The peculiar life at the epicenter of the future …
Richard Hendriks (Thomas Middleditch) is a socially awkward programmer who lives together with three friends in the start-up incubator of Erlich Bachmann (T. J. Miller). For his music app «Pied Piper» Richard unknowingly created a revolutionary data compression algorithm and is offered a lot of money to sell it to Hooli, a fictional tech giant. However, he decides to take the risk and bring the algorithm to the market himself along with his friends and patronized by Peter Gregory (Christopher Evan Welch). The show’s ingenious embodiment of Peter Thiel, who like the original, hates universities and dreams of living on an island in international waters.
Put simply, «Silicon Valley» is the marriage of «The Big Bang Theory» and «The Wolf of Wall Street». With humour and many allusions to real people and companies, director Mike Judge (Office Space, Idiocracy) gives the viewer a glimpse into the unique social and economic life of the valley, although, according to Elon Musk the reality is much crazier and stranger than its fictional depiction. At least in one respect the show is closer to the real tech industry than intended as the series was accussed of sexism because all the main protagonists are male.
Some of the absurdities highlighted in the series such as the constant name-dropping and inflationary use of buzzwords, which obscures them of any real meaning, should not be completely strange to HSG students. However, in its essence the show is not a profound criticism of the many contradictions or conflicts inherent to the tech industry. It is much rather a self-ironic celebration of the moonshot culture that sets the original valley apart from its many clones.
While new female characters are to be expected in the next season one person will be painfully missed: Christopher Evan Welch. However, rumour has it, that the actor, who sadly passed away, will remain a part of the show without appearing on screen.