Silicon Valley

Network: HBO
Episodes: 53 (half-hour)
Seasons: Six

TV show dates: April 6, 2014 — December 8, 2019
Series status: Ended

Performers include: Thomas Middleditch, TJ Miller, Josh Brener, Martin Starr, Kumail Nanjiani, Matt Ross, Zach Woods, Christopher Evan Welch, and Amanda Crew.

TV show description:      
Created by Dave Krinsky, John Altschuler, and Mike Judge, this irreverent comedy series revolves around a group of programmers who live together and seek success in Silicon Valley.

Richard Hendricks (Thomas Middleditch) invented and built the Pied Piper start-up — a program designed to find music matches. Pied Piper’s compression algorithm sparks a bidding war in Silicon Valley, giving Richard a certain level of power. Unfortunately, Richard doesn’t deal with stress very well and it becomes clear very quickly that decision-making isn’t one of his talents.

Erlich Bachmann (TJ Miller) administers the Hacker Hostel, a “tech incubator” where Richard, Big Head, Dinesh, and Gilfoyle live and work — in exchange for 10% of their potential businesses. Erlich clings to his glory days, when he sold aviation start-up Aviato. He believes that this move qualifies him to be a svengali, lording over other tech nerds. He still drives a car emblazoned with multiple Aviato logos and smokes lots of weed.

Richard’s best friend is Nelson “Big Head” Bighetti (Josh Brener). Admittedly, he isn’t great at any one aspect of building sites or coding, but Big Head is considered more of a “jack of all trades.” His latest work is developing NipAlert, a GPS-driven application designed to give you the location of women with erect nipples.

Bertram Gilfoyle (Martin Starr) is a LaVeyan Satanist programmer. Pompous, he claims to be good at system architecture, networking, and security. Gilfoyle also often finds himself sparring with housemate Dinesh. Dinesh Chugtai (Kumail Nanjiani) possesses a dry wit and skills at writing code.

Gavin Belson (Matt Ross) is the Chief Innovation Officer of Hooli, a huge tech company in Silicon Valley that seemingly has its hands in everything. He has a long-standing rivalry with Peter Gregory, which only fuels his desire to acquire Richard’s algorithm. He believes that bigger is better — and money is no object.

Donald “Jared” Dunn (Zach Woods) is a Hooli executive and Gavin’s right-hand man but he has a particular interest in Richard’s algorithm.

Meanwhile, Peter Gregory (Christopher Evan Welch) is one Silicon Valley’s biggest investors and the main rival of Gavin Belson. He’s known for advocating that adolescents skip college — in fact, he offers to give students $100,000 to drop out of school and pursue their dreams instead. When Peter learns of Richard’s algorithm, he aggressively goes after it — albeit via different tactics than Gavin.

Monica (Amanda Crew) is Peter’s beautiful and doting assistant. She handles the day-to-day duties of his tech investment business, often fielding pitches and working directly with tech folks who Peter has given money. She takes a particular interest in Richard and his algorithm from the start, encouraging her boss to invest.

What do you think? Do you like the Silicon Valley TV series? Do you think it should have ended or been renewed for a seventh season?