General Magic University

I worked at an extremely ambitious startup named General Magic from 1990 to 1996. General Magic started as a project inside Apple and then became its own company. The company wanted to make small portable touch screen personal communicators that could send and receive beautiful notes called telecards, provide access to online shopping, and make phone calls. It was sort of like trying to make an iPhone in 1991.

Many very smart people worked there. Virtually every major consumer electronics and telecom company in the world was an investor.

Several devices shipped, including the Sony MagicLink and Motorola Envoy.

General Magic made some great software but the
company failed: data networks weren't ready, we took too long to ship and iterate, and the internet came along and we didn't embrace it fast enough.
The instructor signature belongs to Susan Rayl.