Danielle Newnham Podcast Andy Hertzfeld on the Macintosh, Steve Jobs and General Magic (REPLAY)
It’s hard to believe it but has been a year now since I kicked off the show and as I have gained tens of thousands of new listeners since then, I thought it might be nice to head back in time and re-share my very first guest – the one and only - Andy Hertzfeld who also happens to be one of my favourite people in tech. Andy helped revolutionise the home PC industry as part of the original Macintosh team before founding his own startups including General Magic which imagined the iPhone - seventeen years ahead of time.
In this conversation which was recorded on 11th November 2020, Andy Hertzfeld shares his inspiring story from childhood through to creating the Macintosh and on to General Magic including the highs and lows along the way.
We discuss his career and friendship with Steve Jobs and what it takes to hold a seemingly impossible vision, build a pioneering team capable of achieving it and, most importantly, when and how best to execute.
There are many great stories in this episode, and anecdotes of a pivotal time in tech history but, best of all, Andy shares the lessons he learned from the successes, and the failures.
Enjoy!
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Notes
In this episode, Andy and I discuss:
"Marc" which is Marc Porat - the co-founder of General Magic with Andy and Bill Atkinson. In 1990, Marc wrote the following note to John Sculley, imagining a truly smart phone: "A tiny computer, a phone, a very personal object . . . It must be beautiful. It must offer the kind of personal satisfaction that a fine piece of jewellery brings. It will have a perceived value even when it's not being used... Once you use it you won't be able to live without it." NB My interview with Marc can be found here.
The General Magic documentary can be found on iTunes here.
Andy's book - Revolution in The Valley: The Insanely Great Story of How the Mac Was Made - can be bought here.
Series 1 of this podcast and the original episode with Andy was sponsored by Sensate and edited by Jolin Cheng.