HBO was nice enough to put the first episode of their hot new series, Silicon Valley, on YouTube for free. It’s a satirical series similar to Entourage, but instead of the movie business it’s centered around the start-up culture in Silicon Valley. This show is a dream come true for tech geeks. It’s extremely well done in the sense that it’s very true to life which is part of what makes it funny. The greed, the excess, the phony slogans, etc. are all represented. There are several cameos from famous tech industry titans like Google’s Eric Schmidt that add to the authenticity.
The show is the brain child of Mike Judge, the man behind Kind of The Hill, Beavis and Butt-Head, and Office Space.
Here’s what Mashable had to say about it:
The show follows introverted programmer Richard (played by Thomas Middleditch) and focuses on his compression algorithm hidden within his music site called Pied Piper. As soon as his employer Hooli, a tech company with eerily similar characteristics to what moviegoers saw about Google in last year’s The Internship, and a venture capitalist discover the valuable algorithm, a bidding war emerges.
The fictitious battle to snatch up quality products and people is reminiscent of what’s happening in the real world, with Facebook recently acquiring Oculus Rift maker Oculus VR and messaging app WhatsApp, just to name a few acquisitions in 2014.
Silicon Valley gives us a satirical behind-the-scenes look at these big financial dealings as well as the mindsets of every player involved in such eye-popping transactions.
Here’s is Episode 1 in full: (Video Not Available)