Live data from Hacker News

If you want to understand Silicon Valley, watch Silicon Valley

gatesnotes.com

471–480 of 490 posts

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

#471

Amazing anecdote from a 2016 New Yorker article on the show: > During one visit to Google’s headquarters, in Mountain View, about six writers sat in a conference room with Astro Teller, the head of GoogleX, who wore a midi ring and kept his long hair in a ponytail. “Most of our research meetings are fun, but this one was uncomfortable,” Kemper told me.... > “He claimed he hadn’t seen the show, and then he referred ma…

I don't believe this. Google doesn't have badge readers to exit a meeting room... sounds heavily dramatized

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

#472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hackers is best enjoyed, IMHO, if you interpret it as a hyperbole of the media stereotype of the hacker culture of the era. I tend to revisit it every year and have grown to appreciate it more and more with time. Also, Sneakers and The Net.

I love Hackers. I also love snickering at all of the technical lapses throughout the movie. 28.8 kbaud? Yeah...you're streaming that 3d Gibson interface over that... Yeah, I know, they had to Hollywood it up, but still...

Hackers is, in my opinion, something that was written by someone who was very knowledgable about the subject matter and directed by someone who very clearly was not. Every spoken line of dialogue in that movie is pretty accurate and realistic - it's only when you get to the direction and the visuals that things get wacky.

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

#473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To suggest that basic literacy and educational attainment are somehow indicative of above average intelligence or the ability to understand complex and abstract ideas is a bit of a stretch. With grade inflation and babysitting modern age students, what are the realistic requirements to attain a university degree in a low-difficulty major at a mediocre school? 80 IQ? 85? The literacy argument is trivially refuted in a…

You're dodging the question. When, exactly, was the peak of American intellectual achievement that we're now coasting downhill from? Name a decade.

Sure, 1970s

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

#474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're dodging the question. When, exactly, was the peak of American intellectual achievement that we're now coasting downhill from? Name a decade.

Sure, 1970s

Do you have a single fact to back that up?

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

#475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're dodging the question. When, exactly, was the peak of American intellectual achievement that we're now coasting downhill from? Name a decade.

Sure, 1970s

What made the 70's better than the 60's? In the span of a decade we went from idea (we will put a man on the moon) to execution (Apollo 11) for arguably the greatest scientific feat of mankind.

I realize we're talking about humanity as a whole, but I don't see the appeal of the 70's.

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

#476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was a great show because of on point, biting satire like this. Then in the last season the writing dropped off a cliff, I guess they got neutered - post Gawker world and all that.

X labs actually does great things. Nobody has invested into such different areas of scientific research as Alphabet. I love SV, but hated that potato cannon joke. They painted X Labs as a joke, which it isn't. Sure, they have had their failures,but I'd rather take their failures rather thn "successes" like Snapchat, Tiktok. Craig Frederighi demoing Memoji is much more laughable.

Agreed. When the problems they try to tackle are orders of magnitude harder than...making Snapchat, you have to attribute their failure more to difficulty of the problem than incompetence of the people.

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

#477
post #334

A few months ago I wrote a certain story here and to my surprise I received a call from Dan Lyons, one of the writers of the show. We had long discussions about silicon valley and his new book coming out (I'm featured in it). A few weeks ago he was in LA and we had another long discussion about the show. Silicon Valley is the show most startup founders will refuse to watch. My startup was featured on TechCrunch Disru…

Man, you need to get better co-founders! I agree that Silicon Valley often hits painfully close to home, but that's precisely what makes it so fantastic. My own startup has been mostly outside of America, but we get enough brushes with Silicon Valley culture -- or, worse, wannabe Silicon Valley culture -- to make the show really resonate. Even closer to home, for me personally, is the Australian comedy "Utopia" (or "…

Another Aussie here. Try 'very small business' for a laugh.

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

#478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're dodging the question. When, exactly, was the peak of American intellectual achievement that we're now coasting downhill from? Name a decade.

Sure, 1970s

All right, now we're getting somewhere. Why?

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

#479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With that much $$ Mr Trump should have done better than the index if he is that good. And at least in the UK people and families that want preserve wealth actually run their own funds. There are a number of listed self managed Investment trusts (with low TER) based on preserving family wealth. RIT Capital Partners is one example 12.6% pa for 30 years its base was Rothschild family money and there are others Much olde…

There are thousands of family funds in the US.

Publicly listed? ones or just a name for wealth managers

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

#480
post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a bad test. It mainly just filters out shows filmed in front of a live audience. If you film a comedy in front of a live audience, the actors have to adjust their delivery to speak around the laughter. If you take the laughter out of the final cut the pauses were the actors were waiting for the laughter to die down make it weird and awkward. If a scene only needs one or two takes to get right, they can just go…

Is BBT filmed in front of an audience? I thought OP's point was it's a laugh track, and there are no people there actually laughing.

Yes, BBT is filmed in front of an audience.

https://the-big-bang-theory.com/tickets/

https://medium.com/@jennychen_26501/my-big-bang-theory-live-...

Post reply on HN