Shows / General Magic & The Soul of Tech
General Magic & The Soul of Tech
Our documentary told the story of General Magic—the most influential tech company you’ve never heard of. Now, we’re exploring the lessons it left behind and what they reveal about the future of technology, culture, and human ambition.
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Episodes
General Magic & The Soul of TechEp. 13 | Can Constraints Make AI Better? | David Epstein
David Epstein is one of America’s best writers about social and biological science, who also happens to be deeply versed in the General Magic story, and has…
General Magic & The Soul of TechEp. 12 | “Schrambo” Ships: AI, Climate Tech, and Advice for Founders | Steve Schramm
Steve Schramm is a builder who has spent his career on the far side of the big bets. He came up through HP and McDonnell Douglas and the telecom standards…
General Magic & The Soul of TechEp. 11 | Regurgitation or Intelligence? Can AI Generate Novel Thoughts? | John Giannandrea
John Giannandrea, who ran AI at Google and Apple, and Steve Jarrett, former Chief AI Officer at Orange, both General Magic alum, talk with us about AI hype…
General Magic & The Soul of TechEp. 10 | The Internet’s Last True Believer Defends Section 230 | Eric Goldman
Our guest, Eric Goldman, professor and Associate Dean for Research at Santa Clara University School of Law, was dubbed The Internet’s Last True Believer in a…
General Magic & The Soul of TechEp. 9 | Unintended Consequences: Taking Responsibility for What We Build | Tony Fadell
At General Magic, we naively believed that if we built elegant tools and put them in people’s hands, the rest would take care of itself. Tony Fadell was there…
General Magic & The Soul of TechEp. 8 | From General Magic Idealism to the White House | Megan Smith
Before she was Employee #12 at General Magic, Megan Smith grew up in Buffalo, studied mechanical engineering at MIT, and was working in Tokyo on multimedia…
General Magic & The Soul of TechEp. 7 | The Agent Safety Architecture We Abandoned | Rich Miller
What do you get when you cross a New Mexico cowboy with the early days of email and telecommunications? Answer: Rich Miller, one of the OGs of email and, with…
General Magic & The Soul of TechEp. 6 | Superintelligence, Fusion, and Faith | Marc Porat
Our special guest for Episode 6 is one of Silicon Valley’s most influential and persuasive visionaries. Marc Porat’s Ph.D. thesis at Stanford created the very…
General Magic & The Soul of TechEp. 5 | Vision as a Double-Edged Sword | Kris Rodriguez
Kris Rodriguez was one of the original HR people at General Magic — the person who decided who got hired, and who didn’t, at one of Silicon Valley’s most…
General Magic & The Soul of TechEp. 4 | One of Tech’s OGs on Why AI Feels Like Magic | Andy Hertzfeld
Andy Hertzfeld wrote much of the original Macintosh operating system, co-founded General Magic, later worked at Google, and created Folklore.org, the…
General Magic & The Soul of TechEp. 3 | What Orange’s Chief AI Officer Learned from General Magic | Steve Jarrett
Steve Jarrett is one of the rare technologists who has built products at every stage of the mobile revolution — from General Magic and Audible to Philips and…
General Magic & The Soul of TechEp. 2 | Size Corrupts: Why Great Tech Teams Stop Being Great | Scott Knaster
Welcome to our second episode of General Magic & The Soul of Tech. This was a nostalgic conversation with one of our early colleagues at General Magic. Scott…
General Magic & The Soul of TechEp. 1 | The Soul of Tech: Jobs, Musk, and the Next Inflection Point | Michael Stern & Tom Hershenson
Thirty years ago, the team at General Magic invented the smartphone concept — and helped usher in a revolution that reshaped how we work, communicate, and…