Kumail Nanjiani, the 47-year-old star of HBO’s acclaimed comedy Silicon Valley, which ran from 2014 to 2019, not too long ago revealed he has met many individuals from the real-world Silicon Valley, and never everybody was a fan of the present’s depiction of startup tradition. Chief amongst these individuals, he stated, was Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and world’s richest man.
Talking on Mike Birbiglia’s podcast, Nanjiani was requested if he ever met the tech billionaires his present would lampoon, and Nanjiani stated sure, he had met Musk and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, amongst others. However when Birbiglia requested if Musk favored the present or gave any suggestions, Nanjiani replied, “He didn’t just like the present.
“He was like, all of the events I’m going to are a lot cooler than these events. I used to be like, yeah man, you’re one of many richest individuals on the planet. We’re, like, losers on the present,” he stated. “After all your events are higher than my events.”
Created by Mike Choose of Beavis and Butt-Head and King of the Hill fame, HBO’s Silicon Valley ran for 53 episodes spanning six seasons. The collection adopted Richard Hendricks, an excellent however awkward programmer who builds a startup along with his pals known as Pied Piper. Whereas its accuracy was usually debated, the present satirized Large Tech and company tradition, and critics recommended its sharp, pointed writing that made enjoyable of “brogrammer tradition” and eccentric billionaires. Silicon Valley obtained 5 consecutive Emmy nominations for Excellent Comedy Sequence.
To Musk’s level, events in the true Silicon Valley are in all probability “cooler” than those on the HBO present, however, like Large Tech itself, many have reported on their tendency to push boundaries. Emily Chang’s 2018 ebook, Brotopia, described secretive gatherings that includes drug use and open sexual conduct amongst tech elites. Chang stated these occasions, attended by enterprise capitalists and founders, usually concerned medication like MDMA and “cuddle puddles” that inspired intimacy, with ladies reporting stigma and exclusion relying on whether or not they participated or abstained.
Chang’s ebook claimed Musk attended no less than one such occasion in 2017, held at investor Steve Jurvetson’s home, however Musk has since vigorously disputed the characterization of the occasion as a “intercourse occasion.” Musk stated he believed the gathering was a fancy dress occasion, noticed no indicators of inappropriate conduct, and left early. He supplied the next assertion to Wired in 2018: “Nerds on a sofa usually are not a ‘cuddle puddle.’ I used to be hounded all evening by DFJ-funded entrepreneurs, so went to sleep round 1am. Nothing remotely value writing about occurred,” he stated. (DFJ refers to enterprise capital agency Draper Fisher Jurvetson.)
You may stream all six seasons of Silicon Valley on HBO Max.
For this story, Fortune used generative AI to assist with an preliminary draft. An editor verified the accuracy of the knowledge earlier than publishing.
