General Magic's Two Fatal Flaws
Were — remarkably — its two major innovations
In the early 1990s, one of the hottest stealth startups was called General Magic. They were building a handheld “Personal Intelligent Communicator,” which was a precursor to Apple’s Newton. The founding team included some famous developers, working to manifest a vision that founder Marc Porat had expressed at Apple. I was a fan, and was excited at what they might produce.
I attended their launch event in 1994, and as you’ll see in this video, received a MagicLink device, which I still have (and still boots!).
This is a brief story about innovation, specifically innovation gone wrong. To realize Porat’s vision, the highly qualified developers he recruited made design choices that didn’t fit the world they were born into.
There was at least one more fatal flaw: The MagicLink was priced at $800, quite a sum in 1994 for a device that mostly did email. As you’ll hear me recount, it was more or less stillborn.
Alas, the 2018 documentary General Magic doesn’t touch the architectural issues at all, though it will familiarize you with the smart staff and the dreams they held.
This article is cross-posted on Substack here and LinkedIn here. It's also here in my Brain.