‘Silicon Valley’ Co-Creator Says That Real-Life Tech Moguls Are ‘Greedy, Ravenous, Terrible People’
If Steve Jobs could write a single line of code, perhaps Silicon Valley would never exist.
In 2014, Mike Judge, Dave Krinsky and John Altschuler unveiled their new HBO comedy that would become the defining sitcom of Big Tech. Silicon Valley, a send-up of start-ups, billionaires and the Bay Area, quickly became a massive hit as tech workers and the technologically challenged alike flocked to the barely exaggerated adventures of a fledgeling company competing against the eccentric, egotistical and out-of-touch titans of the industry. The CEOs of Silicon Valley, especially the main series antagonist Gavin Belson, are obsessed with the idea that their success in business is for the good of all humanity — but, as Altschuler recently pointed out, real billionaire moguls are barely even human at this point.
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While speaking at the Iberseries & Platino Industria conference in Madrid earlier this week, Altschuler reflected on the origins of Silicon Valley and revealed his own feelings on the real-life multi-billionaires whom he skewered in the series. Altschuler said that tech’s biggest names are all ”greedy, ravenous, terrible people,” who, hilariously, couldn’t code their way out of a Chinese sweatshop.
During the conference, Altschuler revealed that the idea for a show satirizing the tech industry and its leaders came to him when he read the Walter Isaacson-written biography Steve Jobs, which also inspired the 2015 film by the same name. “It’s a good book,” said Altschuler. “I came to a passage about Bill Gates ridiculing Steve Jobs, saying: ‘The guy can’t even write code.’ And I’m like, well, this is hilarious.” Altschuler then resolved to make a satire about the uber-rich tech leaders who brand themselves as geniuses despite being anything but.
In order to learn more about the rapidly growing industry that he intended to skewer along with his long-time creative partner Judge, Altschuler secured meetings with three different Silicon Valley tech companies. According to Altschuler, all three CEOs gave him a grandiose mission statement along the lines of, “We’re not interested in making money, we’re interested in making the world a better place.”
As such, the delusional, pompous and ruthless business leaders of Silicon Valley also fashion themselves as the vanguard of humanity itself, and they rationalize their selfish drive to crush the competition and accumulate larger and larger fortunes as a noble calling that will enrich the world along with them. Complete with the sycophantic spiritual advisors and petty personal rivalries, Gavin Belson is every bit as narcissistic, pretentious and sanctimonious as the real Jobs.
Although it might be unfair to say that Belson is Jobs’ equal. After all, Belson could actually code.
