“Silicon Valley has already won. It’s just that Hollywood hasn’t quite figured it out yet.”
Nick Bilton
Later this month I’m going to hit my 11th anniversary of writing this blog. A blog that I initially thought I’d do for one year. The first blog post was on January 22, 2008 so I’m hoping by this January 22 I’m going to have some big information about the release of my book.
Every year I wonder if I’ll have material to keep the blog fresh for another year. Then things just happen. Like when 2018 ended with Netflix announcing that its original film Bird Box, starring Sandra Bullock, had 41 million Netflix account views in just its first 7 days. Things are getting interesting.
In 2018, Netflix paid a lot of money to A-list writers and locked down some accomplished emerging writers are well. With more companies jumping into streaming content this year, 2019 promises to get more interesting for both viewers and content creators.
All the major tech companies are competing viciously for the same thing: your attention. Four years after the debut of House of Cards, Netflix, which earned an astounding 54 Emmy nominations in 2016, is spending $6 billion a year on original content. Amazon isn’t far behind. Apple, Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat are all experimenting with original content of their own.
Nick Bilton
“WHY HOLLYWOOD WE KNOW IT IS ALREADY OVER”
Vanity Fair, 2017
No need to get into the blending of Hollywood and Silicon Valley here, but did you know a key player in laying the foundation for Silicon Valley was born, raised and educated in Iowa? Robert Noyce was born in Burlington, Iowa in 1927 and a graduate of Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa. (The same college that actor Gary Cooper and writer/director/actor Kumail Nanjiani attended.)
Noyce went on to earn his doctorate in physics from MIT and become a physicist who co-founded Fairchild Semiconductor, and the Intel Corporation. Wikipedia states Noyce is “credited (along with Jack Kilby) with the realization of the first integrated circuit or microchip that fueled the personal computer revolution and gave Silicon Valley its name.”
That earned Noyce the nickname “The Mayor of Silicon Valley.” I only learned about Noyce and his Iowa connection a few days ago when I read Tom Wolfe’s essay “Two Young Men Who Went West” in his book Hooking Up. (Wolfe called Noyce “the father of Silicon Valley.”)
Just why was it that small-town boys form the Middle West dominated the engineering frontiers? Noyce concluded it was because in a small town you became a technician, a tinker, an engineer, and an inventor, by necessity. ‘In a small town,’ Noyce liked to say, ‘when something breaks, you don’t wait around for a new part, because it’s not coming. You make it yourself.’”
Tom Wolfe
“Two Young Men Who Went West”
You can also learn more about Noyce and the key role he played in the early days of Silicon Valley by watching the documentary Silicon Valley: Where the Future was Born.
And in the spirit of Robert Noyce, 2018 brought another story of two young men who went west—and actually from Iowa—and found success in California. Screenwriters Scott Beck and Bryan Woods after years of making low-budget films in Hollywood had a box office and critical hit with A Quiet Place.
The majority of posts this month will be centered around another Midwesterner who found success in Hollywood. William Goldman’s was born and raised in Chicago and did his undergraduate work in Ohio before eventually going on to write the screenplays for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All the President’s Men, and The Princess Bride.
After Goldman died last November, Aaron Sorkin called him “The dean of American Screenwriting.” Seems like a good way to start 2019. Oh, another good way to for you to start 2019 is to look at the open script submission for Jordan Peele’s Monkeypaws Productions.
Thank you, Scott, for being here for the last 11 years. Your insights are always welcome. Keep them coming! All the best in 2019.