General Magic (2018)
This film tells the story of what's been called “the most important company to come out of Silicon Valley that no one has ever heard of.” Spun out of Apple in 1990, General Magic's team included future legends who would go on to create the iPhone, Android,
and eBay. They invented the world's first smartphone in the early 90s, complete with concepts that look eerily like modern apps, emojis, and e-commerce. But it was a commercial failure. For Informix fans, this is a perfect parallel: a story of a brilliant, visionary team with world-changing technology that was simply too far ahead of its time to win in the market. It captures the bittersweet feeling of being right, but not victorious.
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005)
This Oscar-nominated documentary is the quintessential tale of corporate hubris and fraud. It details the spectacular collapse of the energy-trading giant Enron, a company once lauded for its innovation. The film masterfully unpacks the complex accounting schemes, the culture of arrogance, and the executive malfeasance that led to the company's downfall. The parallels to Informix's own dark chapter are impossible to ignore. In the mid-1990s, Informix was rocked by a major accounting scandal involving phantom sales and overstated revenues, which ultimately led to a massive stock collapse and jail time for its CEO, Phil White. Watching 'The Smartest Guys in the Room' provides a chilling, macro-level view of the kind of financial pressures and ethical lapses that can bring a tech darling to its knees.
Triumph of the Nerds (1996)
To understand Informix's rise, you have to understand the world it was born into. This classic PBS documentary series, hosted by Robert X. Cringely, chronicles the birth of the personal computer industry, with incredible interviews with young versions of Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and other pioneers. It perfectly captures the Wild West atmosphere of the 70s and 80s, when upstarts in garages and small offices were taking on corporate giants like IBM—the very company that would later acquire Informix. For anyone who remembers the fierce database wars between Informix, Oracle, and Sybase, this series is a nostalgic trip back to the era when nerds, hippies, and amateurs accidentally changed the world and became accidental millionaires.
Something Ventured (2011)
Behind every great startup is, often, a great venture capitalist. This documentary shifts the focus from the founders to the financiers—the risk-takers who wrote the checks that built Silicon Valley. Featuring interviews with the legendary VCs who backed companies like Apple, Intel, Atari, and Cisco, 'Something Ventured' explains the unique ecosystem of high-risk investment and mentorship that fueled the tech revolution. Informix was a product of this same system, going public in 1986. This film provides essential context, showing how a handful of investors created an engine of innovation that made companies like Informix possible and turned bold ideas into global enterprises.
