General Magic
company on 12 shows · 9 statements across 7 episodes · said 58 times in 22 episodes since 2019
20VC 18 
American Optimist 11 
Acquired 11 
Another Podcast 4 
Capital Allocators 4 
All-In 3 
BG2 Pod 2 
Lenny's Podcast 2 
the a16z Podcast 2 
the Neon Show 1 
More or Less 
Masters of Scale
Mentions by year, every show
tap a year for its mentions
20VC 18Acquired 11American Optimist 11Capital Allocators 4Another Podcast 4All-In 3the a16z Podcast 2Lenny's Podcast 22 more shows
2026 1 mention in 1 episode
2025 5 mentions in 3 episodes 2 per episode
2024 3 mentions in 2 episodes 2 per episode
2023 5 mentions in 3 episodes 2 per episode
2022 40 mentions in 9 episodes 4 per episode
- Legendary iPod & iPhone Creator Tony Fadell Shares His Design Secrets · Joe Lonsdale
- Tony Fadell: Why You Can't Be a Solo Founder; Mercenary vs. Missionary Operators | 20VC #910 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Tony Fadell: Product Marketing Lessons I Learned from Steve Jobs | 20VC #884 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Benchmark Part I · Acquired
- Amazon Web Services · Acquired
- Hugo Barra: How I Built Hardware for Android, Xiaomi, and Oculus | 20VC #947 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- How many metaverses?
- Chris Dixon – Frameworks and Investing at Scale (EP.258, Crypto for Institutions 2, EP.05)
- 1 more episode that year, every mention in 2022 →
2021 2 mentions in 2 episodes 1 per episode
2019 2 mentions in 2 episodes 1 per episode
every mention on every show, scene by scene, with the transcript →
9 statements about General Magic, every show
Epstein: General Magic Was Silicon Valley's First Concept IPO
“They had real-time footage of this company that was the first so-called concept IPO in Silicon Valley history, where Goldman Sachs took them public with an idea, not a product, and they were basically making the iPhone, you know, 20 years too early, and resour…”
Lessin: The entire Android team came from General Magic
“The entire Android team was the General Magic team. So like generations later in a very different form, the people that did General Magic did come back around and did do an important part of the history of mobile computing, right?”
General Magic invented the early concepts of cloud and mobile computing
“They invented the concept of cloud. They invented the concept of mobile.”
Pierre Omidyar created eBay while employed full-time at General Magic
“He was still a full-time employee at General Magic when creating eBay.”
Rosenthal: 'Cloud infrastructure' originated at General Magic for mobile back-end services
“It started At General Magic. How crazy is that? The Apple spin out that invented the iPhone, 20 years before the iPhone, as part of what they were doing, they also wanted to have, you know, the internet sort of barely existed, so I don't think they thought of …”
Fadell: Corporate rejection of good ideas is the best startup catalyst
“If at some point you just run into a wall, like I did at General Magic, you leave and go do it, right? Because that's what happens in most big companies is people with value and have the right how could I say energy to literally say, I think this should be rig…”
Fadell: General Magic Built the iPhone 15 Years Too Early
“Followed my heroes out to Silicon Valley at a company called General Magic, who was the Mac team creating the iPhone just 15 years before the iPhone came out. We were doing it too early.”
Fadell: General Magic sold only thousands of units despite $500M+ investment
“General Magic was a huge one. It maybe sold a few thousand units, you know, after a five hundred million dollars or more investment in the nineties.”