Purpose

Rating:
Summary: Glitzy MBA Crash Course
Review: One late night, I was flipping through the channels and found a delightful movie called "Purpose." Or as it's listed in some places on the web Purpo$e.

--PURPOSE follows the life of student transformed to entrepreneur John Elias (John Light), the key player in a booming late-1990s dot.com business. As Elias becomes more and more successful, he's blinded by his newfound wealth. And the movie question becomes :Can he stay in the business without selling his soul? Veteran actors Peter Coyote, Mia Farrow, Hal Holbrook, and Paul Reiser round out the supporting cast making it wonderful to watch. Mia Farrow Some of the characters, his friends and colleagues in business, do a wonderful job of reflecting back what kind a man he could be, given both integrity and greed.

It's the story of a college student with an idea and dream that will change the world. While still at school, he goes through the process of creating a business team, the product, getting funding that many only dream of (millions), and all the things that can go wrong will go wrong in a 2 hour movie time period do. However it is an entertaining take on business in the new millennium, and a world shifted away from quality to quantity, driven by simply making money. We learn about business, while he learns to value relationships, life balance and spiritual purpose, over self-involvement and financial gain. Fundamentally, John learns that love and a sense of purpose are more powerful and more valuable than money.

Not to spoil it, but it has a candy coated wrap-up ending, but other than that it is not only a great story, with great performances (note the very good cast), but it accurately shows the problems that come with venture capital, and business startup.

In some ways, it's a glitzy crash MBA course in big business. It also is a warning how carried away things can get in startup and you can see how even a sole entrepreneur could make smaller, but similar problems.

As a business and life coach, I deal with client's running their own businesses, I watch them sometimes make the same mistakes and buying equipment that isn't needed (the example in the movie is a flashy car) or negotiating way too much of their business just to acquire capital.

There is one excellent scene. The professor of the business class, that John is attending, who hands out a jar of nails and asks the students to link them. It's a mind puzzle that accurately shows how good business works. However, even though our golden boy figures it out, he goes through the trial and tribulations of watching his business disintegrate from his original and idyllic idea.

Although his idea is brilliant and transforming, he can't just gift it to the world. He has to take on team members that seem right, initially, but end up causing more trouble as they concentrate their effort on their own agendas. John has to compromise and make decisions that sometimes alienate friends and he has to deal with making bad choices that deteriorate his integrity.

It has the quality of being a true Greek tragedy with an MTV twist and the pre-requisite Hollywood happy ending.

Thinking of going into business, getting venture capital or becoming a startup? Then it's well worth the popcorn.(...)

Rating:
Summary: WHAT DRIVES YOU?
Review: Picked up this DVD on a whim, the theme sounded relevant, and I expected an OK evening pastime, nothing major.

But was pleasantly, incredibly surprised!

Everything you can look for in a movie -- the theme, the screenplay, the cinematography, even the soundtrack -- is stunning in this film even without any big-name mavens backing it up! Which is actually quite a winning characteristic once you learn of the theme of the movie itself, that great things are achieved not by over-the-top rainmakers but by simple people with a genuine passion for what they are about..

Theme: a Stanford undergrad has an idea for the "coolest piece of software", and wants to start a company. Which he does, with the help of some friends who share the "purpose" (which, at least originally, was to make an inspired firm) and one "bizdev" dolt who lives on a rainbow rustling his dad's rolodex. This in and of itself is a puller for those among us who have lived through such a "dot com" reality. When the software has a bug, the quickfix vultures want to cash out with the usual escape route -- an IPO.

The whole movie is about the struggle of one man to prevent his dreams from being paraded publicly, by the company being acquired and sold off to people who don't know the first thing about technology, especially selling it.

There's a lot in this film to leave you introspective -- from deep questions (What do you want to do with your life? Why? Whom do you care about? What values do you never sacrifice?) to some basic fundamentals of business (How do you sell a product? What should a company be about?) Watch for an interesting test that a Stanford professor imposes on his students, that he uses to define what an organization should be like.

I wonder why this movie never made it big, perhaps because it was not backed by the bigtyke labels, or perhaps owing to its timing (bang in the middle of the supposed tech meltdown) but this is a stimulating modern-day business classic not unlike "Wall Street" of the 90s.

A passionate all-round flick with lot of heart and some fabulous aerial visuals of San Francisco. Highly, highly recommended!