review by Nat Almirall
Something Ventured 2011
Reviewed Feb 18, 2012
Nat Almirall’s review:
Another doc full of potential that it wastes. Directors Dan Geller and Danya Goldfine get access to some of the greatest financial minds of our time: Arthur Rock, one of the first people who invested in Apple, Intel, Scientific Data Systems, and Teledyne; Jim Gaither, one of the first venture capitalists, who basically set up the system; Mike Markkula, former CEO of Apple; Robert Campbell, founder of PowerPoint; the surviving members of “The Traitorous Eight,” and does nothing with them outside of ask questions that could be found in any Business History 101 textbook. And to ask these men to teach history is to miss the point. For one, they’re not particularly articulate enough to lecture on how they changed the world; that’s a job for the historians, and the important questions–why they did it, what drove them, how to build a great company, what the next big financial development will be, how to recognize it, is technology a bubble, are we in a crisis–are glided over or outright ignored. These men (and women) have insight, but the film never quite taps into it.
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