Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

If you want to understand Silicon Valley, watch Silicon Valley

gatesnotes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 490 posts

Re: If you want to understand Silicon Valley, watch Silicon Valley

#11

Post by wil421 »

slivym wrote: post #3

It's quite amazing how good a job Silicon Valley does considering how badly wrong it could go (I'm looking at you Big Bang Theory). I'm sure there are quite a few industries that could have similar comedies about them from people who really know what the industry is like. W1A is another great example.

Mike Judge is really great at capturing Americana. Bevis and Butthead was great at capturing the 90s MTV youth, King of the Hill for Texas/country/southern stuff and Silicon Valley has been laugh out loud funny for me.

Re: If you want to understand Silicon Valley, watch Silicon Valley

#12

Post by jjuel »

city41 wrote: post #6
slivym wrote: post #3

It's quite amazing how good a job Silicon Valley does considering how badly wrong it could go (I'm looking at you Big Bang Theory). I'm sure there are quite a few industries that could have similar comedies about them from people who really know what the industry is like. W1A is another great example.

I think Mike Judge is the difference here. He strikes me as a genius when it comes to understanding human behavior.

Not to mention how he used to work in Silicon Valley.

Re: If you want to understand Silicon Valley, watch Silicon Valley

#13

Post by blocked_again »

slivym wrote: post #3

It's quite amazing how good a job Silicon Valley does considering how badly wrong it could go (I'm looking at you Big Bang Theory). I'm sure there are quite a few industries that could have similar comedies about them from people who really know what the industry is like. W1A is another great example.

Pardon my ignorance but what did big bang theory got wrong?

Re: If you want to understand Silicon Valley, watch Silicon Valley

#15

Post by saagarjha »

corysama wrote: post #5

I love the running joke that the main characters work on fake technobabble, but the background companies (particularly the TechCrunch episode) are babbling about stuff that sounds fake but is real tech. “Making the world a better place through Paxos distributed consensus!”

I mean, it would be kind of odd if the show's writers came up with something novel and instead of rushing to patent it decided to make a TV show out of it. Meanwhile, it's OK for the other companies to work on things that already exist–it adds to their run-of-the-mill-ness.

Re: If you want to understand Silicon Valley, watch Silicon Valley

#16

Post by buboard »

slivym wrote: post #3

It's quite amazing how good a job Silicon Valley does considering how badly wrong it could go (I'm looking at you Big Bang Theory). I'm sure there are quite a few industries that could have similar comedies about them from people who really know what the industry is like. W1A is another great example.

Mike Judge predicted how democracy turns to idiocracy 10 years ago. i wonder what he thinks about the future of tech

Re: If you want to understand Silicon Valley, watch Silicon Valley

#17

Post by felipesoc »

I always like to compare Silicon Valley to The Big Bang Theory. TBBT seems like a parody of the stereotype of the people they are parodying while SV is a true parody. I'm always thinking "haha, that's so true" when watching SV, but never while watching TBBT.

Re: If you want to understand Silicon Valley, watch Silicon Valley

#18

Post by wil421 »

imgabe wrote: post #9

King of the Hill has also resurfaced on Hulu recently after not being available to stream anywhere. Mike Judge has a real talent for nailing essence of a culture.

Glad you made this comment as well. Mike Judge is one of the best at capturing culture and Americana specifically.

The voice for Hank was based on some redneck guy who kept calling MTV and complaining about Bevis and Butthead.

Re: If you want to understand Silicon Valley, watch Silicon Valley

#19

Post by [deleted] »

skunkworker wrote: post #7
slivym wrote: post #3

It's quite amazing how good a job Silicon Valley does considering how badly wrong it could go (I'm looking at you Big Bang Theory). I'm sure there are quite a few industries that could have similar comedies about them from people who really know what the industry is like. W1A is another great example.

This Venn diagram always gets me. https://i.chzbgr.com/full/8291744000/h3159FC59/

[deleted]

Re: If you want to understand Silicon Valley, watch Silicon Valley

#20

Post by blocked_again »

jjuel wrote: post #12
city41 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Mike Judge is the difference here. He strikes me as a genius when it comes to understanding human behavior.

Not to mention how he used to work in Silicon Valley.

Also the people they hired for consulting was top notch.

https://blog.ycombinator.com/the-technical-advisor-for-silic...

https://medium.com/@timanglade/how-hbos-silicon-valley-built...

Post reply on HN