this stuff happen at different places, and these companies—no surprise—have
not prospered.
But, then again, I’ve seen companies that really have a lot of execution
problems. General Magic is a good example of that. They really did not execute
well in what they were doing. The product was very expensive; it was over
$1,000. It was heavy. The battery didn’t last long. The screen was not very
bright. And it was loaded with all sorts of features that were not really needed
by a mobile professional, which is what a PDA—this was 1990—was targeted
for. Palm, on the other hand, made something small, light, the battery lasted a
long time. It was inexpensive and focused on things like a calendar and address
book. I saw General Magic working on getting bunny rabbit animations working
to make it cute. It had infrared output, and they were making it so it could
tune channels on a TV. They were doing things that were just taking sideways
turns from the core product, which were interesting things to work on in a playground
kind of environment as engineers, but were not focused on the product
execution.
But the thing about it is, the three founders were very, very closely bound
together. They worked together well, for better or for worse. They projected a
common vision. They exuded stability, which made everyone else feel stable in
the company. And it made the company strong. They were able to survive. The
company ended up lasting over a decade. It did an IPO, though it finally fizzled
out. And the product was never successful in the market. It only sold a few
thousand units. But it shows an example of where you have so many things
working against you—the product was not one that was marketable, and you
are facing all these problems—but because they had a very strong core, they
were able to survive as an organization. To me, that was the most important
thing.
The key thing about Phil and Bruce is that they had hearts of gold. They
were nice people. They were not in it to get rich. I mean, money certainly is
Steve Perlman 189
freedom. But they both had a vision of creating something great that people
would love. That attitude from the three of us permeated the rest of the organization.
And the organization functioned well. On top of it, we had a strong
business model and good execution on the technology. We were actually profitable
18 months after we launched.
We could have had all the technical talent and engineering know-how and
business knowledge, but, if we were acting like Chinese fighting fish in a tank

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