Size Corrupts

Our fellow Magician, Scott Knaster, just posted the story of how he found his way to General Magic — and it starts, fittingly, with an anonymous rumor on an experimental Apple messaging system called Rumor Monger. Scott points out that Rumor Monger “predicted some of the bad behavior that most of the world would have to wait decades to see… when social media showed up.”

Scott came to General Magic as employee #14 — a technical writer among engineers — because he crashed a going-away party, ate some pastries, and ran into the right person. That’s very Magic. His interview with Bill and Andy Hertzfeld was so thrilling that he asked Bill if the model device he was showing was actually working. It wasn’t. Also very Magic.

What’s interesting about Scott’s Rumor Monger story is how early the warning signs on the dangers of social media were visible — anonymous posts, addictive scrolling, behavior that turned good people a little less good — all inside Apple, the company Scott describes in his conversation with Mike and Hersh as the place where soul was baked into the products. He saw General Magic fail, saw Microsoft prioritize winning at all costs, and watched “don’t be evil” crumble at Google. He landed on a simple explanation for all of it: “size corrupts.”

Scott’s post and his interview on our podcast are two halves of the same thought. Start with one, finish with the other.