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Comment by prerok | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, same. I also felt like this when watching Office Space and Sillicon Valley. Hits too close to home.

I know that through comedy you are supposed to get a sense of catharsis and a sort of relief, but to me it was just frustratingly sad.

I guess I just take life too seriously.

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Mike Judge definitely has an ability to hit the comedy nail on the reality head. That’s for sure.

I mean, Office Space and Silicon Valley are legit funny. I doubt how I can be "frustratingly sad" after watching either of the two because in Office Space, (spoilers ahead) but the ending is actually quite happy and more about realizing life's about what you want and it might not be a desk job and Silicon Valley is hilarious in terms of how it parodies the 2010s tech culture but its more about "look what tech has become" rather than "oh my god everything sucks, all idiots everywhere, we're doomed" type energy.

Also a lot of Silicon Valley stuff is kindda bs esp the arc where one single dude figures out such a massive leap in tech so quickly and then solves P=NP using freaking AI and then doesn't sell out to Hooli. You gotta suspend a lot of disblief for that but people don't talk about how unrealistic the main plot is

Also the episode where Jared has to explain scrum to vet developers like Dinesh and Gilfoyle. Like you seriously think they didn't know what scum was before meeting Jared?

Yes, Silicon Valley has some bits that don't quite match real life. But every now and then there's some true insight in it.

Like the bit where the crazy VC tells them that the last thing they need is revenue.

https://youtu.be/BzAdXyPYKQo?si=fU3Y3-ucHqgoBDLU

At least you have AI to fill out those TPS reports.

Can't help with the printer though...

I know one guy who can't watch Silicon Valley because it triggers him. He had a tech startup himself in the valley back in the day.

I couldn't watch Silicon Valley when I was working in tech. It constantly triggered rage as it was way too close to my actual experience. After I left tech, I found it to be amazing.

I was never in a startup and I found the show incredibly stressful to watch.

i wouldnt say it triggers me but its not fun to watch after a long day of stupid IT bs

same with mr robot. like i'm going crazy because of cybersec issues, i dont want to spend my free time watching a guy go crazy because of cybersec issues

Krazam is starting to have this effect on me.

Kai Lentit on YouTube has been doing these mock interviews and some of them hit too close to home for me.

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/@programmersarealsohuman5909

Oh my. I just watched "Interview with 90s Computer Nerd" and am laughing so hard at the deadpan line "soundblaster 16 IRQ conflicts are a way of life"

Silicon Valley probably wouldn’t work as well today since they would vibe code everything and a lot of the drama would be removed that way.

I actually think it's ripe for an extra season because the stuff that happened in last few years is comedy goldmine.

That'd leave even more room for drama. I'm imagining Gavin hiring thousands of cheap, unskilled laborers ("Hooli's industry-leading AI research team") to mash keys until they rediscover the prompt that generated middle-out compression with a patent-free clean room process. He never reproduces it because Gilfoyle's self-hosted LLM improved its own memory efficiency when when Dinesh got upset and started unplugging GPUs.

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