The Billion Dollar Code (2021) s01e02 Episode Script

TWO YEARS BEFORE THE TRIAL
[doorbell buzzes]
[Carsten]
Frieda, I think your mum is here.
[woman] Hello, my little beautiful.
Do you want to take your Rollerblades?
We might go to Tempelhof.
- [Frieda] Okay, great!
- Don't forget your helmet.
- Hey.
- Hey.
- Everything's ready?
- Uh-huh. It's all in the satchel.
Okay.
[Hauswirth] Herr Müller?
I'm Lea Hauswirth.
I'm from Windmill & Keen,
a law firm in Houston.
I know. You sent me 13 e-mails already.
- I wasn't sure if you'd received them.
- I got all of them.
I found a law firm.
- Wow.
- Mm-hm.
Congratulations.
Did they approach you? Or?
I began contacting the ten biggest ones.
They will cover all the costs.
And the damages are shared
between us, if we win.
The Internet is an unlegislated space
in which the strong make their own laws.
- A trial will be useless.
- That's not true.
I would suggest
you ask the inventors of Facebook.
The inventors of Facebook got
over $50 million for their idea.
And credit for inventing Facebook, then?
- No.
- So, other than money, what did they get?
The inventors of Facebook
didn't have a patent.
You do!
- [woman] Is Juri on board?
- [Carsten] Of course.
Yeah. He must be involved. I mean,
without Juri, there'd be no case there.
So, you've spoken to him, then?
[Juri speaking indistinctly]
[Juri]
2012, Apple v. Samsung, that was you?
Mm-hm.
My colleagues and I did that one.
How did you win that one?
Star Trek: Wrath of Khan.
When Spock uses a device
that has similarities to an iPad,
how could Apple have
any property rights on that design?
- [woman] Will you call me this weekend?
- Of course, I will.
- Tschüss.
- [Carsten] Tschüss.
[door closes]
[Lea] We'll prove that
Google infringed your patent.
Because they're using your algorithm.
They must have been using it.
Because it's impossible
to do it otherwise once you've seen it.
It's just too obvious, and stunning.
- You've read my algorithm?
- Of course. It's my job.
You conceived the patent itself
like a recursive algorithm.
Made my day.
Two conditions.
No financial agreement to keep it
from the public, no confidentiality.
And second, no direct collaboration
with Carsten Schlüter.
I want nothing to do with him.
[techno music playing]
6 WEEKS BEFORE THE TRIAL
[Lea]
Herr Müller, yesterday, Herr Schlüter
said a mistake was made by you both.
After the conference in Kyoto,
an unbelievable error
was made at that time.
Do you have any idea
what he could've meant?
Did he say us both, or just me?
He said it was you both.
[Eric] Why do you ask that?
Because I know he thinks I'm responsible.
[Eric] Herr Schlüter, during
his questioning, Herr Müller claimed
that you blame him
for what happened after Kyoto.
[breathes deeply]
I'm aware that's what he thinks.
And do you think that as well?
[Carsten] It's not that easy to answer.
We were probably having the best time
of our lives in the beginning.
[upbeat music playing]
After Kyoto,
we had caught the attention of the press.
Suddenly, everyone wanted
to write about Terravision.
Der Spiegel wrote about us.
Die Zeit even called
Terravision "the God machine."
We were invited to every conference.
We were on tour
with the installation for over a year.
Sometimes we were even asked
for autographs.
The Association of Computing Machinery,
the oldest scientific research society
for informatics,
put us on their list of the 50 most
important inventions of the digital era.
[gasps] That was really cool.
[Lea] That's when Brian Andersson
- reached out to you?
- Yeah.
- One of the chiefs at Silicon Graphics?
- [Juri] Yeah.
[Lea] The leading computer
graphics company at the time?
[Juri] Without their Onyx, we would never
have been able to make Terravision.
Jurassic Park, Terminator 2
None of those would've existed
without that company.
Brian was Juri's and my computer god.
Yeah. Juri worshipped him
like others adore actors or musicians.
Two years earlier, I would have asked him
for an autograph,
and now he was inviting us
to display Terravision
in the Silicon Graphics showroom.
That room was legendary.
Whoever got to show
their stuff there, it was
The greatest ever.
[pop music playing]
[both whooping]
CALIFORNIA
[Brian] The two German geniuses.
Oh, man, you make our workstations
look really good. [chuckles]
I'm Brian. Welcome to Silicon Graphics.
Brian was a hippie at heart,
and a complete computer visionary.
He truly believed that the fulfilment
of all freedom and equality ideals
depended on technical
and digital development.
You know what I like most
about Terravision?
It really might be one
of the most innovative things
that's ever been done on our workstations,
but what I like most is that
there's no borders between countries.
It doesn't matter where you're from
or what colour of skin you have
or what religion you practise.
I mean, the Internet doesn't care
about borders either.
There's no nations, no governments there,
just unlimited freedom.
The only thing that matters
is how good you are.
As a kid in Sweden, I was an outsider.
Computer nerds were the lowest of the low.
But here it's cool to be a nerd.
[Carsten] There was no hierarchy anymore.
Everyone had the same goal:
Write the best programme there ever was.
Make the best computer there ever was.
They had computer equipment
lying around worth millions of dollars.
The latest Onyx, running beta versions
years before you were able to get them.
Juri's eyes were literally bulging out.
He would've joined the company
right there and then.
I think that was his idea of paradise.
No joke,
there were employees running around
with washing baskets
bulging with cash at times.
So many investors
just wanted to be on board.
Coffee, guys?
It was It was like having a peek
into the world of tomorrow all around.
[Brian] So, tell me your plan.
What's your next step?
First of all, Terravision is the final
project of my master's student class
at Berlin University of the Arts.
And, hopefully, it travels the world
from exhibition to exhibition.
[chuckling] I love you guys. I mean
All you wanted to do was, like, make art,
and then you end up on the list
of the 50 greatest inventions
of the computer age.
That's what the suits don't understand.
They can't think in those terms.
And we believe
Terravision is not even finished yet.
When we started Terravision,
our idea was to show the world the work.
But the problem is
we have only one copy.
People have to come to us to use it,
but it should be the other way around.
- Yeah.
- We should bring it to everyone else.
Of course, no one can spend
a million dollars for an Onyx.
And that's why we think
Terravision is only really finished
when everybody can use it
on their home computer.
Oh, yeah, that sounds fantastic.
And even more.
I I think
there's even more.
I think about it all the time.
Now Terravision is empty, only form.
But what happens
if we fill it with content?
Street names, telephone numbers,
weather, addresses
Right now, Silicon Graphics is
just an image on a satellite map.
But what if it is not just an image?
What if it is a real place?
A virtual place everyone could visit
A restaurant, for example,
wouldn't just be an image of a restaurant.
It would be a virtual restaurant,
where you can read the menu
or make a reservation for a table.
- [Juri] Exactly.
- Holy shit, yeah.
This is genius, Juri.
If you fill Terravision with content,
it could become the portal to a database
with the knowledge of the whole world.
In the future, you could go
to a virtual school or virtual university,
no matter where you live, who you are,
if you have money or not.
You could go to a virtual museum,
see the artworks.
- Yes.
- You could go shopping.
You could look at products in our showroom
and buy them right away.
Correct. And it's so easy to use
'cause it's visual.
Because you just go to the place.
You're flying there.
And it's a distributed system.
Everybody can be part of it.
Everybody can give his picture,
his information
I can film a sunset in front of my house,
and everybody can see it.
It's a democratic platform.
A place with no borders,
like you said.
The future.
All three of us felt a shared experience
that Juri's idea was
It was so visionary for the time.
Looking back, those sort of moments
always seem like a matter of
simply adding one-one together,
you see, yeah, but
at that moment? [chuckles]
At that time, most people didn't even
have their own computer.
Yeah.
And from that moment onwards
Brian and Juri,
they just wouldn't be stopped.
You have graphics cards which don't exist
for personal computers yet. And
But But the biggest problem
is the amount of data.
Nobody in his private home has
hard drives big enough to store
all the millions of satellite maps
you need to run Terravision.
- Okay.
- But there is a solution.
- [Brian] Yeah?
- Theoretically.
In the future.
- The Internet?
- Exactly.
If you use a distributed system,
no one has to have all the data
on his own computer.
The data lies on thousands of computers
all over the world,
and you grab it only if you need it
over the Internet.
[chuckling] Like, Terravision
was made for the Internet.
Or better yet, the Internet was made
for a programme like Terravision.
- Juri, come over. Sit down.
- Yeah. All right.
[Brian] What version
of Performer do you use?
[Juri] The one from '94.
[Brian] No. We have a new beta version.
It's much better.
- Here we are.
- Thanks.
Are you seeing this?
Yeah, look. Look at that. Look at that.
It's incredible.
The most important thing now is
that you keep your seat at the table.
[Juri] What do you mean?
[Brian] You have to decide
what happens to your idea
because there will be people
that won't want you, just your ideas.
And once they have them,
they'll just say, "Thank you very much."
"Now you can leave the table and go back
to your garage and invent something new."
And to keep that from happening, you have
to protect your intellectual property.
You have to start your own company.
You have to become entrepreneurs.
[Brian chuckles]
This is exactly what everyone here
at Silicon Graphics wants me to make.
And I always said,
"No way. It's impossible."
[upbeat music playing]
[Carsten]
Since when have you thought that?
- Thought what?
- What you said to Brian and me earlier.
A portal to the whole world.
[Juri] To be honest, most of my life.
[woman speaking Hungarian]
[Juri] When I was 11,
there was a defect
in the Budapest telephone network.
[woman continues speaking Hungarian]
When you picked up the phone,
you could hear everyone else
who was also on the phone.
At the same time.
There were hundreds of voices at any time.
Some were far, some were near.
All the adults wanted to do is
to have it sorted and fix it.
But us kids, though
us kids, understood right away.
[indistinct chatter over phone]
[in Hungarian] I'm Juri. And who are you?
[in English]
We were all curious about each other.
It was so much freer than in real life
Freer than in my parents' house,
or in school.
For the first time in my life,
I had the feeling that I was
that I was accepted just as I was, as me.
Since then, I've been looking
for a place like I found that night.
I think Terravision could be that place.
["Firestarter" playing]
That night, there was a festival.
In the desert.
A kind of earlier version of Burning Man.
A mix of Silicon Valley and hippies.
[chattering]
[cheering in distance]
- Hey.
- [woman] Hi. How are you?
[Carsten] In one of the tents,
someone had installed a Pong game
with a monitor made of empty beer bottles.
Wow, Juri, come here, check this out!
- [video game noises over speakers]
- [chuckling]
They had no idea that the game's
grand master player from Berlin was there.
- All right, guys, who wants to play next?
- You.
Him. He wants to play.
No one there even vaguely
stood a chance against Juri.
[man] Oh, all right, that's it.
Brian, come here! We got
a Pong freak of nature on our hands.
[Carsten]
The only worthy opponent was Brian.
Brian's undefeated.
It's his favourite game, so good luck.
I am sorry.
I like you, but this is my game.
[crowd cheering]
[video game beeping]
- [video game buzzes]
- [crowd clamouring]
[crowd cheering]
[Carsten] Anyway,
what had started at Silicon Graphics
had now become obvious.
Brian and Juri were soul mates.
The two of them had found each other.
[techno music playing]
[crowd cheering]
Hey!
- Hey.
- Hey, I know you.
- Oh, really?
- Yeah. You're the genius from Germany.
Who says that?
Brian says that.
He says you're a visionary programmer.
[chuckles lightly] Well, that's not me.
Um, that's my partner.
[crowd chanting]
[man] Champion!
[man] All right! Great job!
[music continues]
[inaudible dialogue]
So? Who won?
[chuckles] The mouse.
It's existed for 30 years.
Xerox invented it.
For one single use. They had
no idea what they really made.
And then came Steve Jobs.
And Steve Jobs got the patent,
then bought it for a thousand dollars!
And then he said:
first, it can't cost more than $15.
Second, the minimum
it has to last is two years.
And third Wait for it.
[laughs] Third
- Hey, careful.
- [grunts]
And third, it also has to work
on my Levi's perfectly well.
- [laughs] That's the whole idea.
- Juri, you've completely lost it.
I know!
The mouse has existed for 30 years.
But in order for it to be a revolution,
it has to be available to the user.
[exclaims]
The future!
Everything depends on whether
we can take Terravision as a product
and take it into the homes of everybody.
That is the fine line
between invention and innovation.
- Wow. You already sound like Brian.
- Yeah.
He can see the future, you know?
I should stay here.
What?
The is where the world is changing,
not Berlin.
You want to move here?
Everyone says I belong here.
What does that even mean,
"you belong here"?
No. What are you trying to say?
He offered you a job.
Is that what you mean?
At Silicon Graphics?
To build a version
of Terravision for PC, you mean?
[Juri] No.
Juri. Does he want to make
our Terravision available on PC?
No, that isn't what he said.
[Brian] Hey, guys. Hey.
- Hey.
- Hey.
Hey, Juri, you have to talk to Barry.
He started his Internet company
that has a really weird name, like
Sounds like a wolf. Hey, Barry!
Yahoo!
It's a really great concept.
It's a search engine.
Yeah. Come on. I'll bring him back
in a second, all right? Come on.
[inaudible dialogue]
[music fades]
[Carsten] And that was the turning point
of the whole story.
Of course, we didn't know that.
But if it were possible just once
to see the future
[breathes deeply]
That would've been it.
Because that was the moment
when this legal dispute
really began to happen?
[Carsten] That's right.
The moment in time when the patent
infringement began to happen.
The reason why Google knew the algorithm.
There is no proof of that.
Allow me to withdraw
and rephrase my question.
Can you confirm at this point
the connection between
Terravision and Google Earth?
I can.
And that connection
would be Brian Andersson?
That's correct.
[techno music playing]
Carsten.
There you are.
[grunts]
Good morning.
Yeah. I've been looking everywhere.
What time is it?
Where did you sleep?
- [groans]
- [Carsten] Have you slept at all?
No.
And?
I'm not feeling so good.
[chuckles]
Come on. You know that's not what I meant.
I had so much to drink. Someone new
was always showing up with a drink.
Don't tell me about
how many drinks you had.
I want to know what you told Brian.
You don't get to order me about.
Yeah, shit, I'm sorry.
Brian, Barry, and Connor are waiting.
Waiting for you, for what?
Brian wants to take us to a hot spring.
In the desert here.
So, you're just going with Brian?
Is that it?
Yes, and you're coming too.
That's why I came looking for you.
I don't wanna go to a hot shit spring
out in the desert
just because Brian wants us there.
Juri, you can't stay here in California.
If you'd rather be here,
everything we achieved
in Berlin will have no meaning.
Juri, no. Please, listen to me.
Why be here?
I know that
everything you think you can find here,
we can make it happen in Berlin too.
We'll create a company.
And we start
our own Silicon Valley in Berlin.
And once we have something to show,
we can discuss it with Brian.
And who knows then if he'll join us
and become a team.
But we can have a revolution
in Berlin. You'll see.
We can do it together.
We have Alex and Dos
and Christina and Bernd and
We built Terravision
in under one year, remember?
And that was with everybody doubting us.
So we can also figure out
how to make it work on a PC.
Hmm?
- [all shouting]
- [blows whistle]
[Eric] And how did you answer him?
What was it that happened that night
between you and Brian Andersson?
Your partner talked about
a mistake you made after Kyoto.
Was this here the moment?
[Juri] Carsten always said,
"We wouldn't be here
if it wasn't for Juri."
But, to be honest, I'd always thought
that it was the opposite.
For me, if we hadn't had Carsten,
Terravision
would never have been possible.
Without his vision, his enthusiasm,
his ability to distort reality Never.
All his predictions
had turned out to be right so far.
So I decided
I'd go back to Berlin with him.
[Eric] Herr Schlüter,
is that why the two of you
aren't on speaking terms anymore?
Herr Schlüter, I believe
the question I'm asking
is straightforward.
- So if you could just answer it for me
- There's no straightforward answer!
[Carsten and Lea clear throats]
It's not an easy yes-or-no question.
[Lea] How about we take a break?
We've been here for just about two hours.
My client has the right
to a pause at this moment.
Good.
Maybe we can all get steak sandwiches.
- Bye now.
- Bye.
Come here.
- Love you, man.
- Bye.
All I can do now is
wish you guys good luck.
But if you change your mind,
you can always call me.
[engine starting]
[Alexander on video] But you know
The domain "porno. de",
imagine the amount that must be worth.
- Here's the transcripts from yesterday.
- Thank you.
What's that?
It's interviews we did
with former Art+Com employees
about the time after our clients
returned from California.
And?
I don't know yet.
- I can do that for you if you want me to.
- No, thanks.
Um, can I at least
bring you something to eat?
Mm-mm.
Okay.
[Schmölders]
Schmölders was my mother's maiden name.
Someone in high school
thought it was funny.
Since then, everyone
calls me Schmölders. It's okay.
So Schmölders,
a promising performance artist,
demoted to bookkeeper.
Some might say "promoted,"
depends how you see it.
Is this good?
[clearing throat]
Yes. When Carsten and Juri came back
from America, you mean?
[laughs] Oh, God, yes.
It was so far out, it must have been
the Holy Grail of tech out there.
Everything had to be new. New computers,
new office furnishings, new colour scheme.
- Schmölders? Are you finished?
- Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Just about done. Nearly there.
Everything must be in place
just like Silicon Valley.
[both] Hello.
- Carsten.
- Great.
- Hello.
- Hello.
- Please come in.
- Yeah.
- Very cool.
- Right?
I'll be looking forward
to seeing you all again.
Yes, you've been
all over the place, I heard.
Yes, we've been in Silicon Valley.
If by any chance you're looking
for a new member of staff
[chuckling] I'd love that.
But I couldn't take you away from Klaus.
Espresso, anyone?
[Helga chuckles] Sure.
- Is it ready?
- Mm-hm.
[Bernd] Oh, God! [chuckles]
- The espresso machine
- Silicon Graphics, of course, had one.
- [liquid pouring]
- [sighs]
So we have to get one as well.
[Bernd]
Good old filtered coffee was so yesterday.
It wasn't enough anymore.
It's very impressive
what you're doing here.
The atmosphere
is completely different, right?
Mm.
Suddenly, we were a proper company.
Art+Com. Art and technology.
We've made things more professional.
Juri, Alex, and Christine
are working on a demo version
for home computers
which can load using a CD-ROM.
Christine?
In the zone.
Basically, we were
the very first start-up in Deutschland.
Without the money-filled baskets, that is.
Our baskets were still full of receipts.
[Christine]
But we had good old Telekom for those.
[Breuer] And how much
would this PC version cost?
How much money do you need?
I'd say five to seven million
deutsche marks.
- Five to seven million?
- Oh.
It's a vast project.
It'll be years of work.
Yes, essentially, we're Terravision.
Other than the algorithm,
we need a completely new code.
In the future,
the satellite maps will be decentralised
and managed through a distributed system.
It's up to us to adapt
with the Internet's development as well.
But what can we expect to be able to do
on our very own computers
once we've visited home?
That's the beginning of everything.
When we get it to work on a PC,
we'll bring it to life,
and we'll be able to use it
for so many things.
One of those uses would be as a telephone.
[Helga chuckles]
Telephone calls by a computer?
For every house you could fly to,
you'd have the name of the people
at that home and their telephone number.
- No telephone books anymore?
- Exactly! No more of these dead donkeys.
- [book slams]
- You won't need to make those anymore.
Terravision will become
Germany's telephone dial.
Okay, right now,
that sounds strange, does it not?
But this is what
the future will look like.
It's clear that we're not talking
about art funding.
That's not what this is about.
In America, in Silicon Valley,
we learned about a new business model.
It's also in the file
for you to read about.
On the one side you have the start-ups,
and on the other you have venture capital.
Here's a young firm without much cash,
yeah, but with good ideas.
And there is the risk capital.
So, we are, therefore, the risk capital?
[Carsten] The idea is very simple.
With the money you invest,
you'd get shares in our company and
a percentage of the profits in the future.
Just like the other investors on board.
And who are the other investors?
Oh, naturally, we wanted to ask you first
as major investors, the originals.
But we will need a lot of capital,
which means we also have to look
for other investors.
So, don't wait too long. Otherwise,
the best seats will have gone.
[Julia] The Steve Jobs phase.
He had just returned from America,
you see. He was an Internet entrepreneur.
He even started wearing white sneakers
all of a sudden. [chuckles]
Julia Blaschke.
Curator of art.
Married to Carsten Schlüter.
I suppose, still married.
It's a little complicated.
But that's how it's always been.
Even then, before we were a couple.
- You look good.
- [chuckles] Yeah. Thanks.
[chuckles] It suits you.
Since when have you curated?
- Hmm. It's an experiment.
- Uh-huh.
Have you looked already?
No, I just walked in.
Well, then, come with me.
It was the very first exhibition
I'd ever organised,
and Carsten tried really hard
to seem interested.
But it was obvious that he was
on a completely different planet.
Juri and I are getting
a company off the ground,
and now we're starting
our search for investors.
Mm. Wow.
I mean, we haven't found any yet,
but we're making progress.
Are you even still making art?
Sure, yeah.
Only in an alternative way.
I was just in California.
The same things
are happening there right now.
They take everything and then merge it.
Art, computer science, Internet
But, then, they've also got
good business models to run alongside it.
And is it still art? I have no idea.
In the classical sense, definitely not.
Well, art in the classical sense
was not what you're about.
That's true.
[Julia] Look at this.
This is from Robert Pravda.
Tell me. How would you feel
about doing something together sometime?
Not right now. I mean
But maybe sometime soon?
There's a Vilém Flusser exhibition
at the Bethanien.
No, I wasn't
I was talking about
an exhibition and a chat.
Or you could just come
by the office sometime.
Okay. Yeah. That would be nice.
I have to get back to it.
Yeah. [chuckles]
It was really good to see you.
Um, see you around.
Good luck with your investor search.
- Ciao.
- Ciao.
[upbeat music playing]
With our programme,
all of your passengers on board
would be able to follow
the itinerary of the aircraft.
In real time. On satellite images.
[woman] Hmm.
A couple from Bielefeld flies
to their desired holiday destination.
In this case, Crete.
Thanks to Terravision,
not only can they familiarise themselves
with that destination,
check out the beaches,
the walking distance from their hotel
But they can do even more though,
with just one simple click
through your agency,
they can book their entire trip.
You could fly to the properties
on your books for a virtual presentation
and give your clients a virtual tour.
The clients could go through each room
with virtual navigation,
have a good look at the surroundings.
Which neighbour has a pool or who doesn't?
But how would we show that
to our on-board passengers?
On small monitors, in the seat in front.
Small monitors on the seat in front?
But why assume that the couple
have your programme already?
Yeah. That's exactly what having you
as our partner will make happen.
Yes, but that would require
over a hundred monitors per aircraft.
Yeah.
You want me to invest capital
in the development stage
and expect to then be able
to sell it back to me later on?
That's one way to look at it, yeah.
Then, come back another day
when the programme exists.
Thank you.
[woman chuckling]
"On small monitors in the seat in front."
We were too soon,
and in the wrong country.
We tried to convince ourselves
that we were really high flying,
but really the whole time,
we'd been stuck on the ground.
In Deutschland, we couldn't imagine
the important breakthrough of the Internet
and how quickly it would happen.
[Bernd] Today, it feels like
every second company is a start-up.
But the late '90s were a digital desert.
[Breuer] Make yourselves comfortable.
We have great news.
- We hope the best places aren't taken yet.
- [all chuckling]
[Carsten]
There will always be room for you.
I'll be honest here.
We are sceptical, even though
Don't get me wrong.
Everyone here is a big fan of Terravision.
However, Internet navigation on a PC?
To be honest, we don't buy it.
Yes, I know, all they talk about is
this future technology, Internet.
Yeah, but it will never really transfer
outside the world of academia.
It will, by and large,
always remain a university tool.
Deutsche Telekom
has conducted several studies.
And these are conclusive.
[Carsten]
The Internet will change everything.
We won't be doing anything
without the Internet anymore.
We'll even communicate over the Internet.
We will pay for things on the Internet.
We'll even see travel booked.
What will become of travel bureaus?
[Carsten]
There won't be any in the future.
And no banks, no stores,
no newspapers, no insurance either.
Not physically, at least.
Everything will be done
on the Internet in the future.
- [Breuer] With Terravision?
- Yeah, all with the help of Terravision.
I hope there's still room for us, or will
Telekom disappear at the same time?
Honestly, you have not much time left.
Yeah. That's why we love you creatives.
The mouse. Xerox developed
this thing for one use and one use only.
- Steve Jobs, he bought the patent.
- Remind me, Steve Jobs?
[Juri] The inventor of Apple Macintosh.
- The greatest genius
- Wasn't he fired from his own company?
You said you had some great news.
Let's move on to that.
The legislation that used to require us
to invest in Berlin technological research
has recently run out.
At last.
[Breuer]
That means we aren't obligated anymore.
But a minimal part of our budget has still
been allotted to another small project,
which is non-commercial.
This is giving you carte blanche.
You can do anything you want.
[breathes shakily]
Wait a minute, Juri.
Just calm down.
They're trying to fob us off
as an art project, you realise that!
We don't need Deutsche Telekom.
If they're too dumb to realise that,
that's their own fault.
There are so many other corporations
that are waiting to jump in.
We can do this.
I swear, we'll achieve this.
We won't stop until we've made it.
We won't quit until we find a way.
- Screw Deutsche Telekom.
- Screw Deutsche Telekom.
Screw you! Shits!
Screw you!
- Screw Deutsche Telekom!
- Screw Deutsche Telekom!
You will fucking regret this!
Screw you!
Let's go to a place
to make you feel better, guaranteed.
- There is no place I know.
- Guaranteed.
- Thanks.
- Thank you.
You got money?
- Thank you.
- Yeah.
It's like visiting another time
in history, isn't it?
It's as if we used Terravision
but used a historical map instead.
- Hmm. True.
- [Bernd] Carsten had such a desire to be
this Silicon Valley visionary,
forward thinker,
entrepreneur or whatever
whatever it took.
Looking back, it just wasn't for him.
[Julia] When Carsten returned to Berlin,
we would meet now and then,
go to exhibitions and things like that.
One afternoon,
he told me of an idea he had.
So, at the moment, you go with Terravision
everywhere you've ever wanted to go.
But just imagine for a while
if you could also travel through time.
To a different time to this.
Potsdamer Platz, for example,
or all of Berlin.
If you'd like, anywhere you want
all over the world.
The idea hit him over a doner kebab.
With Juri. Anyway, something like that.
That is cool.
That's really interesting.
Do you have a name for it?
Oh, it's known as Terravision Time Travel.
[both chuckle lightly]
- And how is it coming along?
- It's only the very beginning.
It was just a new idea.
Yeah, but, you know, I see this
as more of an art installation,
you know, which the audience can enter.
Could you do it by next year,
do you think?
Why so?
I'm working on setting up an exhibition.
Well, a little interdisciplinary festival
on media art and digital culture.
It'd be a side event at the Berlinale,
and I would say that's ideal for that.
Man, I I
I couldn't do it.
I know people who would fund
an art project, however. Deutsche Telekom.
But that would mean I'd have to rely
on the work of half of the team to do it.
And I know what Juri would say about that.
But it is also Terravision.
An extension of it, even.
Yeah, well
I can't do it. I'm sorry.
Of course, I knew that they were having
a hard time finding investors to invest,
and that, for Art+Com,
it was a depressing obstacle.
And yet I found it so absolutely wonderful
that they never let up
but instead held on to their vision
the whole time.
But it seemed
like it wasn't about that anymore
but rather about finding
the money to survive.
And that? Looking back, I believe
that was Art+Com's biggest test.
Look, seriously. We're programmers,
we're designers, we're artists.
Why don't we use our know-how
to offer services to other companies?
Other websites' programming?
[Schmölders] What's the shame in that?
There is no shame, but we didn't
start Art+Com for the purpose
of providing some shit service products
for other people!
Guys, our company was created
so that we could offer something
new and revolutionary.
- You and your Silicon Valley blah, blah.
- [Bernd] We can't stand it anymore.
Okay.
Fine, maybe Schmölders is right.
If it helps us finance our work,
then, what are we waiting for?
[scoffs] Really?
Seriously?
We came together for an excellent idea.
And now we're discussing
whether we should be coding websites?
It's better than starving.
Fuck, Schmölders!
Are you just a bookkeeper now?
[scoffs] Okay.
[Christine and Carsten sigh]
Okay, um
This moment's always
a bit shit, yeah, but
this doesn't make sense
anymore for me.
What? What is it that you're saying?
I'm out.
[Carsten] Huh? What?
No.
You can't just leave like that.
You're kidding.
It's not the easiest thing I've had to do.
Don't be upset. I'll still come and visit.
But you've got shares in this company.
I'm not bothered. Just divvy them out.
[Juri] Christine.
Christine.
Come by the Chaos Computer Club
if you want.
[elevator whirring]
You gave us a promise.
You swore that we'd start
our own Silicon Valley in Berlin.
- We're going to as well.
- Oh, yeah? Where is it, then?
Where is it?!
No! Tell me where it is!
Juri, please don't shout, and it's not
my fault that the investors
Just tell me where to find it!
In your shitty coffee machine, yeah?
Where is it? I can't see it
anywhere around here.
Man, I'm trying to do it.
I want this as much as you do.
I run around wearing a dumbass tie.
I'm rehearsing business plans,
focusing on return
on investment, all that shit.
And I just don't know
why it's not working.
If If one of you knows
how to do it differently,
I'll do it.
I'll do it straightaway, really.
But I
[sighs] It's killing me too.
[Julia] And then, as Carsten
barely believed in it anymore,
Art+Com's endurance paid off.
In Deutschland, it started
the Internet hype.
[in German] The summer before,
the vast majority of people
hadn't even heard of the Internet.
It's so annoying.
I know it's loud.
Why do I need a double connection?
[Alexander in English] So far, Germany
had slept through the digital revolution
and suddenly,
now everyone wanted online access.
By the late '90s,
everyone was on the Internet.
And if I ever get there ♪
Even Boris Becker was using it.
[applause]
[Alexander] That is when the first
dot-com bubble started to settle in.
[man 1 in German] Sixty percent of
online traffic is for commercial purposes.
[man 2] The potential is enormous.
[Bürgin] When people want
to buy books about the Internet,
they also use the Internet.
[in English]
Suddenly, everyone knew the deal, right?
And they'd all seen it coming.
We all obsessed on the dollar signs.
Dollar, dollar, dollar.
[Alexander] There were suddenly
more start-ups than kebabs in Berlin.
[Christine] The thing we'd been this whole
time, only we never called it that.
[man in German] We've been offering
our services online for a year.
And since then,
our monthly growth rate
has been 20 to 30 percent.
At the moment,
we get about ten orders per day.
[Bernd in English]
People were celebrated for ideas
that we were laughed at for,
not two years before.
You like my video?
[Bernd] At least there was
a sudden interest in Terravision,
after years of no one
giving a shit about us.
That is how Terravision will come alive.
We invited investors again,
or incubators, as they called themselves.
We made business plans.
The business model is simple. You get
shares in our company and future profits.
They admired us and our projects.
It was obvious.
[Julia]
I only saw all this from the outside,
but it was clear to everyone,
Carsten was hopeful once more.
He was back to believing
someone could finally be interested
in their product again.
[Alexander] It really seemed like
finally we had wind beneath our wings.
- [song ends]
- [explosion]
And then, from one day to the next
The bombshell hit.
They're copying us.
What?
- Brian. He's doing the same thing we are.
- What are you talking about?
[Carsten] Brian Andersson
developed a demo programme
that looks exactly like Terravision.
- Doesn't it?
- Yeah, it looks like ours.
Fuck.
[Carsten] He's collaborating with Google,
and now they're making a PC programme.
They call it Google Earth.
[Alexander] "Everybody has a plan
until they get punched in the face."
Mike Tyson.
And that describes
that moment it happened so well.
The way it just happened.
It was hard enough.
If we had finally run out of money,
if we had fallen out
If the world didn't care about Terravision
anymore, it wasn't interested.
Any of this.
But them just
stealing Terravision from us?
- [Eric] Hey.
- We would never have imagined
- [Eric] You skipped lunch?
- Yeah.
Is that one
of the former Art+Com employees?
Bernd Montag.
Seems like a nice guy.
He is a very nice guy.
Can I take a look?
- Okay.
- [door opens]
- [Eric] Herr Müller
- Welcome back.
[Eric] this morning,
your attorney spoke about Brian Andersson
as being the connection
between you and Google.
Is that correct?
As far as I can remember, yes.
- And you feel that too, do you?
- [Juri] What?
That he's the connection?
Yeah.
[Eric] By your own account,
you've shown Terravision
at numerous conferences around the world.
Yes.
So, why aren't all the people who ever saw
Terravision sitting right here today?
What singles out Brian Andersson
from all the other people
who have seen Terravision?
Hmm?
Herr Müller, you've been trying hard
to make him the ominous connection.
But I see nothing that makes him
more of a link than anyone else,
any more than all the other people
who've seen Terravision.
Because Brian's not like other people!
[Eric] Then, perhaps you could
just simply answer the question for me.
What happened between you
and Brian Andersson
when you were in America?
[sighs]
How can he create the same as we've done?
He doesn't have our code.
He doesn't have our algorithm.
Or does he?
What did you tell him about, Juri?
What does he know?
How much?
[breathes deeply]
The way everything's laid out
in the quad tree?
The trick with the texture memory?
The workstation's speed increase?
The floating coordinate system?
You told him everything?
When?
I don't know.
We
The whole night
We spent the whole night talking.
[binders clatter]
He understood me.
Because he's like me.
[yelling] No!
He's nothing at all like you, Juri!
You're so dumb.
So fucking dumb.
But you were with us.
You remember we talked
about the new world and all that.
How knowledge belongs to everyone.
It was our basic concept.
Yeah.
- This must be a misunderstanding.
- A misunderstanding?
He's our friend.
[Eric] You had no idea
until that very moment?
No.
But that's the mistake you told us about
earlier before the break?
That's what I was talking about, yeah.
Why is it he said nothing about it
before then? You are
You were best friends.
Because Juri would never accept it
for the error that it was.
That was just the way he was.
Some errors, you just know they're errors
the moment you make them.
But other errors aren't errors at all
when you make them.
They only become mistakes
because the world in which you live,
well, that has changed, and
then, they become the greatest error
that anyone could ever make.
But the mistake
doesn't prove anything, does it?
That means there is no proof
that Herr Müller told Brian Andersson
everything about the algorithm that night.
He's told me that he did.
Years later, you mean.
And even if we accept
that certain things did happen the way
Herr Müller said they did, years later,
that still isn't proof
that Brian Andersson
or Google did anything
the exact same way you did.
- It's obviously the case that they did
- That is your opinion, Herr Schlüter.
If that weren't the case, there's no way
Brian would have reacted the way he did.
That is, in my opinion, enough proof.
[Juri chuckles softly]
Carsten.
Carsten.
He replied.
He replied straightaway.
He said he was glad
that I wrote him about it,
and he definitely wants
to have a discussion.
- Really?
- Yeah.
He'll be on the next flight
that's coming to Berlin.
The day after tomorrow, he'll be here.
I can't deny that Google did many things
in this process well, however.
They are definitely
the better businesspeople.
Google's motto was "Don't be evil."
But what followed Juri's e-mail was
That was the moment when, uh,
"Don't be evil" actually became evil.
[door opens]
[gasps softly]
[dramatic music playing]
Subtitle translation by
Michele Jochem Yunus