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TV series about startup failures

215 points by kaizenb 3y ago

boraoztunc 3y ago
Have you watched any similar shows? Let me know.
nicgrev103 3y ago
'Halt and Catch Fire' (Fictional but good) 'Sillicon Valley' (Fictional and comedy but also good) 'The Playlist' (About Spotify, which isn't failure)
- survivorBias 3y ago
  Silcon valley was brilliant, although they blended the stories of several companys fatal errors into one company, turning it into a Hans in Luck
  - kgwxd 3y ago
    HCF uses the same technique
  - gibspaulding 3y ago
    Silicone Valley is one of my favorite series I've seen. I just finished rewatching the final series since all the AI conversation lately had me thinking about it. I'll have to check out this Halt and Catch Fire everyone is talking about!
- boraoztunc 3y ago
  Halt and Catch Fire was a great show! Leaving this gem here: https://bits.ashleyblewer.com/halt-and-catch-fire-syllabus/ https://bits.ashleyblewer.com/halt-and-catch-fire-syllabus/
  - mskalski 3y ago
    I love this show, re watched it recently, but did not know this site. Thank you for sharing!
    - b112 3y ago
      I certainly liked the first season, even the second, but I wonder if the last season even had anyone in front of a computer. Or doing anything other than complain about other people. It seemed to turn 100% drama, no tech. I couldn't get past episode 2 of the last season!
      - leovander 3y ago
        There's at least a few computer scenes in the last season.
      - prepend 3y ago
        I don’t know about that, that scene where they are sitting in front of their computer working on their portal and someone shows them the first release of Netscape 1.0 with yahoo included as a nav bar item seems pretty significant in my memory. I think it also reminds me of how the web changed my interaction with my computer. Of course I was in front of it more, but it made it more about other people and sharing information than just me, alone working on my algorithm.
        b112 3y ago
        I don’t know about that, that scene where they are sitting in front of their computer working on their portal and someone shows them the first release of Netscape 1.0 with yahoo included as a nav bar item seems pretty significant in my memory I didn't see this, and according to wikipedia, this was in the second last episode. This makes sense, because (as I indicated) I stopped watching at season 4, second episode. And I had to fast forward through loads of "he said / she said" drama and people arguing about personal "stuff" to even get to the end of episode 2. Like I said, first season rocked. 2 and 3 I watched, although 3 was harder to get through. 4 was just a soap opera, and citing the second last episode as 'something tech happened!', doesn't make me feel wrong here. Anyhow, to each their own. You can tell what I don't like, others may have more tolerance, or even enjoy more drama orientated dialog.
- megax 3y ago
  HCF was a great show, and one of the only shows that goes as far back as the BBS days before the Web “caught on”. The cast is pretty good. Highly recommend watching.
- SideburnsOfDoom 3y ago
  HaCF has an amazing line in it: "Computers aren't the thing. They're the thing that gets us to the thing." (1) I still think abut it frequently. It's true. It's a statement about systems - often the utility is what they enable, not thing "thing in itself". Even deep into software development, this is true. e.. I really appreciate git and github, but I don't need to focus on becoming a "git maestro" , I just need to get by in git, because git for me "isn't the thing", it's just "the thing that gets me to the thing". Likewise, we can make software for people who are clever, even brilliant in what they do but who don't care abut the details of that software because for them it's not "the thing". 1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeY_5n75zPM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeY_5n75zPM
  - jeremycarter 3y ago
    I use that quote similarly. It's about knowing where you stand, where the value is, and of course not chasing the shiny new thing.... Perhaps Its pragmatic humility. That's how I see it.
    - SideburnsOfDoom 3y ago
      > and of course not chasing the shiny new thing... The thing is that in that scene, Joe (Lee Pace) is being the salesman to Gordon the engineer, and is just starting to grasp that there is a shiny new thing about to be born, that building computers is going to enable something much bigger than just "we'll sell some hardware, and make some money"; that change is coming, it's going to be for a wider audience than just computer enthusiasts; computers would be the way to get there, but are not the thing itself. Now we call that thing "the internet", "the huge software industry", "being online all the time", "social media" etc, but then they were not sure what it would look like. He is totally chasing the shiny new thing that the others don't even see yet. Even as they bring it about.
      - ghaff 3y ago
        There was a discussion earlier about innovations in tech in the past 10-15 years. It's tempting to identify the iPhone (and smartphones broadly) and that's not totally wrong. Yes, it replaces a bunch of discrete devices from times past reasonably well for most purposes: telephone, still camera, video camera, iPod/Walkman, voice recorder, GPS, etc. But that's not really what makes a modern smartphone so transformative. It's doing all those things while being essentially ubiquitous, mostly always connected, open to an amazing ecosystem of apps that take advantage of the hardware capabilities, and with access to an amazing amount of online information. Modern smartphones are great products for the most part but it's how they function as part of an ecosystem that makes them transformative.
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  >About Spotify, which isn't failure I feel like Spotify’s value is mainly to the big 3 music publishers to gain negotiating power against Apple/Alphabet/Amazon. It has existed since 2006, and still losing money. And lots of it. https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/SPOT/spotify-technology/net-income https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/SPOT/spotify-techn...
  - capableweb 3y ago
    Well, that's the typical startup trajectory, isn't it? As long as the revenue goes up year-by-year (which seems to be true for Spotify), investors are happy to subsidize the net losses, then once they have cornered the market, they can get rid of as much costs as possible and raise prices as much as possible. It's a fucked up system, but it seems most companies go through this.
    - lotsofpulp 3y ago
      >then once they have cornered the market Unless Spotify obtains copyright for all the popular music in the world people want to listen to, or media or whatever, I do not see how this is a possibility. Currently, Spotify has to buy from the 3 big music publishers (which limits the amount of expenses it can reduce), and it sells to people who have the option from buying from at least 4 streaming services which are relatively trivial to switch to (which limits the amount of revenue they can earn). The exact opposite of the situation you want your business to be in.
      - capableweb 3y ago
        Well, in my experience in traveling around the world, Spotify is available in every country I've ever been to (according to https://support.spotify.com/us/article/where-spotify-is-available/ https://support.spotify.com/us/article/where-spotify-is-avai... at least), while others are spottier coverage. Sure, not all songs are available everywhere, but there is at least some coverage. Apple Music seems to have pretty widespread coverage too (https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204411 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204411) but I could find at least a few places I visited recently where it wasn't available while Spotify was (Bangladesh and Haiti are two examples)
- mskalski 3y ago
  Re watched recently HaCF, supplementing it now with book "The soul of the new machine" which also enjoy. The book also appeared in last episode.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    Soul of a New Machine is one of the best books chronicling product development. (Showstopper about Windows NT is another good one.) There were a lot of parallel threads in the early 80s that didn't really intersect a lot. You had the PC/BBS world, the ARPANET/Internet, and the minicomputer & mainframe worlds. I knew a lot of the people in Soul of a New Machine and actually dotted-lined into Tom West for a while. (Later on when Data General was coming out with big Unix servers.) I don't think I quite made it to the end of HaCF as it's not available (legally) on non-premium subscriptions. I'll have to hunt it down.
    - mskalski 3y ago
      I will check Showstopper, thank you for recommendation. It was definitely a fruitful time, a lot of meaningful job was done. I envy you that you could work with those folks.
      - ghaff 3y ago
        It was a different time. In general, things happened more slowly. Things were a lot less interconnected and a lot less transparent from the outside. Information was really hard to get. It was a good time. It was also a time that I would probably find incredibly frustrating to get anything done in if I were to suddenly be transported back.
- prepend 3y ago
  > About Spotify, which isn't failure Is that true? They are still losing money after, what, 10 years? I like Spotify but I don’t think they are out of the woods yet. Just like I wouldn’t call WeWork (isn’t a failure) in 2018.
  - nicgrev103 3y ago
    I guess I meant all the other suggestions documented failures or at least 'falls'. Spotify may not make money but it is still running and hasn't suffered a fall to the same extent as the other real life examples.
  - heyjamesknight 3y ago
    There are degrees of failure. WeWork has raised $23B and they’re currently worth $350M. Losing $22B is a pretty insane failure.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
- rg111 3y ago
  I really loved Halt and Catch Fire. It's among the greatest shows I have watched in any genre. Highly recommend.
  - jdjdjdjdjd 3y ago
    Such a great show.
- tptacek 3y ago
  There is more SFBA startup reality in Silicon Valley than there is in a lot of these docudramas about startup flameouts; even The Dropout, which is the best of them, is much worse than Carreyrou's book. Honestly, Silicon Valley has so much verisimilitude that it suffers from it; towards the end, it starts to veer into fan service.
  - vidarh 3y ago
    Having done a few startups (only one of which was based in Silicon Valley; incidentally, Arrington was involved in that one, while getting Techcrunch off the ground in his bedroom next to the offices we first started in...), I really wonder how much of the fun of Silicon Valley is lost on people who haven't experienced it. I regularly caught myself thinking I know a guy like X, or "I remember when this happened to us".
    - tptacek 3y ago
      Right, that's because they went way out of their way to drag a bunch of startup people in as advisors, and they worked all their stuff into the plot (it helps that there's something innately comedic about startup culture). Watch the credits sometime and look for names you recognize; you'll see them.
      - zamnos 3y ago
        The startup advisor I know said they told the writers of an incident that happened to them, but the writers rejected it as being too outlandish and audiences wouldn't believe them. It later made it into season 2.
        istjohn 3y ago
        What was the incident?
- winternett 3y ago
  Silicon Valley was the best in my opinion... Having worked for a startup in the 90s, it nailed the pain points perfectly, as well as the passive aggressive management styles and office culture underlying the entire industry. Mike Judge is a unique cultural comedy documentarian of the highest order, I like most of the stuff he does like Office Space and Idiocracy as well.
BMc2020 3y ago
hey the kid from third rock, aka the kid from inception is..looking kinda middle aged. I feel old now.
- epolanski 3y ago
  You can always look at Will Smith or Nicholas Cage and pretend we age extremely slowly.
- sschueller 3y ago
  Joseph Gordon-Levitt
- toyg 3y ago
  You mean the kid from Nolan's Batman
I_am_tiberius 3y ago
I wished there was some sort of prequel to Silicon Valley, e.g. the Aviato story.
- Theitheave42 3y ago
  I’d watch the fuck out of that. SV was such a good show - miss watching it weekly while it aired.
- LeonM 3y ago
  Too bad that TJ Miller (Elrich Bachman) probably won't be associated with it.
  - toyg 3y ago
    I can actually see a humbled TJ Miller taking a SV spinoff job to relaunch his career, at some point. A prequel would be challenging though, because of aging.
    - Eisenstein 3y ago
      TJ Miller's problem is not that he needs to be 'humbled', his problem is that he has a reduced ability to control judgement and inhibition[0] due to having had a large part of his frontal lobe removed[1]. He is probably not going to get 'better' behavior wise. > "expert medical analyses and reports regarding the defendant’s prior brain surgery and its continued neurological impacts ... cast doubt upon the requisite legal element of intent to commit the charged offense.” [2] > Miller had undergone brain surgery several years ago after having a hemorrhage and multiple seizures. He said “a golf ball-sized” piece of his frontal lobe was removed.[1] [0] Conjecture based on knowledge of neuropsychology [1] https://deadline.com/2021/07/t-j-miller-bomb-threat-charge-dropped-1234802893/ https://deadline.com/2021/07/t-j-miller-bomb-threat-charge-d... [2] https://deadline.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/tj-miller-WMK.pdf https://deadline.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/tj-miller-WM...
      - toyg 3y ago
babayega2 3y ago
One of the funny/sad consequences of watching Silicon Valley, is that a lot of my friends (in my African country where only 4% has electricity) think that the startup need to expand no matter what, even if it has no viable business model, you can run a "budgetivore" business for many years like Linkedin/Amazon and in the end you will find a business model. So imagine. Instead of building good and sound startups that can be champions in the country/region, they waste the meager resources available in the country on fake startups/crypto-scams. Sad.
- epolanski 3y ago
  That's not what your African friends think, that's literally a very huge part of the startup ecosystem anywhere. I have worked in few startup incubators, and most of the companies I've seen are merely interested in getting a good evaluation and getting bought from someone else. The amount of startups I've seen with the interest of actually making any "profit" is very low. I think this is also a reflection of several changes in how stock markets have changed in the last decade where the name of the game hasn't been anymore about making a successful product that makes money and possibly pays dividends but the chase for endless and endless growth of stock price. There are companies out there that literally have the stock of their price in the hall of their offices, imagine that and not customer satisfaction/retention/profits or anything else being the biggest indicator of a company's success. It's a sad reality. I myself am interested in creating a new business in the tech world, one that makes honest good money but is not seeking a 100M/1B valuation and I feel such a unicorn.
  - zx8080 3y ago
    Isn't is because of a "free money" thing?
    - SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
      IMO, absolutely. I just don’t know who exactly to blame for that. It seems to be a competition between gov spending, “quantitative easing” (brrrrrrrrrt), and the Fed’s insistence that near zero percent rates forever would work. It seems to me that all of those cause the other though.
anonzzzies 3y ago
This needs to be made. I am often contemplating writing down my startup story which almost killed me (ambulances with sirens, multiple times) and then failed. I really think people should document the actual stories. Also kitchen nightmares/hotel hell for companies. It would be a hit, but without the woke American additions; just go full Ramsey UK style.
- megax 3y ago
  I’m intrigued. Would you mind sharing a TL;DR?
  - anonzzzies 3y ago
    I had a company that went from nothing to marketleader and then back to nothing; the stress made me end up in hospital several times, the last time impacted my health enough to retire at 32. It was 10 years journey so I easily can write a book about it.
- capableweb 3y ago
  > Also kitchen nightmares/hotel hell for companies. It would be a hit, but without the woke American additions; just go full Ramsey UK style. That's a great idea, would love that. What founder with experience has a good enough style/personality for this to work? Jobs sounds like he would be perfect for this, he loved berating people. But who could do the job today? Most founders today are too vanilla for it be interesting, at least their public persona.
  - mnky9800n 3y ago
    Just have Gordon Ramsay do it anyways.
    - Firmwarrior 3y ago
      Just imagine how pissed Gordon Ramsay would be watching people wasting piles of money that could have comfortably started up multiple restaurants "Yeah, so things started going south a little after we collected 2 mil in our series A.."
doubtfuluser 3y ago
On „General Magic“, recently read „Build“ by Tony Fadell. I can recommend that for people interested in building startups. Will also give a bit more background on General Magic
- boraoztunc 3y ago
  "The reason you should care about the story of General Magic is because it involves something fundamental, and that is, failure is not the end, failure is actually the beginning."
blantonl 3y ago
The "problem" is we really are in an technology revolution similar to the industrial revolution 200-300 years ago. For every 100 tech startup businesses that don't generate a penny of profit and are propped up by hyper valuations and stock prices, there are companies like Facebook and Google and Apple that absolutely print money in profits. That in turn covers the outlay by venture money. All those companies that burn money in fire pits are essentially subsidized by the staggering amount of money that some new companies only recently formed in the past 20 years are printing. Spray and pray and see what sticks for investors will work in this type of rapid revolutionary environment.
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  All the companies that have stellar net incomes and profit margins are more than 20 years old, except Meta which is about to turn 20 in a couple years. The crop that came after that (Uber/Airbnb/Snap/etc) do not show the same, except maybe Bytedance, but their numbers are not public.
  - dghlsakjg 3y ago
    That might be a side effect of destroying competition and vc exit strategy through acquisition. YouTube, instagram, Slack, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, etc. all second generation software that companies that were acquired by bigger companies as exits, or to squelch competition.
- mnky9800n 3y ago
  What technology has come out in the last decade that isn't an increment or miniaturization?
  - prepend 3y ago
    The revolution we Ade still in is the transistor and it started 60 years ago and probably has 40 years left to go.
  - blantonl 3y ago
    I would argue that the mobile communications device called the "iPhone" is one of the most significant technology innovations developed in the past 100 years. Love it, hate it, whatever, but it completely revolutionized what is practically access to "everything". You will be hard pressed to find an American consumer, from the richest guy to homeless people on the street that don't have a mobile communications device on their person with a touch screen and instant access to the collective works of the world. The iPhone by itself as a stand alone business would be larger than Microsoft, Coca-Cola, and McDonalds among other revolutionary businesses.
ipython 3y ago
It’s older from the first dot com bust, but I would highly recommend startup dot com as well.
alfiedotwtf 3y ago
For anyone who wants to see how crazy it can get, there's a documentary called Riot On! from 2004 that follows a company that "needed to grow" because of hot money - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0427783/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0427783/ Highly recommend.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
beejiu 3y ago
Startup.com is also a good watch (although more dated) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fd8pdniJZk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fd8pdniJZk
wslh 3y ago
"The Aviator" [1] about Howard Hughes? Love to also talk about real startups movies without failure as a main theme. For example, "The Social Network" (includes Winklevoss and Eduardo Saverin "failures"). We have other non-fictional ones such as "The Founder" [2] about McDonalds. Classic: "Pirates of Silicon Valley". Ford v Ferrari (amazing if you have not seen it) [3]. And what about "Citizen Kane" [4]? The Fabelmans, Steven Spielberg's biography. Have not watched entirely the last ones about Steve Jobs, I don't think they captured the real character and complex personality. Bigger lists tagged startup in IMDB [5] and company [6]. Most of them are based on fiction. [1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0338751/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0338751/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Founder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Founder [3] https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_v_Ferrari https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_v_Ferrari [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_Kane https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_Kane [5] https://www.imdb.com/search/keyword/?keywords=startup https://www.imdb.com/search/keyword/?keywords=startup [6] https://www.imdb.com/search/keyword/?keywords=company https://www.imdb.com/search/keyword/?keywords=company
- canadianfella 3y ago
  [dead]
- nicgrev103 3y ago
  If we are talking just general business movies, some more are: 'The Big Short', 'Wolf of Wall Street'.
  - wslh 3y ago
    Yes, and I also recommend the new Netflix series "Rough Diamonds" which mixes business and mafia. [1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15469192/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_8_tt_4_nm_4_q_diamond https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15469192/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_8_tt_...
  - lotsofpulp 3y ago
    Wolf of Wall Street is about business? I thought it was just about drugs and partying. Margin call would be a better example in my opinion.
lpolovets 3y ago
The Profit* is pretty interesting. It's like the shows where Gordon Ramsay goes into failing restaurants and tries to turn them around, except here the show's host tries to fix all kinds of local businesses. It's not about tech startups per se, but you still see a lot of common issues through the lens of local businesses: founder disputes, poor unit economics, bad marketing, etc. It's a little cheesy, but pretty good overall! * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Profit_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Profit_(TV_series)
- mianm 3y ago
  Sounds a bit like the UK series Troubleshooter from the 90s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubleshooter_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubleshooter_(TV_series)
- Gelob 3y ago
  I love the profit and Marcus!
- greggsy 3y ago
  How does it compare to Nathan For You?
  - rgoldste 3y ago
    It’s serious and actually tries to fix the company.
- rmason 3y ago
  Although it is a bit overly dramatic (which might explain why it's a hit) I've always enjoyed the Bar Rescue series where Jon Taffer tries to fix broken bar businesses. The early episodes got more into the math of what works but Taffer screaming at owners was more popular so you see much less of that in later seasons. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar_Rescue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar_Rescue I know a guy that goes in and rescues bars in exchange for a percentage of the increase in value as they're later sold. He swears that the core of what Taffer does is exactly how he operates.
- 3y ago
nicgrev103 3y ago
'Billion dollar code' is another good one, not so much about a fall though.
AlbertCory 3y ago
> millions of people's health and lives were put in danger due to inaccurate blood test results A bit of hyperbole there. It was only used in some Walgreen's in Phoenix.
AndrewKemendo 3y ago
I think Halt and Catch fire remains the best show about startup life and the personal story arcs are bang on in my experience
- petepete 3y ago
  It sprang to mind as soon as I saw the title of the post. One of my favourite ever programmes. It was on Prime in the UK but vanished some time ago.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    It seems to have disappeared into an AMC premium subscription.
penguin_booze 3y ago
The other day, I was watching the movie, Mr. Jones. It occurred to me then that Vanessa Kirby would be the best person (by appearance, at least) to play Elizabeth Holmes. But I see that ship has sailed.
cookie_monsta 3y ago
Jungle Town is a docuseries about a charismatic eco-evangelicist/property developer who charges interns $5000 to help build his sustainable village in the Panama jungle. The interesting thing about the doco is that the film maker seems to get converted midway. At the start the founder is portrayed as a obvious charlatan but by the end he is presented in a much more favorable light.
userabchn 3y ago
Not a TV series, but an interesting documentary about Makani, a failed wind energy startup funded by X: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qd_hEja6bzE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qd_hEja6bzE
atleastoptimal 3y ago
Nothing in American culture today is mythologized more than the startup. It represents the acme of all our ambitions, hopes, and trust in the future. In the United States, people don't expect the government to bring them a better world, they expect companies to do that, and the younger, hotter, and cooler those who create the company, the better.
- nightski 3y ago
  Maybe this is a regional thing, especially in SV driven by the VC hype. In general I find America very focused on small business rather than startups. Our economy is really built on small business and the more we forget that the worse things get.
- prepend 3y ago
  > Nothing in American culture today is mythologized more than the startup. I think sports teams and accomplishments still take this competition by a long shot. There are way more movies, books, time spent mythologizing teams and individuals doing sporting things.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
antoniuschan99 3y ago
There’s also Valley of the Boom
zamnos 3y ago
For a show on Startups but failure of its CEO but not the company, Superpumped is a great watch. It documents the rise of Uber and the fall of Travis Kalanic. It's based off the book of the same name, although I can't vouch for either's veracity outside of what made headlines. https://g.co/kgs/vkMuCR https://g.co/kgs/vkMuCR
robocat 3y ago
There’s also a great doco about Enron - nearly two hours long. https://watchdocumentaries.com/enron-the-smartest-guys-in-the-room/ https://watchdocumentaries.com/enron-the-smartest-guys-in-th...

215 points by kaizenb 3y ago

Have you watched any similar shows? Let me know.

'Halt and Catch Fire' (Fictional but good) 'Sillicon Valley' (Fictional and comedy but also good) 'The Playlist' (About Spotify, which isn't failure)

survivorBias 3y ago
Silcon valley was brilliant, although they blended the stories of several companys fatal errors into one company, turning it into a Hans in Luck
- kgwxd 3y ago
  HCF uses the same technique
- gibspaulding 3y ago
  Silicone Valley is one of my favorite series I've seen. I just finished rewatching the final series since all the AI conversation lately had me thinking about it. I'll have to check out this Halt and Catch Fire everyone is talking about!
boraoztunc 3y ago
Halt and Catch Fire was a great show! Leaving this gem here: https://bits.ashleyblewer.com/halt-and-catch-fire-syllabus/ https://bits.ashleyblewer.com/halt-and-catch-fire-syllabus/
- mskalski 3y ago
  I love this show, re watched it recently, but did not know this site. Thank you for sharing!
  - b112 3y ago
    I certainly liked the first season, even the second, but I wonder if the last season even had anyone in front of a computer. Or doing anything other than complain about other people. It seemed to turn 100% drama, no tech. I couldn't get past episode 2 of the last season!
    - leovander 3y ago
      There's at least a few computer scenes in the last season.
    - prepend 3y ago
      I don’t know about that, that scene where they are sitting in front of their computer working on their portal and someone shows them the first release of Netscape 1.0 with yahoo included as a nav bar item seems pretty significant in my memory. I think it also reminds me of how the web changed my interaction with my computer. Of course I was in front of it more, but it made it more about other people and sharing information than just me, alone working on my algorithm.
      - b112 3y ago
        I don’t know about that, that scene where they are sitting in front of their computer working on their portal and someone shows them the first release of Netscape 1.0 with yahoo included as a nav bar item seems pretty significant in my memory I didn't see this, and according to wikipedia, this was in the second last episode. This makes sense, because (as I indicated) I stopped watching at season 4, second episode. And I had to fast forward through loads of "he said / she said" drama and people arguing about personal "stuff" to even get to the end of episode 2. Like I said, first season rocked. 2 and 3 I watched, although 3 was harder to get through. 4 was just a soap opera, and citing the second last episode as 'something tech happened!', doesn't make me feel wrong here. Anyhow, to each their own. You can tell what I don't like, others may have more tolerance, or even enjoy more drama orientated dialog.
megax 3y ago
HCF was a great show, and one of the only shows that goes as far back as the BBS days before the Web “caught on”. The cast is pretty good. Highly recommend watching.
SideburnsOfDoom 3y ago
HaCF has an amazing line in it: "Computers aren't the thing. They're the thing that gets us to the thing." (1) I still think abut it frequently. It's true. It's a statement about systems - often the utility is what they enable, not thing "thing in itself". Even deep into software development, this is true. e.. I really appreciate git and github, but I don't need to focus on becoming a "git maestro" , I just need to get by in git, because git for me "isn't the thing", it's just "the thing that gets me to the thing". Likewise, we can make software for people who are clever, even brilliant in what they do but who don't care abut the details of that software because for them it's not "the thing". 1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeY_5n75zPM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeY_5n75zPM
- jeremycarter 3y ago
  I use that quote similarly. It's about knowing where you stand, where the value is, and of course not chasing the shiny new thing.... Perhaps Its pragmatic humility. That's how I see it.
  - SideburnsOfDoom 3y ago
    > and of course not chasing the shiny new thing... The thing is that in that scene, Joe (Lee Pace) is being the salesman to Gordon the engineer, and is just starting to grasp that there is a shiny new thing about to be born, that building computers is going to enable something much bigger than just "we'll sell some hardware, and make some money"; that change is coming, it's going to be for a wider audience than just computer enthusiasts; computers would be the way to get there, but are not the thing itself. Now we call that thing "the internet", "the huge software industry", "being online all the time", "social media" etc, but then they were not sure what it would look like. He is totally chasing the shiny new thing that the others don't even see yet. Even as they bring it about.
    - ghaff 3y ago
      There was a discussion earlier about innovations in tech in the past 10-15 years. It's tempting to identify the iPhone (and smartphones broadly) and that's not totally wrong. Yes, it replaces a bunch of discrete devices from times past reasonably well for most purposes: telephone, still camera, video camera, iPod/Walkman, voice recorder, GPS, etc. But that's not really what makes a modern smartphone so transformative. It's doing all those things while being essentially ubiquitous, mostly always connected, open to an amazing ecosystem of apps that take advantage of the hardware capabilities, and with access to an amazing amount of online information. Modern smartphones are great products for the most part but it's how they function as part of an ecosystem that makes them transformative.
lotsofpulp 3y ago
>About Spotify, which isn't failure I feel like Spotify’s value is mainly to the big 3 music publishers to gain negotiating power against Apple/Alphabet/Amazon. It has existed since 2006, and still losing money. And lots of it. https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/SPOT/spotify-technology/net-income https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/SPOT/spotify-techn...
- capableweb 3y ago
  Well, that's the typical startup trajectory, isn't it? As long as the revenue goes up year-by-year (which seems to be true for Spotify), investors are happy to subsidize the net losses, then once they have cornered the market, they can get rid of as much costs as possible and raise prices as much as possible. It's a fucked up system, but it seems most companies go through this.
  - lotsofpulp 3y ago
    >then once they have cornered the market Unless Spotify obtains copyright for all the popular music in the world people want to listen to, or media or whatever, I do not see how this is a possibility. Currently, Spotify has to buy from the 3 big music publishers (which limits the amount of expenses it can reduce), and it sells to people who have the option from buying from at least 4 streaming services which are relatively trivial to switch to (which limits the amount of revenue they can earn). The exact opposite of the situation you want your business to be in.
    - capableweb 3y ago
      Well, in my experience in traveling around the world, Spotify is available in every country I've ever been to (according to https://support.spotify.com/us/article/where-spotify-is-available/ https://support.spotify.com/us/article/where-spotify-is-avai... at least), while others are spottier coverage. Sure, not all songs are available everywhere, but there is at least some coverage. Apple Music seems to have pretty widespread coverage too (https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204411 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204411) but I could find at least a few places I visited recently where it wasn't available while Spotify was (Bangladesh and Haiti are two examples)
mskalski 3y ago
Re watched recently HaCF, supplementing it now with book "The soul of the new machine" which also enjoy. The book also appeared in last episode.
- ghaff 3y ago
  Soul of a New Machine is one of the best books chronicling product development. (Showstopper about Windows NT is another good one.) There were a lot of parallel threads in the early 80s that didn't really intersect a lot. You had the PC/BBS world, the ARPANET/Internet, and the minicomputer & mainframe worlds. I knew a lot of the people in Soul of a New Machine and actually dotted-lined into Tom West for a while. (Later on when Data General was coming out with big Unix servers.) I don't think I quite made it to the end of HaCF as it's not available (legally) on non-premium subscriptions. I'll have to hunt it down.
  - mskalski 3y ago
    I will check Showstopper, thank you for recommendation. It was definitely a fruitful time, a lot of meaningful job was done. I envy you that you could work with those folks.
    - ghaff 3y ago
      It was a different time. In general, things happened more slowly. Things were a lot less interconnected and a lot less transparent from the outside. Information was really hard to get. It was a good time. It was also a time that I would probably find incredibly frustrating to get anything done in if I were to suddenly be transported back.
prepend 3y ago
> About Spotify, which isn't failure Is that true? They are still losing money after, what, 10 years? I like Spotify but I don’t think they are out of the woods yet. Just like I wouldn’t call WeWork (isn’t a failure) in 2018.
- nicgrev103 3y ago
  I guess I meant all the other suggestions documented failures or at least 'falls'. Spotify may not make money but it is still running and hasn't suffered a fall to the same extent as the other real life examples.
- heyjamesknight 3y ago
  There are degrees of failure. WeWork has raised $23B and they’re currently worth $350M. Losing $22B is a pretty insane failure.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
rg111 3y ago
I really loved Halt and Catch Fire. It's among the greatest shows I have watched in any genre. Highly recommend.
- jdjdjdjdjd 3y ago
  Such a great show.
tptacek 3y ago
There is more SFBA startup reality in Silicon Valley than there is in a lot of these docudramas about startup flameouts; even The Dropout, which is the best of them, is much worse than Carreyrou's book. Honestly, Silicon Valley has so much verisimilitude that it suffers from it; towards the end, it starts to veer into fan service.
- vidarh 3y ago
  Having done a few startups (only one of which was based in Silicon Valley; incidentally, Arrington was involved in that one, while getting Techcrunch off the ground in his bedroom next to the offices we first started in...), I really wonder how much of the fun of Silicon Valley is lost on people who haven't experienced it. I regularly caught myself thinking I know a guy like X, or "I remember when this happened to us".
  - tptacek 3y ago
    Right, that's because they went way out of their way to drag a bunch of startup people in as advisors, and they worked all their stuff into the plot (it helps that there's something innately comedic about startup culture). Watch the credits sometime and look for names you recognize; you'll see them.
    - zamnos 3y ago
      The startup advisor I know said they told the writers of an incident that happened to them, but the writers rejected it as being too outlandish and audiences wouldn't believe them. It later made it into season 2.
      - istjohn 3y ago
        What was the incident?
winternett 3y ago
Silicon Valley was the best in my opinion... Having worked for a startup in the 90s, it nailed the pain points perfectly, as well as the passive aggressive management styles and office culture underlying the entire industry. Mike Judge is a unique cultural comedy documentarian of the highest order, I like most of the stuff he does like Office Space and Idiocracy as well.

BMc2020 3y ago

hey the kid from third rock, aka the kid from inception is..looking kinda middle aged. I feel old now.

epolanski 3y ago
You can always look at Will Smith or Nicholas Cage and pretend we age extremely slowly.
sschueller 3y ago
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
toyg 3y ago
You mean the kid from Nolan's Batman

I_am_tiberius 3y ago

I wished there was some sort of prequel to Silicon Valley, e.g. the Aviato story.

Theitheave42 3y ago
I’d watch the fuck out of that. SV was such a good show - miss watching it weekly while it aired.
LeonM 3y ago
Too bad that TJ Miller (Elrich Bachman) probably won't be associated with it.
- toyg 3y ago
  I can actually see a humbled TJ Miller taking a SV spinoff job to relaunch his career, at some point. A prequel would be challenging though, because of aging.
  - Eisenstein 3y ago
    TJ Miller's problem is not that he needs to be 'humbled', his problem is that he has a reduced ability to control judgement and inhibition[0] due to having had a large part of his frontal lobe removed[1]. He is probably not going to get 'better' behavior wise. > "expert medical analyses and reports regarding the defendant’s prior brain surgery and its continued neurological impacts ... cast doubt upon the requisite legal element of intent to commit the charged offense.” [2] > Miller had undergone brain surgery several years ago after having a hemorrhage and multiple seizures. He said “a golf ball-sized” piece of his frontal lobe was removed.[1] [0] Conjecture based on knowledge of neuropsychology [1] https://deadline.com/2021/07/t-j-miller-bomb-threat-charge-dropped-1234802893/ https://deadline.com/2021/07/t-j-miller-bomb-threat-charge-d... [2] https://deadline.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/tj-miller-WMK.pdf https://deadline.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/tj-miller-WM...
    - toyg 3y ago

babayega2 3y ago

One of the funny/sad consequences of watching Silicon Valley, is that a lot of my friends (in my African country where only 4% has electricity) think that the startup need to expand no matter what, even if it has no viable business model, you can run a "budgetivore" business for many years like Linkedin/Amazon and in the end you will find a business model. So imagine. Instead of building good and sound startups that can be champions in the country/region, they waste the meager resources available in the country on fake startups/crypto-scams. Sad.

epolanski 3y ago
That's not what your African friends think, that's literally a very huge part of the startup ecosystem anywhere. I have worked in few startup incubators, and most of the companies I've seen are merely interested in getting a good evaluation and getting bought from someone else. The amount of startups I've seen with the interest of actually making any "profit" is very low. I think this is also a reflection of several changes in how stock markets have changed in the last decade where the name of the game hasn't been anymore about making a successful product that makes money and possibly pays dividends but the chase for endless and endless growth of stock price. There are companies out there that literally have the stock of their price in the hall of their offices, imagine that and not customer satisfaction/retention/profits or anything else being the biggest indicator of a company's success. It's a sad reality. I myself am interested in creating a new business in the tech world, one that makes honest good money but is not seeking a 100M/1B valuation and I feel such a unicorn.
- zx8080 3y ago
  Isn't is because of a "free money" thing?
  - SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
    IMO, absolutely. I just don’t know who exactly to blame for that. It seems to be a competition between gov spending, “quantitative easing” (brrrrrrrrrt), and the Fed’s insistence that near zero percent rates forever would work. It seems to me that all of those cause the other though.

anonzzzies 3y ago

This needs to be made. I am often contemplating writing down my startup story which almost killed me (ambulances with sirens, multiple times) and then failed. I really think people should document the actual stories. Also kitchen nightmares/hotel hell for companies. It would be a hit, but without the woke American additions; just go full Ramsey UK style.

megax 3y ago
I’m intrigued. Would you mind sharing a TL;DR?
- anonzzzies 3y ago
  I had a company that went from nothing to marketleader and then back to nothing; the stress made me end up in hospital several times, the last time impacted my health enough to retire at 32. It was 10 years journey so I easily can write a book about it.
capableweb 3y ago
> Also kitchen nightmares/hotel hell for companies. It would be a hit, but without the woke American additions; just go full Ramsey UK style. That's a great idea, would love that. What founder with experience has a good enough style/personality for this to work? Jobs sounds like he would be perfect for this, he loved berating people. But who could do the job today? Most founders today are too vanilla for it be interesting, at least their public persona.
- mnky9800n 3y ago
  Just have Gordon Ramsay do it anyways.
  - Firmwarrior 3y ago
    Just imagine how pissed Gordon Ramsay would be watching people wasting piles of money that could have comfortably started up multiple restaurants "Yeah, so things started going south a little after we collected 2 mil in our series A.."

doubtfuluser 3y ago

On „General Magic“, recently read „Build“ by Tony Fadell. I can recommend that for people interested in building startups. Will also give a bit more background on General Magic

boraoztunc 3y ago
"The reason you should care about the story of General Magic is because it involves something fundamental, and that is, failure is not the end, failure is actually the beginning."

blantonl 3y ago

The "problem" is we really are in an technology revolution similar to the industrial revolution 200-300 years ago. For every 100 tech startup businesses that don't generate a penny of profit and are propped up by hyper valuations and stock prices, there are companies like Facebook and Google and Apple that absolutely print money in profits. That in turn covers the outlay by venture money. All those companies that burn money in fire pits are essentially subsidized by the staggering amount of money that some new companies only recently formed in the past 20 years are printing. Spray and pray and see what sticks for investors will work in this type of rapid revolutionary environment.

lotsofpulp 3y ago
All the companies that have stellar net incomes and profit margins are more than 20 years old, except Meta which is about to turn 20 in a couple years. The crop that came after that (Uber/Airbnb/Snap/etc) do not show the same, except maybe Bytedance, but their numbers are not public.
- dghlsakjg 3y ago
  That might be a side effect of destroying competition and vc exit strategy through acquisition. YouTube, instagram, Slack, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, etc. all second generation software that companies that were acquired by bigger companies as exits, or to squelch competition.
mnky9800n 3y ago
What technology has come out in the last decade that isn't an increment or miniaturization?
- prepend 3y ago
  The revolution we Ade still in is the transistor and it started 60 years ago and probably has 40 years left to go.
- blantonl 3y ago
  I would argue that the mobile communications device called the "iPhone" is one of the most significant technology innovations developed in the past 100 years. Love it, hate it, whatever, but it completely revolutionized what is practically access to "everything". You will be hard pressed to find an American consumer, from the richest guy to homeless people on the street that don't have a mobile communications device on their person with a touch screen and instant access to the collective works of the world. The iPhone by itself as a stand alone business would be larger than Microsoft, Coca-Cola, and McDonalds among other revolutionary businesses.

ipython 3y ago

It’s older from the first dot com bust, but I would highly recommend startup dot com as well.

alfiedotwtf 3y ago

For anyone who wants to see how crazy it can get, there's a documentary called Riot On! from 2004 that follows a company that "needed to grow" because of hot money - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0427783/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0427783/ Highly recommend.

deleted 3y ago
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beejiu 3y ago

Startup.com is also a good watch (although more dated) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fd8pdniJZk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fd8pdniJZk

wslh 3y ago

"The Aviator" [1] about Howard Hughes? Love to also talk about real startups movies without failure as a main theme. For example, "The Social Network" (includes Winklevoss and Eduardo Saverin "failures"). We have other non-fictional ones such as "The Founder" [2] about McDonalds. Classic: "Pirates of Silicon Valley". Ford v Ferrari (amazing if you have not seen it) [3]. And what about "Citizen Kane" [4]? The Fabelmans, Steven Spielberg's biography. Have not watched entirely the last ones about Steve Jobs, I don't think they captured the real character and complex personality. Bigger lists tagged startup in IMDB [5] and company [6]. Most of them are based on fiction. [1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0338751/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0338751/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Founder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Founder [3] https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_v_Ferrari https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_v_Ferrari [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_Kane https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_Kane [5] https://www.imdb.com/search/keyword/?keywords=startup https://www.imdb.com/search/keyword/?keywords=startup [6] https://www.imdb.com/search/keyword/?keywords=company https://www.imdb.com/search/keyword/?keywords=company

canadianfella 3y ago
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nicgrev103 3y ago
If we are talking just general business movies, some more are: 'The Big Short', 'Wolf of Wall Street'.
- wslh 3y ago
  Yes, and I also recommend the new Netflix series "Rough Diamonds" which mixes business and mafia. [1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15469192/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_8_tt_4_nm_4_q_diamond https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15469192/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_8_tt_...
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  Wolf of Wall Street is about business? I thought it was just about drugs and partying. Margin call would be a better example in my opinion.

lpolovets 3y ago

The Profit* is pretty interesting. It's like the shows where Gordon Ramsay goes into failing restaurants and tries to turn them around, except here the show's host tries to fix all kinds of local businesses. It's not about tech startups per se, but you still see a lot of common issues through the lens of local businesses: founder disputes, poor unit economics, bad marketing, etc. It's a little cheesy, but pretty good overall! * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Profit_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Profit_(TV_series)

mianm 3y ago
Sounds a bit like the UK series Troubleshooter from the 90s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubleshooter_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubleshooter_(TV_series)
Gelob 3y ago
I love the profit and Marcus!
greggsy 3y ago
How does it compare to Nathan For You?
- rgoldste 3y ago
  It’s serious and actually tries to fix the company.
rmason 3y ago
Although it is a bit overly dramatic (which might explain why it's a hit) I've always enjoyed the Bar Rescue series where Jon Taffer tries to fix broken bar businesses. The early episodes got more into the math of what works but Taffer screaming at owners was more popular so you see much less of that in later seasons. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar_Rescue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar_Rescue I know a guy that goes in and rescues bars in exchange for a percentage of the increase in value as they're later sold. He swears that the core of what Taffer does is exactly how he operates.
3y ago

nicgrev103 3y ago

'Billion dollar code' is another good one, not so much about a fall though.

AlbertCory 3y ago

> millions of people's health and lives were put in danger due to inaccurate blood test results A bit of hyperbole there. It was only used in some Walgreen's in Phoenix.

AndrewKemendo 3y ago

I think Halt and Catch fire remains the best show about startup life and the personal story arcs are bang on in my experience

petepete 3y ago
It sprang to mind as soon as I saw the title of the post. One of my favourite ever programmes. It was on Prime in the UK but vanished some time ago.
- ghaff 3y ago
  It seems to have disappeared into an AMC premium subscription.

penguin_booze 3y ago

The other day, I was watching the movie, Mr. Jones. It occurred to me then that Vanessa Kirby would be the best person (by appearance, at least) to play Elizabeth Holmes. But I see that ship has sailed.

cookie_monsta 3y ago

Jungle Town is a docuseries about a charismatic eco-evangelicist/property developer who charges interns $5000 to help build his sustainable village in the Panama jungle. The interesting thing about the doco is that the film maker seems to get converted midway. At the start the founder is portrayed as a obvious charlatan but by the end he is presented in a much more favorable light.

userabchn 3y ago

Not a TV series, but an interesting documentary about Makani, a failed wind energy startup funded by X: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qd_hEja6bzE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qd_hEja6bzE

atleastoptimal 3y ago

Nothing in American culture today is mythologized more than the startup. It represents the acme of all our ambitions, hopes, and trust in the future. In the United States, people don't expect the government to bring them a better world, they expect companies to do that, and the younger, hotter, and cooler those who create the company, the better.

nightski 3y ago
Maybe this is a regional thing, especially in SV driven by the VC hype. In general I find America very focused on small business rather than startups. Our economy is really built on small business and the more we forget that the worse things get.
prepend 3y ago
> Nothing in American culture today is mythologized more than the startup. I think sports teams and accomplishments still take this competition by a long shot. There are way more movies, books, time spent mythologizing teams and individuals doing sporting things.

deleted 3y ago

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antoniuschan99 3y ago

There’s also Valley of the Boom

zamnos 3y ago

For a show on Startups but failure of its CEO but not the company, Superpumped is a great watch. It documents the rise of Uber and the fall of Travis Kalanic. It's based off the book of the same name, although I can't vouch for either's veracity outside of what made headlines. https://g.co/kgs/vkMuCR https://g.co/kgs/vkMuCR

robocat 3y ago

There’s also a great doco about Enron - nearly two hours long. https://watchdocumentaries.com/enron-the-smartest-guys-in-the-room/ https://watchdocumentaries.com/enron-the-smartest-guys-in-th...