't let me do it.
They wouldn't waive confidentiality.
So, um, over the years, Sarah Karush,who was one of the two directors of
the film, and who had been a magicianoriginally, and it actually, for those of
you who've seen the film, she was on thecrew that filmed all the archival footage
back in the early 90s at the company.
(05:46):
But we would talk occasionallyabout, we really got to get this out.
How can we do it?
And we met in a bar in London in2013 and decided, well, let's make
a home movie for the magicians.
Um, let's put together the archivalfootage and, you know, and interview
people and let's tell the story whenMatt Ma joined the team a year later,
the other director of the film, he said,Hey, guys, you're missing the boat here.
(06:09):
Um, this is a reallyimportant human story.
Um, it's about the crucible of failure andhow people can be resilient in the face of
it and do something really extraordinary.
Um, there's a lot morehere than a home movie.
And so over the next four years, wemade the documentary, uh, Veronica.
Oh, go ahead.
(06:29):
Sorry.
Ed McNamara (06:29):
I was going to say, there's a lot of great stories that start with,
uh, you know, we met in a bar in Londonand, and, uh, take it from there.
Veronica, do you remember when,when you first heard, um, about
the possibility of the documentary?
Veronica Miles (06:40):
Well, I actually met the team who made the film.
On the exact moment of their worldpremiere, I was working at the Tribeca
Film Festival and it was just anotherfilm coming through the doors of
the cinema I was managing that day.
And I remember during the Q and A,I was Noticing who was on stage.
I was like, Andy Hertzfeld.
Okay, Megan Smith workedin the White House.
(07:03):
And I was just like, who are these people?
What is this story?
And I made sure to watchthe movie the next day.
I was blown away.
Um, especially as, as youknow, like a millennial who
grew up in the early nineties.
And like this technology was likea part of my, like seeing this tech
was a part of my life growing up.
So I made sure to watch the filmand then contacted Matt right
away and said, I love this story.
I'd love to work with you.
(07:23):
I know how to produce screeningevents if you want help.
So they hired me to produce a hugepremiere in Silicon Valley for all the
magicians and their friends and families.
And it was the first time theyshared the movie with the audience.
The, you know, diaspora of General Magicand we rented this beautiful old historic
cinema and we had about a thousand peoplethere and it was a really emotional night.
(07:45):
It was really beautiful.
It was a reunion in itself.
But, um, I noticed as someone who's I'mobjective to this story and continue
to be, um, I found it to be very, uh,healing for them to see this story that
a lot of them hadn't talked about in manyyears be shown on screen and have it,
have it be told such a beautiful way.
So it was wonderful.
And I've been workingwith the team ever since.
Basically, my role is basically to makesure this story is, uh, seen by the world.
(08:10):
And, uh, manage the impact of theGeneral Magic story, which is what
has gotten us to where we are today.
Ed McNamara (08:15):
Yeah, and I really, I'm glad you said it.
It sounds like it was a catharticmoment for a lot of people to see that
because, um, it's, to me, it's, whenyou watch the documentary, it's as
much a people story and as much a, abusiness story and, and, and a teamwork
story as it is a technology story.
The technology is, isalmost like the baseline.
It's like, where do we,where do we go from there?
(08:37):
And the teamwork and the hard workand the, and the business aspects like
really, really, really come through.
Um, and I wanted to ask about, um,you know, Michael, you mentioned the,
the footage from the late 80s andearly 90s, it appears in the film,
you know, there's a couple of times inthe footage as it's being shot, which
I'm guessing was on a camcorder orsomething based on the film technology.
(08:58):
Then you can hear somebody say thatit's being recorded for posterity.
I mean, there's very few timesin life where you're working
on something you like this.
We need to actually document thisright now while it's happening because
it's a big deal and we're goingto want a historic record of it.
Michael Stern (09:14):
Yeah.
Um, I mean, that that reflectssomething about magic culture.
A kind of hubris, right?
I mean, we're, we're really not sureof ourselves that we were going to do
something so important, but it was worthmaking a movie, but making a response.
The other thing is, it was not just us.
AT& T had commissioned Sarah'screw to start filming us because
they thought they might be able touse it for promotional purposes.
(09:37):
Um, it went way beyond that, as it turnedout, and they got a lot more stuff.
But that was the other impetus.
Um, we didn't have to pay for it.
So
Ed McNamara (09:46):
Michael, you've walked down many different paths in life, 35 years
as a lawyer, stints in journalism, anEnglish professor working with Steve jobs.
Uh, can you share a little about whatinitially drew you to general magic as a
startup in, in a sea of other startups?
And, uh, and, and, and just giveus some of your vision during
your time as general counsel.
Michael Stern (10:07):
Yeah.
You know, as an emerging company lawyer,you know, at a Silicon Valley law firm.
I did, you know, work with a lot ofstartups, but I had never met anyone
as compelling as the three foundersand the story they were telling.
Mark was such an extraordinarilycharismatic visionary,
Bill and Andy were so.
Incredibly enthusiastic and sooverflowing with ideas and creativity
(10:29):
about how to do this new thing.
I had never had the experience ofbeing just blown away by the vision.
And, um, when they offered me a job,I, I couldn't turn it down, um, uh,
and wanted to be part of this moonshot.
Uh, the, the thing that, you know, Iwas a, I was a technological utopian.
(10:50):
I still am to some extent.
And the idea that this.
Thing that you could hold in yourhand, connect you to the world, could
connect you to other people, but evenin some ways connect you to yourself.
There was an emancipatory,a liberating aspect to that.
It would make the world a better place,and it would make us better people.
That was such a compellingpart of the vision.
(11:11):
Um, it turned out we missed the dark side.
of mobile and social and the internet,uh, and all of the, um, you know, all of
the bad things that have come out of it.
Um, but we were confident that wecould make something magical that
would really transform people's lives.
And that was what made me want to do it.
Ed McNamara (11:32):
So a big part of our audience is interested in, in, in Good corporate
governance and, and, uh, and the lawaspect as they, as they use technology to
navigate through their, their business.
I mean, something this revolutionaryon, on the council side, it's very
rare, you get to ask a, a leadcouncil, you know, I mean, the laws
could never catch up with what theywere trying to do, to, to do there.
Right.
So, um, you know, that, that had tobe fascinating, even from a legal
(11:54):
perspective, all this technologyis happening, there's, are there
any precedents for that, but,you know, way, way back when,
Michael Stern (12:00):
um, no.
And the part of being aSilicon Valley lawyer was.
Um, trying to get the new wineto fit in the old bottles.
Um, we made up the laws.
We want we meaning the communityof Silicon Valley lawyers.
We made the law up as we went along.
Um, some of the traditionalthings did catch up with us.
Um, about a week after our.
debut in New York in 1993, whenwe came out of our secrecy mode,
(12:25):
told the world what we were doing.
I got a subpoena from the JusticeDepartment, uh, saying, you know,
you've got all these competitors,Sony, Panasonic, Motorola, and the
Funko sitting around the same table.
Uh, tell me how you're not, uh, youknow, dividing markets and fixing
prices, because that's what competitorsdo when they're in the same room.
So we spent the next two years,uh, you know, uh, sending
(12:48):
literally carloads of documents.
to Washington and having lots ofconversations with folks in justice.
Uh, and we eventually convincedthem that what we were doing is
pro competitive and that we hadtaken all the necessary precautions
to avoid those antitrust traps.
Uh, but you can imagine what it was liketo get, especially by Japanese customers,
(13:08):
Or, you know, partners to undergodiscovery and to provide documents that
they considered highly secret to the U.
S.
Government and my job.
You know, it was most more politicalthan legal was trying to get them
all on board and to agree that itwas worth the risk they were taking.
Remember, we had the CEO of Sony,the CEO CEO of Motorola, the CEO
(13:30):
of Apple on the board of directors.
And, you know, their consigliere and legalfolks were terrified of, you know, them
being sued, you know, the litigation risk.
Um, when we went public, um, we had,we set the record for the number
of risk factors in a prospectus.
We had 23 single spacedpages of risk factors.
(13:51):
And I am happy to say that despitelosing 200 million, And going
bankrupt, uh, we never got sued.
Ed McNamara (14:02):
Wow.
That's amazing.
Uh, it was, it was a manand thank you for that.
We don't, you don't get toask that question enough.
I don't think.
Um, so general magic oftendescribed as a pioneering company
that was ahead of its time.
And you talked a little bit about that,but what were the key innovations that
general magic developed that are nowcommonplace in today's technology?
Michael Stern (14:21):
You know, it's a whole stack of things.
Starting with chips.
Um, the patents we got on ourASICs, believe it or not, were
bought by Intellectual Ventureswhen the company went under.
They're still being asserted.
The chips were that.
They were analog, they were acombination of analog and digital chips.
They're, they're still being, they'restill being made and they're still valued.
So starting at the bottomwith things like chips.
(14:44):
Touch screen technology.
There really wasn't anadequate touch screen.
We had a invented ourselvesin cooperation with Toshiba.
Um, there was no standardfor interconnecting devices.
So Tony Fidel and his teamdeveloped what became U.
S.
P.
Um, there was no, um, the kindof user interface that we develop
where objects look like themselvesand behave like themselves in
(15:05):
software was also something unique.
Um, so the whole UI experience, butalso the idea of applications and
applications that resided in the cloud.
a new concept then.
And so we created an app store.
Um, we had mobile applications, um, andwhich permitted people to do everything
from make airline reservations to shop,uh, to count to do their calendars.
(15:29):
So, you know, it wasan everything machine.
And, uh, you know, that plus, you know,we used c plus plus and, uh, which again
was not an industry standard at thattime, and, uh, wrote an amazingly diverse
and capable operating system that hadto fit into a very tiny memory space.
(15:52):
You know, we had less thana mega memory on the device.
Uh, and that was one of.
One of the things Andy was especiallygood at was writing really small code.
Veronica Miles (16:02):
There's also, um, I mean, if you, that's the list of what general
magic accomplished, but there's also justsomeone in the film calls it a supernova.
All the people that worked there andwhat they have gone on to do in their
careers is also so incredible to look at.
Like, uh, iPhone, iPod, Android,eBay, LinkedIn, all these companies.
(16:22):
There's so many more.
The magicians today are doingsuch incredible things and you
can trace so much technology.
We all use today to peoplewho worked at general magic.
And my favorite one, which I thinkMike might've left out is emojis.
Ed McNamara (16:34):
Yeah.
Michael Stern (16:35):
Susan Kerr, you know, Susan Kerr, who did every
icon on the, you know, she did,she did Windows and the Mac, right?
She did, she created the spacewe live in as, as computer users.
Um, she did our little rabbit logo,but she also did all the emojis.
And again, we were thefirst to deploy them.
Ed McNamara (16:55):
Yeah.
Veronica, to your point, there's awonderful little segment at the end.
Pardon the analogy, but they did it atthe end of Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
They did it at the end of AnimalHouse, where they actually tell you,
like, where everybody goes after that.
And I was like, this is so cool.
Like, I mean, it was literally, theywere just panning across, and they
were, they were like, you know, CTOof Twitter, and like, you know, um,
(17:17):
you know, Google, and, and every, allthe other names that we know right
now were, were so well represented.
And I was like, that is so cool,where they just, what a, what a great
choice by the filmmakers to justpan across, and just throw these,
um, You know, little, little nuggetsin there about where everybody was.
So, um, great decision.
And as, as a, as an audience member,I thought that was a great decision.
Michael Stern (17:36):
It was part of the structure of the film.
It was a hero's journey, right?
Um, the kids, the kids who startedout there in their twenties and their
early twenties, like Tony and Megan.
And Kevin Lynch, um, they saw us, uh, youknow, the, the stewards of the company
screw it up and their experience inthat principle of failure really shaped
(17:58):
how they went on to become such superbinnovators and technologists themselves.
Um, they learned a lotfrom what we did wrong.
And, you know, that, that madea, you know, that was the real
story was what they went on to do.
Ed McNamara (18:13):
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(18:56):
Veronica, turning it to you fora second, you know, the, um, the
documentary highlights both thesuccesses and failures of general magic.
And, um, you know, given your backgroundof, of innovation and storytelling, how
do you think this story, this companystory challenges, the traditional
narratives of Silicon Valley success?
Veronica Miles (19:16):
Well, I know it starts with, One of the reasons the filmmakers
wanted to make this film was when peoplethink of Silicon Valley, they often
think of icons like, you know, Stevejobs, Bill Gates, like the one person.
And one of the reasons they wantto tell the story is that it's,
it's actually never one person.
It's there's teams.
(19:36):
Even actually hearing Mike earliertalk about the General Magic
Alliance is more evidence of that.
There was just so manycompanies involved in this.
So, um, I mean, I think too, I come frommore of the background of working in the
film industry in Hollywood, but I actuallysee a lot of parallels with Silicon
Valley, especially of how the outsideworld perceives it and what it also means.
Versus what it feelslike to be on the inside.
(19:59):
Whereas on the inside of Silicon Valley,um, things, you know, your people
embrace failure, they try lots of things.
They take lots of big risks.
There's lots of money goingin and out, lots of money.
Um, and, but it feels kind of like abubble where you can be doing that.
Whereas on the outside, you thinkthat if you just show up and
breathe the air of Silicon Valley,you'll be, you'll be successful.
(20:20):
It's like, you just think being inthat space will make you successful.
In reality, failing is waymore common than success.
On the inside of Silicon Valley.
So I think with the general magicstory, one thing it does is it almost
like breaks down the invisible wallbecause you get to like come inside
the doors of this company that createda lot of the foundational culture of
(20:40):
the Valley and see these people whogenuinely wanted, had this idea because
they wanted to make our lives better.
And I think that's soinspiring to see this.
Kind of, um, I don't know, just it'sso grounded to see that when, you
know, we live in such a society wherethe people making lots of apps just
to make money and things like that.
When these people have this idea thattruly want to make people's lives
(21:02):
better, which traces back also tokind of the activism in the 1960s,
that you can really trace through thefoundation of Silicon Valley as well.
And so I think that's reallyimportant to to understand.
With the story of General Magic is itbreaks down that invisible wall, but
also with the concept of failing, Ithink that's what most powerful things
about this story is this, they've,their product failed, but this idea
(21:25):
wasn't a failure and the peoplewho worked there weren't failures.
And, uh, I think that really inspirespeople who watch the film and who, uh,
who do our workshops and, and things likethat to embrace failure in a new way.
And, um, I think that's the wayit challenges, not, not just
in Silicon Valley narratives.
But business and societal narrativesabout fail failure that comes from.
(21:47):
You know, in traditional schooling,we're told that if you fail, that's
a really bad thing and you'll getkicked out of school, et cetera.
Whereas the reality is that embracingfailure is, I think actually Scully
in the movie, one of my favoritequotes is he says something like,
um, if you're not failing, you'renot doing anything important.
And, uh, I just think that's such agreat, it's a great point in lesson.
(22:11):
And That's one of the biggest powerfulpoints of the story of General
Magic is how to look at failure assomething helpful in the innovation
journey and how to make the world abetter place through embracing it.
Ed McNamara (22:21):
Well, I mean, we could get really existential and say that
failure is only possible if there'salready a conventional set of judgments,
you know, placed on what, whatsuccess is, you know, um, you know,
Veronica Miles (22:31):
That's so true.
Ed McNamara (22:32):
There was one segment in the movie where it said,
there's engineers without managers.
And I thought like, what, whata great way to let the best
ideas bubble up to the top.
I mean, you're, you're not, you'renot pitching it to a person to get an
approval to get it to the next level.
You're pitching it to your peers to getacceptance because it's the best idea.
And that, that kind of came across.
(22:53):
Is that, is that a fair assessment?
Michael Stern (22:55):
Yeah, it was our greatest strength.
That also our greatest weakness.
Um, you know, the way, you know,Harvard, the Harvard Business School
people frame this as, you know, didwe fail and was it a good failure?
What is a good failure?
Um, we didn't execute.
The downside of that kind of.
Incredible ferment ofcreativity as you described it.
(23:15):
The best ideas bubbling up also meantthat there wasn't a lot of there weren't a
lot of decisions made about when to stop.
Um, you know, what was enough?
What was going to be good enough?
Um, you know, you got to ship it.
Um, there wasn't enough of that.
Um, and, you know, one of the reasonswe failed at, you know, people,
there are a lot of theories, but,you know, it was lack of execution.
So that's the that's the tensionbetween creativity and discipline.
(23:40):
And, uh, that's a tight rep.
You have to it's really hard to walk onthe innovation in the innovation process.
Um, and it's a, you know, it's astumbling block for many companies, uh,
and, you know, I don'tthink we quite made it.
But was it a good failure?
And I think the answer is yes.
Look at look at what thediaspora accomplished.
(24:00):
Look at the footprint we left interms of both ideas and and the
notion of mobile social well.
And what the Internet could mean.
Um, you know, that that'sa pretty powerful legacy.
And, um, So yes, we failed,but we also, uh, left something
behind that was worthwhile.
Ed McNamara (24:23):
Yeah.
You, you, you reminded me of thephrase, you know, when you said when
to stop, it's almost, I think there'sa semi famous quote, every great
artist needs someone standing behindthem to tell them that they're done.
Right.
But, uh, maybe Michael, that was a goodtime to, to ask you then reflecting
on your journey with General Magic.
General magic and its eventual closure.
You know, what personal lessonsdid you learn from the experience
(24:45):
and how did they impact your, yourcareer, um, going forward and, and
your, just your general outlook on,on developing innovative solutions,
Michael Stern (24:53):
um, you know, the failure itself, the process of going
through it was really devastating.
Um, and, you know, Iwent back to my law firm.
I was lucky and someone,you know, I had a, I had a.
I had an identity in a place to go backto for many of the magicians, um, that
they didn't have that and, um, someone whospent time in the wilderness afterwards.
Um, but what it made, what it made mesee my nickname at the company was Dr.
(25:15):
No, it was always aboutnow you can't do that.
That's what, you know, that's one ofthe general counsel's role, but what
I learned how to do is how to say yes,and to find opportunities to find to
find the way to make things happen.
Rather, you know, lawyersare risk allocators.
Um, what I learned at magic was to lookbeyond risk and to look at opportunity.
(25:37):
And I think I became a much better lawyerand a much better counselor to, um,
startups, um, because of that experience.
Ed McNamara (25:44):
And Veronica, I would, I would ask you the same question.
How did the lessons of the film impactyour own views on leadership, both within
your role and on future initiatives?
Veronica Miles (25:53):
That's a really good question.
I've been.
My job for the last six years havebeen absorbing, absorbing this
story and the lessons of it andanalyzing the story of General Magic.
So there's been, I find that it'sthe gift that keeps on giving.
There's, you'd think I'd be tired ofit by now, but I'm, I'm completely not.
I'm still so inspired bythis story and the people.
Um, one of the biggest ones for me is,uh, how powerful storytelling is for,
(26:18):
um, letting go of feelings of shame.
around failure.
I think the act of them makingthis film and releasing it to the
world is a perfect example of that.
And that's a big lesson we want to bringto people is like, you know, talk, even
if it's just journaling to yourself,like be honest with yourself about
how something impacts you emotionally.
(26:39):
But storytelling can beso powerful in that way.
Um, I think the importance of, uh,pivoting and knowing when to pivot.
Um, when you are encountering achallenge, um, and that every challenge,
I kind of actually like what yousaid earlier, Ed, about, like the
societal constructs of what failure is.
(27:00):
I'm the longer I work with this story,the more I kind of think failure isn't
any isn't really anything anymore.
Like to me, failure is opportunity.
It's an opportunity to learn.
Every challenge in life isan opportunity to learn.
And and that's a big lesson I'vetaken away from absorbing this
story for such such a long time.
And and with leadership,um, Uh, vulnerability, I
(27:25):
think is really important.
Um, being vulnerable with yourteam, um, empowering your teams.
I've seen that from examples fromthe story, especially in the film.
One of the most powerful momentsis when Mark Peratt talks about the
impact that's had on his family life.
And I noticed that in everyaudience, people connect with that.
And I think Mark, as someone whohad one of the greatest ideas of our
(27:48):
time, being able to be that vulnerablereally gives permission to, to To
the audience to be vulnerable to.
And so I noticed as, as a leader,I think that's really important.
But, um, but especially listeningand empowering to, I think, in,
in the story, you see how the lackof management was a big was one of
the contributors to their failure.
(28:08):
Um, but also the lack of listeningto different voices on the team,
listening to the voices of the consumer.
Um, and I think that's a really important,like, leadership lesson from the story
is that you really need to make sureyou're making sure people feel heard and
that you are actually listening to themand making sure everyone has a voice.
Ed McNamara (28:28):
Yeah, I think that that vulnerability, it just sounds like it gets
exponentially more dangerous because, youknow, in order to be successful, you have
to keep letting more and more people inand then you have the investors and then
you have, you know, all the, you have allthe other companies that had a stake in
it, you know, from, from From Motorolaand Sony and AT& T and everybody else.
And then, then they're going to havetheir own, their own judgment on failure.
(28:50):
But meanwhile, this group ofpeople still created some literally
willed something into existencethat, that had not existed before.
So, you know, how could that be, bea failure only by, you know, widening
the circle, going after success.
Can it, can it be judged in away that every, everybody else is
trying to take a piece out of it.
But the core is still just an incredible,um, just, you know, just innovation.
(29:12):
I mean, it was really, really somethingto see, um, you know, how, how you
can create something from thin airand then have others judge it not
to be as successful as it could.
Um, where, where it wasin other forms, you know,
Veronica Miles (29:24):
We talk, that's good.
We talk often about the balancebetween hubris and humility as
a big lesson from the generalmagic story that you need both.
You know, there was times in that intheir story when maybe they had too
much hubris and not enough humility.
Ed McNamara (29:38):
So Veronica, you're currently spearheading a general
man, general magic workshops program,general magic workshops program.
Can you tell us a bit more about, youknow, who these workshops are for and how
they build on the lessons from the film?
Veronica Miles (29:52):
So when the film first came out, we as independent filmmakers
were going through the typical processof what happens to a documentary film.
We were in theaters, we wereon Showtime, we got, uh, VOD
platforms around the world.
But what we found Startedhappening right away.
It was, we were getting companieswanting to share the film with their
teams and talk about it afterwards.
(30:13):
So that became a steady thingthat we did for many years.
And it wasn't just companies.
It was classrooms, public, publichigh schools, uh, organizations,
conferences, uh, venture capitalistorganizations, everyone, um,
and around the world as well.
And so we realized that we need to beoffering something more than the film.
And that led us to develop this ideaof creating a workshop series where
(30:35):
we distill the lessons from the storyof general magic, um, and relate
it to the work of, of these teams.
And so right now we're focusing oncorporate innovation teams, but we're
going to be expanding to have this beaccessible to startups, um, to students,
uh, anyone who really wants to likelearn from the story of general magic.
(30:56):
And we've taken the lessons and kind ofput them into three, three categories.
The big one that we've talked abouta lot today is learning from failure.
Um, how do we learn from the mistakesGeneral Magic made, but also things
they did right and how they embracefailure, how the magicians embrace
failure on their journey, um, teamsand culture, how to build you.
(31:16):
We noticed too, when people watch thefilm that they really love seeing the
magicians work together and that energythey had of, um, the passion, the
creativity, um, People ask us, like,how did they build a team like that?
How did they create that culture?
And in this workshop, we focus on that.
Like, how can you, what isthe recipe for a great team?
(31:36):
How do we, how do youbring people together?
How do you make sure they'recreating a culture of innovation?
Um, and also in embracing risk, um,more, uh, you know, having more open
communication amongst their teams,um, things like that and, uh, and then
building great products, building,winning, Products as we're calling it.
But, um, you know, you see thestory of general magic and they had
(31:58):
come up with this incredible idea.
We all can't come up with ideas like that.
But how can we take these lessons fromthe story and, um, and apply that to
the products that we're working on?
And, and we really hope that theseworkshops will really, um, You know,
open up conversation, um, uh, fosterkind of resilience, um, in the
(32:19):
innovation journey and, uh, and, youknow, just really inspire people.
And, and just what we're do though,is we leave a lot of room for them
to relate to their work and whatthey're, they're working on is like,
okay, this is what general magic did.
This is what they did wrong and right.
But, um, how can weapply these lessons to.
To what you're working on today,because what we see is that
(32:40):
they're the magicians of today.
And what we want to do is inspirethe magicians, um, around the world.
And also, um, going back to that questionabout Silicon Valley kind of, I like to
say that we're kind of decentralizingSilicon Valley from the conversation
that, um, something Megan Smith talksabout a lot is that magic is everywhere
and great ideas are in everyone.
So, uh, we want to take this Theseworkshops around the world to inspire
(33:05):
people in all stages of their innovationjourneys, all stages of their careers,
all stages of, of all the bringingtheir big ideas to life and, uh, and
make sure it's shared and we've justlaunched them this this this year.
Um, and they come in theform of three hour workshops.
We kind of build these packagesof innovation journeys.
We can do this over the course of manymonths, um, for, for different teams.
(33:29):
Uh,
Ed McNamara (33:31):
uh, you said you want to take them around the world.
Uh, where, where do our listenersgo if they want to learn more
about these workshops or the filmor, or what you're both up to, um,
where should they go and find you?
What's the best way to reach out?
Veronica Miles (33:42):
Always our website, www dot general magic, the movie.
com.
Uh, there you can findhow to watch the film.
We're available on, um, most, all ofyour favorite VOD platforms right now.
Around, uh, we're also availableon Vimeo anywhere in the world
to rent or purchase the film.
Um, you can learn about ourworkshops on the website.
(34:02):
You can contact us through the website.
And we're also, of course, on LinkedIn.
You could find us there, GeneralMagic, um, or myself, Veronica Miles,
General Magic, connect with me there.
If you have more questions aboutour workshop series and want to hear
more about bringing it to your teams.
Ed McNamara (34:16):
Awesome.
Well, thank you so muchfor sharing it today.
Veronica, Michael, thank youso much for your time today.
I learned a lot about general magic.
I found the vision and the dedicationto be absolutely inspiring.
It kind of has me rethinking everythingabout what we consider a failure.
Uh, I didn't want to use the word becauseit's just so much more than more than
that, you know, but, but especially whilebuilding and supporting a culture of.
(34:38):
Of creativity and opportunity.
Uh, and just personally in my 27 yearsat SHI, we've had some ups and downs,
some successes and some opportunities forimprovement, but, uh, it's the culture
and the dedication of my coworkersthat keeps me here and keeps us going.
And I saw a lot of thatin the documentary.
Um, and there's real value andthere's real strength there.
And, uh, and just seeing that atthe movie and speaking to you both,
(35:00):
it's, uh, it's not a surprise.
So, uh, to the audience outthere, thank you to everyone
listening or tuning in on YouTube.
Thank you.
We'll return in a few weeks with abrand new innovations hero story.
Until then I'm Ed McNamara.
You've been listening toinnovation heroes and SHI podcast.
What is the recipe for a great team?
How do we, how do youbring people together?
How do you make sure they'recreating a culture of innovation
Ed McNamara (00:07):
in the world of technology?
Heroes are everywhere.
They're overcoming disruption, deliveringsustainable outcomes, and fearlessly
forging the future to solve what's next.
Join me.
Ed McNamara, as we meet the peopleand businesses driving change in
our constantly disruptive world.
This is innovation heroes, apodcast brought to you by SHI.
(00:32):
Long before Android and iPhone,a visionary company called
general magic set out to createthe world's first smartphone.
Despite groundbreaking work in the1990s that impressed technology
and business leaders and investors.
The promising company ultimatelyfailed to successfully bring their
revolutionary device to market, butthe story remains hugely influential
(00:53):
in Silicon Valley and beyond.
General Magic's epic vision would be thecatalyst for some of the most significant
technological advancements of our time.
Welcome back to Innovation Heroes.
Today, I'm joined by Veronica Miles,COO of General Magic Workshops, and
Michael Stern, CEO Former generalcounsel at General Magic and executive
(01:15):
producer of the documentary filmabout General Magic's rise and fall.
We'll unravel the true meaning of theGeneral Magic story, a combination of
bold ideas, formidable challenges, andlessons learned from how an amazingly
capable, talented, and visionarygroup of people struggled to sustain
a company that was ahead of its time.
We'll discuss how the team of so calledmagicians influenced modern technology
(01:39):
and changed the lives of billions.
Veronica and Mike, welcome to the show.
Michael Stern (01:44):
Thanks for having
Veronica Miles (01:44):
us.
Thanks so much for having us.
We're happy to be here.
Ed McNamara (01:47):
Thanks for being here.
Uh, first and foremost, forthose who haven't heard the
story, Or watch the film.
Can you tell us the snapshot versionof the story of General Magic?
Michael Stern (01:58):
Sure, I'll try to keep it brief.
Um, Apple in 1989 was tryingto figure out what was going
to come next after the desktop.
What was the next big thing after the Mac?
They hired a futurist, Mark Peratt fromthe Aspen Institute, who put together
a project for something that hadnever really been thought of before.
A handheld device that wouldbe able to communicate anytime,
(02:20):
anywhere, um, wirelessly.
Which would have applications on it thatwould let you shop, let you communicate,
let you seek out information, and, um,which would, um, be something you'd carry
with you at all times because it wouldbecome part of your life, an intimate
way of managing everything that you did.
(02:43):
Uh, Apple eventually decided it couldn'tdo it inside and it needed to spin it out.
So I helped spin it out of Applein 1990 as a separate company.
And, um, it actually started in adisused garage on Copper Street in
Palo Alto, a really classic SiliconValley startup story where there
were, you know, where Bill Atkinson,Andy Hertzfeld, um, the, um, key
(03:04):
contributors to the creation of theMacintosh and Mark started the company.
Uh, it was across the street from my lawoffice and, um, I used to hang out there.
Ed McNamara (03:14):
It's ironic that you said, you know, Apple couldn't do it inside,
um, and, and now they, you know, they're,they're all about the iPhone now.
So, um, in, in terms of why doyou think that they couldn't do it
inside is because resources dedicatedto other places, politics, what,
what, what's your impression there?
Michael Stern (03:30):
All of the above.
Um, um, they understood the desktop,but they didn't really understand
what mobile would mean, and, um,they didn't think they could make it
either, um, and the idea that Scullyand his team had was to create an
alliance to, um, Take on Microsoft.
Um, everybody understood the mistakethat they made with the desktop and
(03:55):
giving Intel and Microsoft and Windowsand IBM control of the desktop.
So the question was how to bring togethera consortium of consumer electronics
companies who could create a worldwidestandard for this communicating device.
So.
You would use outside people.
Sony would make it.
Motorola would make it.
Panasonic would make it.
(04:15):
The telephone companies wouldcreate the communication system.
It was to create this worldwideeffort to not repeat the
mistake of losing the desktop.
To the windshield, uh, axis.
Ed McNamara (04:28):
And not to, not to really, I mean, literally
shoot for the moon on this one.
But when I was re when I saw thedocumentary and I saw the number of
companies that had to be forced towork together, I'm like, this is just
reminding me of the moon launch right now.
I mean, every, every single differentcomponent has got a different manufacturer
that's under contract somehow.
Is that fair?
Michael Stern (04:46):
Yeah.
I mean, Motorola, youknow, supply the chips.
Um, um, uh, Toshiba helped us developthe ASICs and the touchscreen.
Um, but again, it was an alliance ofeverybody who was good at something,
including the international telcos.
You know, we had the national telephonecompanies of England, France, Japan.
Um, they, you know, and, and atand t in the US and again, they all
(05:08):
knew how to talk to each other andso they could build a backbone for
this worldwide communication system.
Ed McNamara (05:15):
So, a question for both of you, and thanks so much
for that background information,but what in, what inspired you to
help tell the story of General MaMagic through a documentary film?
Michael Stern (05:25):
Um, I had gotten a book contract to
actually write a book about it.
But the board wouldn't let me do it.
They wouldn't waive confidentiality.
So, um, over the years, Sarah Karush,who was one of the two directors of
the film, and who had been a magicianoriginally, and it actually, for those of
you who've seen the film, she was on thecrew that filmed all the archival footage
back in the early 90s at the company.
(05:46):
But we would talk occasionallyabout, we really got to get this out.
How can we do it?
And we met in a bar in London in2013 and decided, well, let's make
a home movie for the magicians.
Um, let's put together the archivalfootage and, you know, and interview
people and let's tell the story whenMatt Ma joined the team a year later,
the other director of the film, he said,Hey, guys, you're missing the boat here.
(06:09):
Um, this is a reallyimportant human story.
Um, it's about the crucible of failure andhow people can be resilient in the face of
it and do something really extraordinary.
Um, there's a lot morehere than a home movie.
And so over the next four years, wemade the documentary, uh, Veronica.
Oh, go ahead.
(06:29):
Sorry.
Ed McNamara (06:29):
I was going to say, there's a lot of great stories that start with,
uh, you know, we met in a bar in Londonand, and, uh, take it from there.
Veronica, do you remember when,when you first heard, um, about
the possibility of the documentary?
Veronica Miles (06:40):
Well, I actually met the team who made the film.
On the exact moment of their worldpremiere, I was working at the Tribeca
Film Festival and it was just anotherfilm coming through the doors of
the cinema I was managing that day.
And I remember during the Q and A,I was Noticing who was on stage.
I was like, Andy Hertzfeld.
Okay, Megan Smith workedin the White House.
(07:03):
And I was just like, who are these people?
What is this story?
And I made sure to watchthe movie the next day.
I was blown away.
Um, especially as, as youknow, like a millennial who
grew up in the early nineties.
And like this technology was likea part of my, like seeing this tech
was a part of my life growing up.
So I made sure to watch the filmand then contacted Matt right
away and said, I love this story.
I'd love to work with you.
(07:23):
I know how to produce screeningevents if you want help.
So they hired me to produce a hugepremiere in Silicon Valley for all the
magicians and their friends and families.
And it was the first time theyshared the movie with the audience.
The, you know, diaspora of General Magicand we rented this beautiful old historic
cinema and we had about a thousand peoplethere and it was a really emotional night.
(07:45):
It was really beautiful.
It was a reunion in itself.
But, um, I noticed as someone who's I'mobjective to this story and continue
to be, um, I found it to be very, uh,healing for them to see this story that
a lot of them hadn't talked about in manyyears be shown on screen and have it,
have it be told such a beautiful way.
So it was wonderful.
And I've been workingwith the team ever since.
Basically, my role is basically to makesure this story is, uh, seen by the world.
(08:10):
And, uh, manage the impact of theGeneral Magic story, which is what
has gotten us to where we are today.
Ed McNamara (08:15):
Yeah, and I really, I'm glad you said it.
It sounds like it was a catharticmoment for a lot of people to see that
because, um, it's, to me, it's, whenyou watch the documentary, it's as
much a people story and as much a, abusiness story and, and, and a teamwork
story as it is a technology story.
The technology is, isalmost like the baseline.
It's like, where do we,where do we go from there?
(08:37):
And the teamwork and the hard workand the, and the business aspects like
really, really, really come through.
Um, and I wanted to ask about, um,you know, Michael, you mentioned the,
the footage from the late 80s andearly 90s, it appears in the film,
you know, there's a couple of times inthe footage as it's being shot, which
I'm guessing was on a camcorder orsomething based on the film technology.
(08:58):
Then you can hear somebody say thatit's being recorded for posterity.
I mean, there's very few timesin life where you're working
on something you like this.
We need to actually document thisright now while it's happening because
it's a big deal and we're goingto want a historic record of it.
Michael Stern (09:14):
Yeah.
Um, I mean, that that reflectssomething about magic culture.
A kind of hubris, right?
I mean, we're, we're really not sureof ourselves that we were going to do
something so important, but it was worthmaking a movie, but making a response.
The other thing is, it was not just us.
AT& T had commissioned Sarah'screw to start filming us because
they thought they might be able touse it for promotional purposes.
(09:37):
Um, it went way beyond that, as it turnedout, and they got a lot more stuff.
But that was the other impetus.
Um, we didn't have to pay for it.
So
Ed McNamara (09:46):
Michael, you've walked down many different paths in life, 35 years
as a lawyer, stints in journalism, anEnglish professor working with Steve jobs.
Uh, can you share a little about whatinitially drew you to general magic as a
startup in, in a sea of other startups?
And, uh, and, and, and just giveus some of your vision during
your time as general counsel.
Michael Stern (10:07):
Yeah.
You know, as an emerging company lawyer,you know, at a Silicon Valley law firm.
I did, you know, work with a lot ofstartups, but I had never met anyone
as compelling as the three foundersand the story they were telling.
Mark was such an extraordinarilycharismatic visionary,
Bill and Andy were so.
Incredibly enthusiastic and sooverflowing with ideas and creativity
(10:29):
about how to do this new thing.
I had never had the experience ofbeing just blown away by the vision.
And, um, when they offered me a job,I, I couldn't turn it down, um, uh,
and wanted to be part of this moonshot.
Uh, the, the thing that, you know, Iwas a, I was a technological utopian.
(10:50):
I still am to some extent.
And the idea that this.
Thing that you could hold in yourhand, connect you to the world, could
connect you to other people, but evenin some ways connect you to yourself.
There was an emancipatory,a liberating aspect to that.
It would make the world a better place,and it would make us better people.
That was such a compellingpart of the vision.
(11:11):
Um, it turned out we missed the dark side.
of mobile and social and the internet,uh, and all of the, um, you know, all of
the bad things that have come out of it.
Um, but we were confident that wecould make something magical that
would really transform people's lives.
And that was what made me want to do it.
Ed McNamara (11:32):
So a big part of our audience is interested in, in, in Good corporate
governance and, and, uh, and the lawaspect as they, as they use technology to
navigate through their, their business.
I mean, something this revolutionaryon, on the council side, it's very
rare, you get to ask a, a leadcouncil, you know, I mean, the laws
could never catch up with what theywere trying to do, to, to do there.
Right.
So, um, you know, that, that had tobe fascinating, even from a legal
(11:54):
perspective, all this technologyis happening, there's, are there
any precedents for that, but,you know, way, way back when,
Michael Stern (12:00):
um, no.
And the part of being aSilicon Valley lawyer was.
Um, trying to get the new wineto fit in the old bottles.
Um, we made up the laws.
We want we meaning the communityof Silicon Valley lawyers.
We made the law up as we went along.
Um, some of the traditionalthings did catch up with us.
Um, about a week after our.
debut in New York in 1993, whenwe came out of our secrecy mode,
(12:25):
told the world what we were doing.
I got a subpoena from the JusticeDepartment, uh, saying, you know,
you've got all these competitors,Sony, Panasonic, Motorola, and the
Funko sitting around the same table.
Uh, tell me how you're not, uh, youknow, dividing markets and fixing
prices, because that's what competitorsdo when they're in the same room.
So we spent the next two years,uh, you know, uh, sending
(12:48):
literally carloads of documents.
to Washington and having lots ofconversations with folks in justice.
Uh, and we eventually convincedthem that what we were doing is
pro competitive and that we hadtaken all the necessary precautions
to avoid those antitrust traps.
Uh, but you can imagine what it was liketo get, especially by Japanese customers,
(13:08):
Or, you know, partners to undergodiscovery and to provide documents that
they considered highly secret to the U.
S.
Government and my job.
You know, it was most more politicalthan legal was trying to get them
all on board and to agree that itwas worth the risk they were taking.
Remember, we had the CEO of Sony,the CEO CEO of Motorola, the CEO
(13:30):
of Apple on the board of directors.
And, you know, their consigliere and legalfolks were terrified of, you know, them
being sued, you know, the litigation risk.
Um, when we went public, um, we had,we set the record for the number
of risk factors in a prospectus.
We had 23 single spacedpages of risk factors.
(13:51):
And I am happy to say that despitelosing 200 million, And going
bankrupt, uh, we never got sued.
Ed McNamara (14:02):
Wow.
That's amazing.
Uh, it was, it was a manand thank you for that.
We don't, you don't get toask that question enough.
I don't think.
Um, so general magic oftendescribed as a pioneering company
that was ahead of its time.
And you talked a little bit about that,but what were the key innovations that
general magic developed that are nowcommonplace in today's technology?
Michael Stern (14:21):
You know, it's a whole stack of things.
Starting with chips.
Um, the patents we got on ourASICs, believe it or not, were
bought by Intellectual Ventureswhen the company went under.
They're still being asserted.
The chips were that.
They were analog, they were acombination of analog and digital chips.
They're, they're still being, they'restill being made and they're still valued.
So starting at the bottomwith things like chips.
(14:44):
Touch screen technology.
There really wasn't anadequate touch screen.
We had a invented ourselvesin cooperation with Toshiba.
Um, there was no standardfor interconnecting devices.
So Tony Fidel and his teamdeveloped what became U.
S.
P.
Um, there was no, um, the kindof user interface that we develop
where objects look like themselvesand behave like themselves in
(15:05):
software was also something unique.
Um, so the whole UI experience, butalso the idea of applications and
applications that resided in the cloud.
a new concept then.
And so we created an app store.
Um, we had mobile applications, um, andwhich permitted people to do everything
from make airline reservations to shop,uh, to count to do their calendars.
(15:29):
So, you know, it wasan everything machine.
And, uh, you know, that plus, you know,we used c plus plus and, uh, which again
was not an industry standard at thattime, and, uh, wrote an amazingly diverse
and capable operating system that hadto fit into a very tiny memory space.
(15:52):
You know, we had less thana mega memory on the device.
Uh, and that was one of.
One of the things Andy was especiallygood at was writing really small code.
Veronica Miles (16:02):
There's also, um, I mean, if you, that's the list of what general
magic accomplished, but there's also justsomeone in the film calls it a supernova.
All the people that worked there andwhat they have gone on to do in their
careers is also so incredible to look at.
Like, uh, iPhone, iPod, Android,eBay, LinkedIn, all these companies.
(16:22):
There's so many more.
The magicians today are doingsuch incredible things and you
can trace so much technology.
We all use today to peoplewho worked at general magic.
And my favorite one, which I thinkMike might've left out is emojis.
Ed McNamara (16:34):
Yeah.
Michael Stern (16:35):
Susan Kerr, you know, Susan Kerr, who did every
icon on the, you know, she did,she did Windows and the Mac, right?
She did, she created the spacewe live in as, as computer users.
Um, she did our little rabbit logo,but she also did all the emojis.
And again, we were thefirst to deploy them.
Ed McNamara (16:55):
Yeah.
Veronica, to your point, there's awonderful little segment at the end.
Pardon the analogy, but they did it atthe end of Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
They did it at the end of AnimalHouse, where they actually tell you,
like, where everybody goes after that.
And I was like, this is so cool.
Like, I mean, it was literally, theywere just panning across, and they
were, they were like, you know, CTOof Twitter, and like, you know, um,
(17:17):
you know, Google, and, and every, allthe other names that we know right
now were, were so well represented.
And I was like, that is so cool,where they just, what a, what a great
choice by the filmmakers to justpan across, and just throw these,
um, You know, little, little nuggetsin there about where everybody was.
So, um, great decision.
And as, as a, as an audience member,I thought that was a great decision.
Michael Stern (17:36):
It was part of the structure of the film.
It was a hero's journey, right?
Um, the kids, the kids who startedout there in their twenties and their
early twenties, like Tony and Megan.
And Kevin Lynch, um, they saw us, uh, youknow, the, the stewards of the company
screw it up and their experience inthat principle of failure really shaped
(17:58):
how they went on to become such superbinnovators and technologists themselves.
Um, they learned a lotfrom what we did wrong.
And, you know, that, that madea, you know, that was the real
story was what they went on to do.
Ed McNamara (18:13):
Innovation Heroes is proudly produced by SHI, a leading
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for business and IT professionals.
For over 30 years, we've bridgedthe gap between digital strategy
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Whether you're navigatingthe cloud, strengthening
(18:34):
cybersecurity, or transforming yourworkplace, SHI is here to help.
To learn more, visit shi.
com slash solve what's next.
That's shi.
com slash solve what's next.
To embrace the future with stressfree, scalable solutions that you
(18:56):
Veronica, turning it to you fora second, you know, the, um, the
documentary highlights both thesuccesses and failures of general magic.
And, um, you know, given your backgroundof, of innovation and storytelling, how
do you think this story, this companystory challenges, the traditional
narratives of Silicon Valley success?
Veronica Miles (19:16):
Well, I know it starts with, One of the reasons the filmmakers
wanted to make this film was when peoplethink of Silicon Valley, they often
think of icons like, you know, Stevejobs, Bill Gates, like the one person.
And one of the reasons they wantto tell the story is that it's,
it's actually never one person.
It's there's teams.
(19:36):
Even actually hearing Mike earliertalk about the General Magic
Alliance is more evidence of that.
There was just so manycompanies involved in this.
So, um, I mean, I think too, I come frommore of the background of working in the
film industry in Hollywood, but I actuallysee a lot of parallels with Silicon
Valley, especially of how the outsideworld perceives it and what it also means.
Versus what it feelslike to be on the inside.
(19:59):
Whereas on the inside of Silicon Valley,um, things, you know, your people
embrace failure, they try lots of things.
They take lots of big risks.
There's lots of money goingin and out, lots of money.
Um, and, but it feels kind of like abubble where you can be doing that.
Whereas on the outside, you thinkthat if you just show up and
breathe the air of Silicon Valley,you'll be, you'll be successful.
(20:20):
It's like, you just think being inthat space will make you successful.
In reality, failing is waymore common than success.
On the inside of Silicon Valley.
So I think with the general magicstory, one thing it does is it almost
like breaks down the invisible wallbecause you get to like come inside
the doors of this company that createda lot of the foundational culture of
(20:40):
the Valley and see these people whogenuinely wanted, had this idea because
they wanted to make our lives better.
And I think that's soinspiring to see this.
Kind of, um, I don't know, just it'sso grounded to see that when, you
know, we live in such a society wherethe people making lots of apps just
to make money and things like that.
When these people have this idea thattruly want to make people's lives
(21:02):
better, which traces back also tokind of the activism in the 1960s,
that you can really trace through thefoundation of Silicon Valley as well.
And so I think that's reallyimportant to to understand.
With the story of General Magic is itbreaks down that invisible wall, but
also with the concept of failing, Ithink that's what most powerful things
about this story is this, they've,their product failed, but this idea
(21:25):
wasn't a failure and the peoplewho worked there weren't failures.
And, uh, I think that really inspirespeople who watch the film and who, uh,
who do our workshops and, and things likethat to embrace failure in a new way.
And, um, I think that's the wayit challenges, not, not just
in Silicon Valley narratives.
But business and societal narrativesabout fail failure that comes from.
(21:47):
You know, in traditional schooling,we're told that if you fail, that's
a really bad thing and you'll getkicked out of school, et cetera.
Whereas the reality is that embracingfailure is, I think actually Scully
in the movie, one of my favoritequotes is he says something like,
um, if you're not failing, you'renot doing anything important.
And, uh, I just think that's such agreat, it's a great point in lesson.
(22:11):
And That's one of the biggest powerfulpoints of the story of General
Magic is how to look at failure assomething helpful in the innovation
journey and how to make the world abetter place through embracing it.
Ed McNamara (22:21):
Well, I mean, we could get really existential and say that
failure is only possible if there'salready a conventional set of judgments,
you know, placed on what, whatsuccess is, you know, um, you know,
Veronica Miles (22:31):
That's so true.
Ed McNamara (22:32):
There was one segment in the movie where it said,
there's engineers without managers.
And I thought like, what, whata great way to let the best
ideas bubble up to the top.
I mean, you're, you're not, you'renot pitching it to a person to get an
approval to get it to the next level.
You're pitching it to your peers to getacceptance because it's the best idea.
And that, that kind of came across.
(22:53):
Is that, is that a fair assessment?
Michael Stern (22:55):
Yeah, it was our greatest strength.
That also our greatest weakness.
Um, you know, the way, you know,Harvard, the Harvard Business School
people frame this as, you know, didwe fail and was it a good failure?
What is a good failure?
Um, we didn't execute.
The downside of that kind of.
Incredible ferment ofcreativity as you described it.
(23:15):
The best ideas bubbling up also meantthat there wasn't a lot of there weren't a
lot of decisions made about when to stop.
Um, you know, what was enough?
What was going to be good enough?
Um, you know, you got to ship it.
Um, there wasn't enough of that.
Um, and, you know, one of the reasonswe failed at, you know, people,
there are a lot of theories, but,you know, it was lack of execution.
So that's the that's the tensionbetween creativity and discipline.
(23:40):
And, uh, that's a tight rep.
You have to it's really hard to walk onthe innovation in the innovation process.
Um, and it's a, you know, it's astumbling block for many companies, uh,
and, you know, I don'tthink we quite made it.
But was it a good failure?
And I think the answer is yes.
Look at look at what thediaspora accomplished.
(24:00):
Look at the footprint we left interms of both ideas and and the
notion of mobile social well.
And what the Internet could mean.
Um, you know, that that'sa pretty powerful legacy.
And, um, So yes, we failed,but we also, uh, left something
behind that was worthwhile.
Ed McNamara (24:23):
Yeah.
You, you, you reminded me of thephrase, you know, when you said when
to stop, it's almost, I think there'sa semi famous quote, every great
artist needs someone standing behindthem to tell them that they're done.
Right.
But, uh, maybe Michael, that was a goodtime to, to ask you then reflecting
on your journey with General Magic.
General magic and its eventual closure.
You know, what personal lessonsdid you learn from the experience
(24:45):
and how did they impact your, yourcareer, um, going forward and, and
your, just your general outlook on,on developing innovative solutions,
Michael Stern (24:53):
um, you know, the failure itself, the process of going
through it was really devastating.
Um, and, you know, Iwent back to my law firm.
I was lucky and someone,you know, I had a, I had a.
I had an identity in a place to go backto for many of the magicians, um, that
they didn't have that and, um, someone whospent time in the wilderness afterwards.
Um, but what it made, what it made mesee my nickname at the company was Dr.
(25:15):
No, it was always aboutnow you can't do that.
That's what, you know, that's one ofthe general counsel's role, but what
I learned how to do is how to say yes,and to find opportunities to find to
find the way to make things happen.
Rather, you know, lawyersare risk allocators.
Um, what I learned at magic was to lookbeyond risk and to look at opportunity.
(25:37):
And I think I became a much better lawyerand a much better counselor to, um,
startups, um, because of that experience.
Ed McNamara (25:44):
And Veronica, I would, I would ask you the same question.
How did the lessons of the film impactyour own views on leadership, both within
your role and on future initiatives?
Veronica Miles (25:53):
That's a really good question.
I've been.
My job for the last six years havebeen absorbing, absorbing this
story and the lessons of it andanalyzing the story of General Magic.
So there's been, I find that it'sthe gift that keeps on giving.
There's, you'd think I'd be tired ofit by now, but I'm, I'm completely not.
I'm still so inspired bythis story and the people.
Um, one of the biggest ones for me is,uh, how powerful storytelling is for,
(26:18):
um, letting go of feelings of shame.
around failure.
I think the act of them makingthis film and releasing it to the
world is a perfect example of that.
And that's a big lesson we want to bringto people is like, you know, talk, even
if it's just journaling to yourself,like be honest with yourself about
how something impacts you emotionally.
(26:39):
But storytelling can beso powerful in that way.
Um, I think the importance of, uh,pivoting and knowing when to pivot.
Um, when you are encountering achallenge, um, and that every challenge,
I kind of actually like what yousaid earlier, Ed, about, like the
societal constructs of what failure is.
(27:00):
I'm the longer I work with this story,the more I kind of think failure isn't
any isn't really anything anymore.
Like to me, failure is opportunity.
It's an opportunity to learn.
Every challenge in life isan opportunity to learn.
And and that's a big lesson I'vetaken away from absorbing this
story for such such a long time.
And and with leadership,um, Uh, vulnerability, I
(27:25):
think is really important.
Um, being vulnerable with yourteam, um, empowering your teams.
I've seen that from examples fromthe story, especially in the film.
One of the most powerful momentsis when Mark Peratt talks about the
impact that's had on his family life.
And I noticed that in everyaudience, people connect with that.
And I think Mark, as someone whohad one of the greatest ideas of our
(27:48):
time, being able to be that vulnerablereally gives permission to, to To
the audience to be vulnerable to.
And so I noticed as, as a leader,I think that's really important.
But, um, but especially listeningand empowering to, I think, in,
in the story, you see how the lackof management was a big was one of
the contributors to their failure.
(28:08):
Um, but also the lack of listeningto different voices on the team,
listening to the voices of the consumer.
Um, and I think that's a really important,like, leadership lesson from the story
is that you really need to make sureyou're making sure people feel heard and
that you are actually listening to themand making sure everyone has a voice.
Ed McNamara (28:28):
Yeah, I think that that vulnerability, it just sounds like it gets
exponentially more dangerous because, youknow, in order to be successful, you have
to keep letting more and more people inand then you have the investors and then
you have, you know, all the, you have allthe other companies that had a stake in
it, you know, from, from From Motorolaand Sony and AT& T and everybody else.
And then, then they're going to havetheir own, their own judgment on failure.
(28:50):
But meanwhile, this group ofpeople still created some literally
willed something into existencethat, that had not existed before.
So, you know, how could that be, bea failure only by, you know, widening
the circle, going after success.
Can it, can it be judged in away that every, everybody else is
trying to take a piece out of it.
But the core is still just an incredible,um, just, you know, just innovation.
(29:12):
I mean, it was really, really somethingto see, um, you know, how, how you
can create something from thin airand then have others judge it not
to be as successful as it could.
Um, where, where it wasin other forms, you know,
Veronica Miles (29:24):
We talk, that's good.
We talk often about the balancebetween hubris and humility as
a big lesson from the generalmagic story that you need both.
You know, there was times in that intheir story when maybe they had too
much hubris and not enough humility.
Ed McNamara (29:38):
So Veronica, you're currently spearheading a general
man, general magic workshops program,general magic workshops program.
Can you tell us a bit more about, youknow, who these workshops are for and how
they build on the lessons from the film?
Veronica Miles (29:52):
So when the film first came out, we as independent filmmakers
were going through the typical processof what happens to a documentary film.
We were in theaters, we wereon Showtime, we got, uh, VOD
platforms around the world.
But what we found Startedhappening right away.
It was, we were getting companieswanting to share the film with their
teams and talk about it afterwards.
(30:13):
So that became a steady thingthat we did for many years.
And it wasn't just companies.
It was classrooms, public, publichigh schools, uh, organizations,
conferences, uh, venture capitalistorganizations, everyone, um,
and around the world as well.
And so we realized that we need to beoffering something more than the film.
And that led us to develop this ideaof creating a workshop series where
(30:35):
we distill the lessons from the storyof general magic, um, and relate
it to the work of, of these teams.
And so right now we're focusing oncorporate innovation teams, but we're
going to be expanding to have this beaccessible to startups, um, to students,
uh, anyone who really wants to likelearn from the story of general magic.
(30:56):
And we've taken the lessons and kind ofput them into three, three categories.
The big one that we've talked abouta lot today is learning from failure.
Um, how do we learn from the mistakesGeneral Magic made, but also things
they did right and how they embracefailure, how the magicians embrace
failure on their journey, um, teamsand culture, how to build you.
(31:16):
We noticed too, when people watch thefilm that they really love seeing the
magicians work together and that energythey had of, um, the passion, the
creativity, um, People ask us, like,how did they build a team like that?
How did they create that culture?
And in this workshop, we focus on that.
Like, how can you, what isthe recipe for a great team?
(31:36):
How do we, how do youbring people together?
How do you make sure they'recreating a culture of innovation?
Um, and also in embracing risk, um,more, uh, you know, having more open
communication amongst their teams,um, things like that and, uh, and then
building great products, building,winning, Products as we're calling it.
But, um, you know, you see thestory of general magic and they had
(31:58):
come up with this incredible idea.
We all can't come up with ideas like that.
But how can we take these lessons fromthe story and, um, and apply that to
the products that we're working on?
And, and we really hope that theseworkshops will really, um, You know,
open up conversation, um, uh, fosterkind of resilience, um, in the
(32:19):
innovation journey and, uh, and, youknow, just really inspire people.
And, and just what we're do though,is we leave a lot of room for them
to relate to their work and whatthey're, they're working on is like,
okay, this is what general magic did.
This is what they did wrong and right.
But, um, how can weapply these lessons to.
To what you're working on today,because what we see is that
(32:40):
they're the magicians of today.
And what we want to do is inspirethe magicians, um, around the world.
And also, um, going back to that questionabout Silicon Valley kind of, I like to
say that we're kind of decentralizingSilicon Valley from the conversation
that, um, something Megan Smith talksabout a lot is that magic is everywhere
and great ideas are in everyone.
So, uh, we want to take this Theseworkshops around the world to inspire
(33:05):
people in all stages of their innovationjourneys, all stages of their careers,
all stages of, of all the bringingtheir big ideas to life and, uh, and
make sure it's shared and we've justlaunched them this this this year.
Um, and they come in theform of three hour workshops.
We kind of build these packagesof innovation journeys.
We can do this over the course of manymonths, um, for, for different teams.
(33:29):
Uh,
Ed McNamara (33:31):
uh, you said you want to take them around the world.
Uh, where, where do our listenersgo if they want to learn more
about these workshops or the filmor, or what you're both up to, um,
where should they go and find you?
What's the best way to reach out?
Veronica Miles (33:42):
Always our website, www dot general magic, the movie.
com.
Uh, there you can findhow to watch the film.
We're available on, um, most, all ofyour favorite VOD platforms right now.
Around, uh, we're also availableon Vimeo anywhere in the world
to rent or purchase the film.
Um, you can learn about ourworkshops on the website.
(34:02):
You can contact us through the website.
And we're also, of course, on LinkedIn.
You could find us there, GeneralMagic, um, or myself, Veronica Miles,
General Magic, connect with me there.
If you have more questions aboutour workshop series and want to hear
more about bringing it to your teams.
Ed McNamara (34:16):
Awesome.
Well, thank you so muchfor sharing it today.
Veronica, Michael, thank youso much for your time today.
I learned a lot about general magic.
I found the vision and the dedicationto be absolutely inspiring.
It kind of has me rethinking everythingabout what we consider a failure.
Uh, I didn't want to use the word becauseit's just so much more than more than
that, you know, but, but especially whilebuilding and supporting a culture of.
(34:38):
Of creativity and opportunity.
Uh, and just personally in my 27 yearsat SHI, we've had some ups and downs,
some successes and some opportunities forimprovement, but, uh, it's the culture
and the dedication of my coworkersthat keeps me here and keeps us going.
And I saw a lot of thatin the documentary.
Um, and there's real value andthere's real strength there.
And, uh, and just seeing that atthe movie and speaking to you both,
(35:00):
it's, uh, it's not a surprise.
So, uh, to the audience outthere, thank you to everyone
listening or tuning in on YouTube.
Thank you.
We'll return in a few weeks with abrand new innovations hero story.
Until then I'm Ed McNamara.
You've been listening toinnovation heroes and SHI podcast.
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