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 Knaster is one of the few people who worked at Apple, General Magic, and then Microsoft and Google—which means he’s seen the soul of tech from just about every angle. In this conversation, he talks about what made each of those cultures different, and why Magic’s still stands apart in his memory. He explains why “size corrupts” even the best-intentioned companies, why Steve Jobs remains the most magnetic figure in any story he appears in, and why storytelling is the tool he uses to preserve what mattered before it’s forgotten. It’s a warm, honest, and sometimes funny look at what happens when a company is built around people rather than products—and what gets lost when that stops being the priority.
In this episode:
The technical writer as bridge between engineering vision and public understanding
Falling in love with Apple when soul was in its products
Employee #14 at General Magic and learning storytelling from Andy Hertzfeld
“At Apple, it has to be cool. At Microsoft, it has to win.”
Google’s “don’t be evil” — sincere origins, the layoffs, and what broke
“Size corrupts” — why company culture breaks down at scale
The rules of Steve Jobs stories and his singular intuition
Why General Magic didn’t protect mobile devices from surveillance capitalism
Seventeen books, a one-man stage show, and a Substack called “Occasionally Misses Expectations”
About Scott Knaster
Scott Knaster is a Silicon Valley veteran who spent four decades as a technical writer and communicator at Apple, General Magic, Microsoft, Danger, and Google. Employee #14 at General Magic, he worked alongside Bill Atkinson, Andy Hertzfeld, and Marc Porat documenting MagicCap and Telescript from day one. He is the author of 17 books — including the influential How to Write Macintosh Software, which gave a generation of developers their start on the Mac — and a performer who has told tech stories on stage in one-man shows. He now writes the Substack “Occasionally Misses Expectations,” preserving the stories behind the companies that shaped modern technology before they’re forgotten.
Resources & Links:
Scott Knaster on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottknaster/
Scott Knaster’s Substack, ”Occasionally Misses Expectations”: scottknaster.substack.com
General Magic documentary: https://www.generalmagicthemovie.com
The full uncut video is below on YouTube for those nostalgia buffs who want to hear our full conversation.
