Trials,
tribulations and tone deafness feed HBO's 'Silicon
Valley'
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[April 10, 2015]
By Sarah McBride
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -
Venture firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers just put
an embarrassing gender-discrimination lawsuit behind it.
Now, thanks to the HBO show "Silicon Valley," it's about
to get dinged Hollywood-style.
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The lawsuit that thrust the firm into the headlines last
month caught show creator Mike Judge's eye, but played out too
late for the current season, he said in an interview Wednesday
night ahead of the show's Bay Area premiere. "Silicon Valley"
has attracted a loyal following in the region for its incisive
and accurate skewering of the culture around technology
companies.
Instead, look for a spoof on Kleiner co-founder Tom Perkins,
whose comparison last year between the persecution of European
Jews in the 1930s and taxation touched off a storm of criticism.
Other real-life events parodied in this season's plotline
include the high-profile protests around the buses that ferry
workers in San Francisco to jobs at big technology companies in
Silicon Valley. In particular, Judge and executive producer Alec
Berg said, one scene will reference an unnamed protestor who
gained notoriety for his tendency to jump astride the buses and
vomit on demand.
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Some of the jibes will take aim at the fetishism of failure
around Silicon Valley, where entrepreneurs laud the ability of
fiascos to teach valuable lessons.
"It's usually talked about from successful billionaires' point
of view," Judge said. "For people who are so intelligent I think
they are missing the mark on that one."
Entrepreneurs' tendency to position their startups as altruistic
endeavors will also take a hit or two.
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"Everything we're doing up here, we're doing for philanthropy," said
Berg, rolling his eyes at the notion profits don't matter.
The premiere attracted several Silicon Valley players, including
Marc Pincus, the Zynga Inc founder who is taking back the reins at
the gaming company, and Yelp Inc founder Jeremy Stoppelman.
Noticeably absent was Elon Musk, who attended last year's premiere
and pronounced the show not realistic enough.
Still, the show's creators sometimes bounce ideas off Musk, they
said, along with leading venture capitalists Marc Andreessen, Roger
McNamee and Peter Thiel.
And, they said, the Kleiner Perkins gender trial still might feed
into future seasons.
"We're starting to think about Season Three a little bit," Judge
said, adding it wasn't certain the show would extend beyond the
current one.
Season Two premieres Sunday on the premium cable channel owned by
Time Warner Inc.
(Editing by Mary Milliken and Christian Plumb)
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