Under his watch Appler has hired a rogues' gallery of yes-men and no-hopers, Jobs' best designs mutilated and Appler's loyal customers treated with disdain in the name of maximising profits. There's only one way for Jobs to save his company: he must strike a deal with his arch-enemy, William HB Gates III.
Gates has the money Jobs needs to save Appler, and Gates knows it - so instead of just handing over the money, he makes Jobs humiliate himself for Gates' own amusement. That would give Insanely Great the dubious distinction of being one of the few films whose climactic scenes revolve around a high-stakes hula hoop battle.
Cranky in Cupertino
Director: Norah Ephron
Starring: Noah Wyle (Steve Jobs), Anthony Michael Hall (Bill Gates)
Certificate: 12A
Running time: 96 minutes
The late, great Norah Ephron would have found plenty of material in the relationship between Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, two men with very different worldviews who were bitter enemies but perhaps also became good friends.
Their intertwined stories have it all: humour, drama and a tear-jerking ending. Norah Ephron's best films had emotional depth and lots of humour, and the relationship between Gates and Jobs had both in spades.
Their enmity was almost cartoonish at times, Jobs taking great delight in mocking Gates and Microsoft at every opportunity, but there was a core of real respect there: Apple wouldn't be around today if it weren't for Microsoft's late-1990s $150 million investment, and, by 2007, the men were secure enough and mellow enough to be nice to each other at the All Things Digital 5 conference. Well, Gates was nice, anyway.
Who would deliver Ephron's trademarked, whip-smart wisecracks? The internet quite likes the idea of Keanu Reeves, but we think there'd be a lot of fun in reuniting the Jobs and Gates of 1999's Pirates of Silicon Valley, Noah Wyle and Anthony Michael Hall.
Wyle's the only actor whose portrayal of Jobs had Steve's grudging stamp of approval, and while Hall's resemblance to Gates has dimmed, his recent CV shows that he probably could do with the work.
