Silicon Valley
Richard Hendriks is a shy, reclusive programmer for Hooli living in a house in Palo Alto.
He lives there under an "incubation" program run by Erlich Bachman.
Bachman, despite the possessing the confidence that Hendriks lacks, seeks parties
and drug use rather than offering sound guidance for his startups after he sold his application "Aviato".
He resides along with other co-habitants including Nelson "Big Head" Bighetti,
Bertram Gilfoyle, and Dinesh Chugtai.
While working at Hooli, Hendriks shares a project of his called Pied Piper with the employees:
an app that compares music against copyrighted works to avoid infringement.
Initially the app was dismissed as a lark by his coworkers.
He tries pitching it to Peter Gregory, an eccentric venture capitalist who awkwardly dismisses him.
Hendriks ends up pitching the app to Monica instead.
Hooli CEO Gavin Belson is informed about the project by Donald "Jared" Dunn.
The app is found to be powered by an algorithm designed by Hendriks that has more value
than the program: it offers higher compression ratios than MP3 yet remains lossless.
If it was able to be successfully applied as a video codec,
it could potentially become a billion-dollar business.
Belson invites Hendriks to his office when a phone call
from Peter Gregory kicks off an inadvertent bidding war.
Belson is offering highball prices to own Pied Piper, offering $10 million at one point.
Gregory on the phone heard Belson's offers
and promises $200,000 for only 5% ownership of the company.
After leaving both Belson and Gregory unanswered,
Hendriks suffers a panic attack and leaves to head to a clinic.
He finds Monica outside who informs him that Belson is essentially buying the rights
to own the algorithm and dissolve Pied Piper after the sale.
Under Gregory, Hendriks could grow Pied Piper into the business he wants it to be
while remaining in control of its future.
Hendriks resolves to leave Hooli and accept Gregory's offer over Belson.
When asked to assemble a business plan before receiving his payment,
Hendriks is tasked with building his initial staff.
He hires Dunn as a business consultant along with the entire house
save for one employee.
Big Head, who knows nothing about the algorithm
and offers little to aid in Pied Piper's advancement is easily seen as dead weight by the entire staff.
After being let go by Hendriks, Big Head instead takes a three-year contract offer
from Hooli to help reverse-engineer Hendrik's algorithm.
He goes to work for them knowing that he had nothing to offer at all
and becomes an unassigned employee of the company.
He ends up spending his days drinking at work while earning $600,000 a year
to wait out the end of his contract and vest his stock options.
This is in stark contrast to Hendriks, who is struggling with the unexpected labor
needed to manage his startup payout, handling his new staff and their personal issues,
and staying in business long enough to release his company's product in five months
before Hooli can beat them to market.
Unfortunately, it is learned that Hendriks applied to present at TechCrunch Disrupt
before he received seed capital from Gregory.
Before he can cancel his application,
Hooli chooses that event to unveil their version of the algorithm,
which means that Pied Piper has to be ready to show
in less than eight weeks instead of five months.
Episode 02
Episode 03
Episode 04
Episode 05
Episode 07
Episode 08
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