Advertisement
U.S. markets open in 4 hours 46 minutes
  • S&P Futures

    5,209.75
    -5.00 (-0.10%)
     
  • Dow Futures

    39,229.00
    +6.00 (+0.02%)
     
  • Nasdaq Futures

    18,194.00
    -37.50 (-0.21%)
     
  • Russell 2000 Futures

    2,046.80
    -3.00 (-0.15%)
     
  • Crude Oil

    82.53
    -0.19 (-0.23%)
     
  • Gold

    2,153.20
    -11.10 (-0.51%)
     
  • Silver

    25.01
    -0.25 (-0.99%)
     
  • EUR/USD

    1.0847
    -0.0029 (-0.27%)
     
  • 10-Yr Bond

    4.3400
    0.0000 (0.00%)
     
  • Vix

    14.50
    +0.17 (+1.19%)
     
  • GBP/USD

    1.2685
    -0.0044 (-0.34%)
     
  • USD/JPY

    150.4750
    +1.3770 (+0.92%)
     
  • Bitcoin USD

    63,754.93
    -3,934.63 (-5.81%)
     
  • CMC Crypto 200

    885.54
    0.00 (0.00%)
     
  • FTSE 100

    7,729.83
    +7.28 (+0.09%)
     
  • Nikkei 225

    40,003.60
    +263.20 (+0.66%)
     

'Silicon Valley' star reveals why the cast visits Bay Area billionaires

HBO’s "Silicon Valley" whose third season finale airs this Sunday, has received rave reviews. It’s the first sitcom to depict the current moment in the tech capital of the world.

The show, directed by Mike Judge, has developed a strong following in Northern California among tech giants, but also has built a wide following beyond the valley.

Josh Brener, who plays Nelson “Big Head” Bighetti, said he was surprised by the show’s success.

“This has all been a happy, wonderful surprise,” he said. “Because it was Mike Judge, you’re always thinking that it’s going to be brilliant and great, but also the odds of anyone liking anything are 0.5%. So it’s been an exciting and wonderful and wild great ride. And I’m just lucky to be a part of all.”

Tech research

It’s not all just humor, though. The plot follows a corporate coder, played by Thomas Middleditch, as he develops a data compressor company Pied Piper after leaving the Google (GOOGL)-esque “Hooli.”  And the real-life tech world is closely studied and monitored to build out the characters and plot lines.

Brener added that in particular fellow castmate Zach Woods reads up on the tech world and that the writers are already in the midst of research for next season.

“Right around now, they’re making their annual trip up to the Bay Area to mine billionaires for stories and make fun of them without them realizing that they’re being made fun of,” he said. “And then they’ll come home, and they have tons of consultants and tons of people both in the room and out of the room that the communicate with regularly about that world.”

Brener joked that his character “Big Head” is clueless. “Me personally, in order to do my character justice, I’ve avoided doing any kind of research whatsoever to keep myself as dim and dumb as possible. I’m method like that.”

Big Head did get recognition, though, when Google announced it was changing its parent company name to Alphabet, CEO Larry Page included a link to Hooli’s XYZ in his blog post, with a picture of Brener. (In Silicon Valley, Big Head created a bad moonshot division called XYZ).

Source: Google
Source: Google

 

“The Alphabet announcement was pretty crazy,” Brener laughed. “It made some of us over at the show question Google as a company. They were giving far too much credence to our little TV show...There is this strange feedback loop between the real world and our show. Especially because we have people appearing on our show that are the real people from that world.”

Silicon Valley simultaneously celebrates the tech industry and casts it with a cynical eye.

“I think it’s definitely an easy target,” Brener said, adding that director Mike Judge—also known for “Office Space” and “Beavis and Butt-Head”—also has added his influence.

“Mike is such a genius at looking at weird people and exploiting them for comedic purposes. He does these great impressions of people they’ve met on set behind the scenes… he just has a mind for exposing people for being hilarious weirdos that they are.”

In the end, though, Brener said there is an underlying optimism.

“There is a sweet nerdiness at the heart of all of it. Even in Silicon Valley, there’s a real idealism and a real sense of hope and doing good and making the world a better place.”

Better to be lucky than good?

Maybe there’s some luck after all. Earlier this week when we asked what tech stocks look attractive right now, Brener said SolarCity (SCTY) was a top holding of his. That evening, Tesla (TSLA) announced it would acquire SolarCity, causing the solar name to shoot up 13%.

 


 

Advertisement