History Film / PiratesOfSiliconValley

--> The personalities and incidents are accurate in the sense that they all occurred but they are often with the wrong parties (Bill Fernandez, Apple employee #4, was with me and the computer that burned up in 1970) and at the wrong dates (when John Sculley joined, he had to redirect attention from the Apple III, not the Mac, to the Apple II) and places (Homebrew Computer Club was at Stanford Linear Accelerator Center) ... the personalities were very accurately portrayed.

* FourthWallPsych: The movie begins with Steve Jobs talking about changing the world. It seems like he's talking to the viewer about the film, but then the camera zooms out to reveal he's talking to Ridley Scott, the director of Apple's famous "1984" Super Bowl commercial.

** Jobs would of course get his happy ending after the release of the film.

* GlorifiedSpermDonor: [[spoiler: Jobs with his daughter Lisa. He claims to be sterile and unable to get anyone pregnant, denying that he is the father. He seems to regret it after awhile though, with one scene showing him interacting with Lisa, and the speculation that the Apple Lisa was named after her.]]

* AManIsNotAVirgin: Jobs seems to be pulling something like this with a interviewee when he asks him if he was a virgin (he wasn't), but the movie was misinterpreting an actual event. While Jobs in reality did inquire about a man's sex life, he was probably also referring to "Code Virgins", people who had never seen copyrighted IBM code before while working for them. While it is legal to reverse-engineer code, copying code is not, and a fast-talking IBM lawyer could argue that this was the case if a former IBM employee worked for Apple and made a product similar to an IBM one.

''Pirates of Silicon Valley'' is a 1999 made-for-TV docudrama. Based off of the book ''Fire in the Valley: The Making of The Personal Computer'' by Paul Freiberger, it documents the creation and rise of AppleComputers (later Apple Inc.) and {{Microsoft}} through the lives of each company's co-founder, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. The story is told InMediasRes and narrated by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak (when focusing on Jobs and Apple) and Microsoft executive Steve Ballmer (when focusing on Gates and Microsoft). NoahWyle stars as Steve Jobs, AnthonyMichaelHall as Bill Gates, and JohnDiMaggio appears as Steve Ballmer.

* ShownTheirWork: Despite a research workload that avoided official statements or interviews from either Apple or Microsoft, the film manages to capture most of the events it covers quite accurately (albeit with occasional goofs). Even the real Steve Wozniak was impressed by the producers' accuracy and said as much in an interview:

** Played straight in Gates segments, where Ballmer is portrayed as a younger DirtyOldMan and is constantly giving Gates flak for focusing on business over interacting with females.

* AManIsNotAVirgin: Jobs seems to be pulling something like this with a interviewee when he asks him if he was a virgin (he wasn't), but the movie was misinterpreting an actual event. Jobs was referring to "Code Virgins", people who had never seen copyrighted IBM code before while working for them. While it is legal to reverse-engineer code, copying code is not, and a fast-talking IBM lawyer could argue that this was the case if a former IBM employee worked for Apple and made a product similar to an IBM one.

* ManipulativeBastard: Gates. They convience IBM that they have software that they didn't even have (yet), and most importantly, when Jobs catches wind that he is designing Windows, he calls him out on software piracy, but Gates manages to convince him it's just a small side project, and towards the end of the scene, Gates praises the Apple Computer company, telling Jobs he would only get an Apple Computer for his mother. The narration in this scene lampshades it to hell and back.

* InsufferableGenius: Both Jobs and Gates.

* Documentary: The movie will cut away to have either the actual people the movie was based on, or the actors themselves give exposition on a scene.

* GlorifiedSpermDonor: [[spoiler: Jobs with his daughter Lisa. He claims to be sterile and unable to get anyone pregnant, denying that he is the father.]]

* HarsherInHindsight: Jobs calls out Wozinak for his choice in eating french fries in the beginning of the movie (this was when Jobs was on a fruit diet), claiming Woz was doing nothing but putting poison in his body and shortening his life...

* GranolaGirl: Steve Jobs' girlfriend Arlene

* {{Jerkass}}: Both Jobs and Gates, though Jobs' jerkassery is shown more prominently in the film (to the point that one Apple employee almost throttles him for his verbal abuse).

* InMediasRes: After the introductory scene during the creation of Apple's "1984" ad, the film jumps to the famous 1997 Macworld conference where Steve Jobs announces Microsoft investing in Apple. Steve Wozniak's narration asks how the two companies went from hating each other to partnering up, and then the film jumps back to the 70s to tell the main story.

* MushroomSamba: Jobs goes through one when he takes acid in his hippie days

''Pirates of Silicon Valley'' is a 1999 made-for-TV docudrama. Based off of the book ''Fire in the Valley: The Making of The Personal Computer'' by Paul Freiberger, it documents the creation and rise of AppleComputers (later Apple Inc.) and {{Microsoft}} through the lives of each company's co-founder, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. The story is told InMediasRes and narrated by Steve Wozniak (when focusing on Jobs and Apple) and Steve Ballmer (when focusing on Gates and Microsoft). NoahWyle stars as Steve Jobs, AnthonyMichaelHall as Bill Gates, and JohnDiMaggio appears as Microsoft exec Steve Ballmer.

''Pirates of Silicon Valley'' is a 1999 made-for-TV docudrama. Based off of the book ''Fire in the Valley: The Making of The Personal Computer'' by Paul Freiberger, it documents the creation and rise of AppleComputers (later Apple Inc.) and {{Microsoft}} through the lives of their co-founders, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. The story is told InMediasRes and narrated by Steve Wozniak (when focusing on Jobs and Apple) and Steve Ballmer (when focusing on Gates and Microsoft). NoahWyle stars as Steve Jobs, AnthonyMichaelHall as Bill Gates, and JohnDiMaggio appears as Microsoft exec Steve Ballmer.

''Pirates of Silicon Valley'' is a 1999 made-for-TV docudrama. Based off of the book ''Fire in the Valley: The Making of The Personal Computer'' by Paul Freiberger, it documents the creation and rise of AppleComputers (later Apple Inc.) and {{Microsoft}} through the lives of their co-founders, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. The story is told InMediaRes and narrated by Steve Wozniak (when focusing on Jobs and Apple) and Steve Ballmer (when focusing on Gates and Microsoft). NoahWyle stars as Steve Jobs, AnthonyMichaelHall as Bill Gates, and JohnDiMaggio appears as Microsoft exec Steve Ballmer.

The film made its debut on television on June 20, 1999 on [[TurnerNetworkTelevision TNT]] was later released on VHS and DVD