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"Office Space" creator Mike Judge shooting new HBO parody of Silicon Valley
- minimaxir 14y ago> "Silicon Valley is set in the high tech gold rush of modern Silicon Valley, where the people most qualified to succeed are the least capable of handling success." This could work.
- pbiggar 14y agoHowever, it seems pretty unfair. I've met maybe 30 people who have gotten rich from startups. None have really changed all that much. There's plenty to parody (pivoting, easy money, demographics, ivy league obsession, VCs, new angel investors, the term "disrupt") but how people handle success is really not one of them.
- maayank 14y agoHaving a very high paying job after right after college is also a success that can be handled in interesting (not to say wrong) ways. Earning very well (just regular IT software engineering salary) when you're in your very early 20s is a thing.
- pbiggar 14y agoThat's a good point - I've certainly met plenty of people on 100K who think they are god's gift because they know Rails and are in high demand.
- chiph 14y agoPivoting could easily become the show's running gag. Just before closing credits: "Well, that space looks like it's going nowhere. We've decided to pivot and focus on coupons for pet owners, and it'll have a really big social aspect to it too." Next week: "Well, it turns out that cat owners don't get out much, so we're pivoting. We think that what they really want is to stream music over their pet's collar" Third episode: "Well, who knew that Cocker Spaniels are frightened by Ke$ha? So we're pivoting, and what we're going to focus on now is overnight construction materials delivery. Concrete mix, FedEx'd to your door!"
- wyclif 14y agoThat, and hoodies.
- redthrowaway 14y agoSince when did comedy have to be fair? It's the Rule of Funny: if it makes people laugh, it's worthwhile for that fact alone.
- Alex3917 14y agoComedians don't have to be fair, but humorists do.
- NeilRShah 14y agoCould you clarify that?
- pbiggar 14y agoI'm guessing that he means that parody only works when what you're parodying is real.
- redthrowaway 14y agoThat's more satire. Parody can take the ball and run with it as far as it chooses; satire can only be relevant if its characterization has a degree of verisimilitude.
- pbiggar 14y agoFair. In addition, the target audience of the show are unlikely to know very much about the valley. I would expect most people believe the valley is "kids from Harvard who think they're hot shit, trying to get rich doing something useless".
- redthrowaway 14y agoActually, I'd say that's more an in-valley appraisal. I suspect non-tech types would simply view SV as computer nerds finding ways to make millions. Now that Jobs is gone, the industry is dominated by nerd CEOs. Ballmer doesn't count. We have, in the Valley, a preponderance of companies started and run by nerds. I suspect that reality has leaked into the public consciousness.
- RyJones 14y agoWe clearly know different people. I worked with plenty of people that won the Microsoft lottery, and to say they changed would be understating it.
- pbiggar 14y agoThat's a different culture though - conspicuous consumption is pretty frowned upon in the valley (excepting Sand Hill Road, which is a culture all of its own). For example, at the Facebook IPO, everyone was warned about coming to work in new sports cars.
- RyJones 14y agoI agree that the valley isn't Seattle; good on Facebook for the warning. I used to park my multi-hundred dollar car out by the sports cars at what is now Facebook's campus; drag races out the main exit, over the railroad tracks, and on through EPA were not unheard of. Here's my view of the Valley from 1997: http://blog.ryjones.org/2006/10/21/welcome-to-the-bay-area/ http://blog.ryjones.org/2006/10/21/welcome-to-the-bay-area/
- jff 14y agoConspicuous non-consumption: writing blog posts about how you live so minimally, throwing everything out and buying new things when you move. Just a Macbook ($2000) and an Apple display ($1000) and an Aeron chair ($800) and the "perfect" desk ($1000, sit-stand), plus a mattress tossed in the corner... in your $2000/month downtown S.F. apartment.
- w1ntermute 14y agoThey should get Ashton Kutcher involved in this, he's one of the few actors who has actual real-life involvement in Silicon Valley (he's already doing the SJ biopic).
- kingtoe 14y agoAs an actor: ha ha. As one who's worked with hackers... ha ha ha. Yes, you shall indeed be the butt of this show.
- bryne 14y agoI think it's more important for this project that they choose talented, entertaining comedic actors and leave the real-life involvement to the writing staff.
- freshhawk 14y agoThis comment is part of your tryout for a writing position on the show I assume? Well done. This is exactly the kind of idea that the show is probably going to be ruthlessly mocking.
- eropple 14y agoThere are a lot of things to mock about it (and boy do I), but Kutcher is a pretty bright guy.
- freshhawk 14y agoReally? Everything he has ever said or done in public has lead me to the opposite conclusion. His financial advisers and PR people seem exceptionally talented, he has, so far, hidden any ounce of talent from the public.
- cochese 14y agoAthough Mike Judge's projects haven't always been a commercial success, everything he's been involved in has been damn entertaining. I'm really excited to see how this turns out.
- jakerocheleau 14y agoHe also made Beavis and Butt-head, which is just as classic compared to Office Space IMO.
- danso 14y agoAnd Idiocracy, which was vastly underrated even though marred by what seems to be studio-meddling (the annoying narrator, for instance). Idicoracy is especially amusing because as the years go on, it only seems more prescient. I'd also point out that King of the Hill was a great show, if a little too dry for most tastes.
- stcredzero 14y agoIdicoracy is especially amusing because as the years go on, it only seems more prescient. A part of that is just your curmudgeon factor increasing as you get older. [quickly steps off lawn]
- untog 14y agoAm I the only one (I realise that is a trope in itself) that didn't enjoy Idiocracy? I kept hearing how great it was, but it felt like it bashed you over the head repeatedly with the points it was making. I felt like I was watching an Idiocracy-era satire. "LOOK, PEOPLE ARE STUPID, SAY AND DO STUPID THINGS"
- ryanmolden 14y agoI don't think it was seriously trying to make a point, it was just a comedy, and it had what plants crave!
- untog 14y agoPerhaps that is the problem. Everyone talked about it as if it was a super-clever take on modern consumerist society. I suppose my expectations were probably wrong.
- mrslx 14y agoI expect it would be more realistic than Randy Zuckerberg's show.
- pdufour 14y agoI hope this gets past a pilot episode.
- ibejoeb 14y agoWho makes pilots anymore? What they really need is a Minimum Viable Production.
- angstrom 14y agoWith a 30 second elevator pitch.
- indiecore 14y agoand a node.js backend! Man they don't even need writers, just read HN all day.
- jQueryIsAwesome 14y agoThe script is just an adaptation of this twitter account: https://twitter.com/shit_hn_says https://twitter.com/shit_hn_says
- pdufour 14y agoWith Eric Reis' fame, I actually fear this may become standard practice at one point.
- nikcub 14y agoHBO have the lowest non-carry-on rate out of the major networks. Meaning that a HBO pilot is much more likely to make it to a full series than a non-HBO pilot. They also rarely use the pilot process. A lot of the big series are just approved and produced as full seasons.
- flxmglrb 14y agoHe has to track down the person who originally came up with the status code "PC LOAD LETTER" and give them a cameo. He has to.
- Apocryphon 14y agoHe made the Goode Family, which was short-lived but from most accounts, terrible. Hopefully he'd be able to grasp SV culture as much as he did in Office Space, and not miss it by going after typical caricatures of San Francisco.
- j45 14y agoWow. That's great. There is a Santa. :) Can't wait.
- fruchtose 14y agoThis reminded me of the Vooza webseries [1]. Some of their skits are corny, but I think they show that there is potential for a good startup oriented series. [1] http://vooza.com/ http://vooza.com/
- wamatt 14y agoFor sure, their Radimparency spoof is pure comedy gold, and rather scarily close to portraying a large portion of the startup scene here. http://watch.vooza.com/post/27284828649/radimparency http://watch.vooza.com/post/27284828649/radimparency
- anmol 14y agooh my. this has the potential to be soo great.
- Jitle 14y agoI would be beyond content if this was nothing more than 30 minutes of the Start-up Guys [1] with Mike Judge creating buzzword fusion words for company names. [1] http://www.collegehumor.com/video/6507690/hardly-working-start-up-guys http://www.collegehumor.com/video/6507690/hardly-working-sta...
- ytfytfuyft 14y agohey guys
- tomhallett 14y agoMike Judge and the other writers stopped by our offices at Tout.com (startup in SF) and were asking us about startups and being a developer. We told them about meetups and open source stuff. Probably won't affect the show, but it was fun talking to them and seeing they were really into it. Here's him asking about ruby: http://www.tout.com/m/t0x6dh http://www.tout.com/m/t0x6dh judge drawing on one of our desks: http://www.tout.com/m/q8ppc1 http://www.tout.com/m/q8ppc1 here's the full stream: http://www.tout.com/hashtags/MikeJudgeToutHQ http://www.tout.com/hashtags/MikeJudgeToutHQ
- Metapony 14y agoThat's awesome. He's one of the few celebrities in the entire world I'd love to meet and have a beer with.
- jblock 14y agoThis sounds amazing and 80% of the comments in this thread just sound bitter.
- rpm4321 14y agoIf you haven't seen it, I highly recommend Judge's 2009 movie 'Extract' with Jason Bateman of Arrested Development. It sort of inverts the Office Space formula and shows the sometimes taxing, even soul-crushing nature of entrepreneurship. It seems to follow the pattern of Office Space and Idiocracy in being panned by critics and ignored by audiences at first, and then quickly developing a cult following and being recognized as pretty brilliant.
- TechNewb 14y agoI consider Idiocracy to be the greatest satirical film post WWII.
- lobster_johnson 14y agoGreater than Dr. Strangelove?
- ojbyrne 14y agoI had the same thought, and my personal opinion is "not even close." Idiocracy was good, but very much "one note." I can think of other better films - MAS*H comes to mind, not to mention Catch-22 (though somewhat uneven, still better). Even Mel Brook's movies - Young Frankenstein, and The Producers, especially. Nothing in Idiocracy matches "Springtime for Hitler."
- rsheridan6 14y agoMaybe not, but Dr Strangelove is extremely dated, and the people and issues it satirized are mostly dead now.
- mechanical_fish 14y agoThe question was "Is Idiocracy the greatest satirical film since World War Two?" not "Is Idiocracy the greatest satirical film since the end of the Cold War?" Now, it's true that many aspects of the Cold War feel like really old news. Thank god. (Though at this point, as (arguably!) a former colleague of Hans Bethe [1], I'm professionally obligated to deliver this public-service announcement: Nuclear arsenals are way out of fashion these days, and are never talked about outside of defense procurement committee meetings, but that doesn't mean they're gone. Nuclear weapons still exist and could blow you up today.) However, even apart from the nuclear angle, Dr. Strangelove continues to be a movie about a big war that is secretly planned in advance by cabinet-level executives working with the military-industrial complex. Then the war gets kicked off by a very small cabal which engineers a highly visible attack on a handful of targets by a few rogue aircraft. Can anyone else see how this story might have remained relevant in the twenty-first century? --- [1] I was a grad student in his department. It's a bit tenuous, really. But, for better and for worse, I consider myself inducted into the guild of people that build doom devices and later come to regret them. Sigh.
- firefoxman1 14y agoThis reminds me of the "Office" episode where "Wuphf" is a Silicon Valley startup spoof. In Ryan's "profit" projections[1] he's asked about his plan for revenue, and he replies: "First rule of Silicon Valley, you think about the user, the experience. You don't think about the money, ever." [1] http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wmzwXd31Rw8/UI6hLHjRvnI/AAAAAAAACKY/ko9368dGnx0/s1600/wuphf-profit-projections-edit.jpg http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wmzwXd31Rw8/UI6hLHjRvnI/AAAAAAAACK...
- joonix 14y agoIt's all over now. SV can only become a parody of itself.
- kintamanimatt 14y agoAny idea when this might air?
- iambrakes 14y agoI'm confused, isn't Bravo already airing a parody of Silicon Valley?
- xfernandox 14y ago"fuckin' a"