Talent, Time and Money: The Curse of General Magic
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Pushkin.
This cautionary tale is based with permission on David Epstein's book, Inside the Box, How Constraints Make Us Better. Let's start with the idea, and the man whose idea it was. His name was Mark Peratt. Peratt was a man with a vision of a technology so powerful it would catalyse a new age of civilisation. That doesn't happen often. Thousands of years ago, the plough was a technology that unleashed the agricultural age. In the 1760s, the first practical steam engine started the industrial age. And what comes next? The information age, of course. We know that now. Half a century ago, it wasn't so obvious. But Mark Peratt saw it back in 1976 in his doctoral research. Here he is a few years later, presenting his own primetime PBS documentary.
It's called The Information Society.
Today, many people believe that information tools are the third technology to change the course of civilization. changing our relationship to nature, to each other, to the very way we experience reality. Of all the information tools, the computer is probably the most powerful.
That was 1980. The information age was just getting started. Where would it go? What would people do as computers became more and more powerful, more and more ubiquitous? Mark Peratt knew. His doctoral dissertation coined the phrase the information economy. But Peratt was more than just an analyst of long-term macroeconomic trends. He was a charismatic, visionary speaker. One colleague said... The thing about Peratt when he speaks is everybody in the audience says to themselves two things. They say, my God, this guy's right. I can go to the roof of this building and if I jump, I will fly. There are risks to listening to charismatic speakers. And the other thing? The second thing they would think is, and that guy up there on the stage and me, we're the only two guys who really get it.
In the late 1980s, after a few years as a freewheeling big thinker, Mark Peratt joined the Advanced Technology Group at Apple Computer. His job was to think about what kinds of products the information society would need. Computers, yes, of course, but not just desktop machines. In a big red notebook, Peratt described what he saw as the information and communication product of the future. It must offer the kind of personal satisfaction that a fine piece of jewelry brings. It will have a perceived value, even when it's not being used. It should offer the comfort of a touchstone, the tactile satisfaction of a seashell, The enchantment of a crystal. That product? His big red book contains a sketch. It's a slim, glazed rectangle.
No buttons, just a touchscreen. And its functions? A phone, a messaging device, a portable television, a portable games console. You could even use it to book a plane ticket. It was 1989. Most mobile phones were the size of bricks. Apple's new portable computer weighed 16 pounds. There was no World Wide Web. And Mark Peratt had just imagined the iPhone. I'm Tim Harford, and you're listening to Cautionary Tales.
Peratt called his idea the pocket crystal. He imagined that people would carry them everywhere. It would be small, intimate, like jewellery. You'd wear it all the time, he explained. And if there was a fire in your house, you'd think, family goes first, and then I grab my pocket crystal. Peratt wasn't just a visionary. He was an evangelist and a brilliant one at that. He showed his idea to a colleague called Bill Atkinson. Atkinson called his friend Andy Hertzfeld. He was beyond excited.
You've got to see this new thing. It's the next thing. You've got to meet with this guy Mark.
Andy was convinced too. Bill Atkinson and Andy Hertzfeld were legendary figures in Silicon Valley. And they weren't big picture future trends people like Peratt. They were technically brilliant programmers. They were both central in the design and operating system of the original Apple Macintosh, one of the most influential computers ever made. Have you ever used a drop-down menu on a computer? A hyperlink? Double-clicked on a mouse?
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