HBO's Silicon Valley on Tech Startup Culture

I recently finished season 1 of HBO’s Silicon Valley. I know I’m behind and this show already has a second season but calm down, I have other stuff to do.

Anyway, if you’ve never heard of it, it’s a comedy show about a group of guys who create a startup company in Silicon Valley. The show uses its comedic platform to expose a lot of things that are screwed up or just weird about Silicon Valley startup culture.

Silicon Valley culture is interesting because I think it has changed the American dream. Up until very recently, the American dream was always this idea that involved hard work. People used to think that the only way to make it was to put everything you have into your business. With the insane amount of wealth that is being generated by startup companies in Silicon Valley, people are starting to think that going to college and working hard isn’t necessarily what it takes to be successful. Now, there’s this idea that anyone could invent some new technology and his or her life will change forever. This idea is exaggerated and represented by the Silicon Valley character Peter Gregory, a venture capitalist. He gives talks telling students that they can’t be successful unless they drop out of college. The only way to make it is to create the next huge piece of technology.

Most of the characters on the show share this same mindset. According to the exaggerations portrayed on the show, there aren’t many people living in Silicon Valley who aren’t trying to push their own startup tech company. When the main character, Richard, goes to the doctor for his anxiety problems, even the doctor is viewing his profession as just a side career. The doctor interrupts Richard’s appointment to pitch the app he’s working on and hopes will make him rich. 

With so many people set on creating revolutionary technology, Silicon Valley supports this with an extremely exaggerated amount of technology companies. There is a fictional company on the show called Hooli that is supposed to basically be Google. Except, on the show, Google also exists. This universe where there can be two Googles is supposed to highlight the insane number of companies that there are competing in Silicon Valley.   

Even though there is so much attention and hope given to technology on the show, technology continues to fail throughout the entire season. When two characters are trying to use a hologram chat system it keeps breaking down, so they switch to Skype. When the video chat stops breaks down, they decide to just talk on the phone. The scene ends with their cell phones cutting in and out. In another episode, self-driving car accidently drives one of the characters onto a huge ocean liner, and he ends up stranded in the middle of the ocean.

The show Silicon Valley is an excellent portrait of the flaws of technology startup culture. Too many people put too much faith and money into technology when, in reality, a lot of technology isn’t really making anything that much better.