"Silicon Valley" premiered on HBO last night. While already drawing comparisons to HBO's "Entourage," the show actually seems less like "Entourage" and more like the too short-lived "How to make it in America." The pilot opens with Kid Rock on a stage at a big corporate gala. The camera pulls out to show that not a single soul is paying attention. Finally, Kid realizes he looks like a tool, gives up and cuts his mic. A group of nerd friends wanders onto screen and it's revealed that the celebration is for a company that's just been sold to one of the big companies at the top of Silicon Valley's food chain. Richard (Thomas Middleditch) says, "These guys built a mediocre piece of software that might be worth something someday, and now they live here. Money's flying all over Silicon Valley, so how come none of it ever hits us?" The other guys in the group are Dinesh (Kumail Nanjiani), whose ex-roommate founded the sold startup, Big Head (Josh Brener), Erlich (T.J. Miller), and Gilfoyle (Martin Starr). Erlich comments hilariously, "You guys taking this all in? This is what it looks like when Google acquires your company for over $200M!...Kid Rock is the poorest person here, apart from you guys!"
By day, Richard works at software giant Hooli; by night, he lives and codes at "Hacker Hostel," a rental house turned "startup incubator" run by Erlich, who is constantly ripping into him about his startup idea, Pied Piper. While building Pied Piper, a music-sharing service, Richard accidentally writes a revolutionary data-compression algorithm. He gets offers from Hooli's founder Gavin Belson, who offers to buy him out for $10 million and Belson's rival, venture capitalist Peter Gregory, who offers less money but would let Richard keep the company. What will Richard do? It's the classic Silicon Valley dream dilemma.
By the end of the first episode, Richard decides not to sell to Belson but accept Gregory's offer so that he can keep his company. He enlists Erlich and the rest of his crew to run the company with him. After a pretty funny first episode, it looks like "Silicon Valley" could have a pretty promising first season.
