A Review of the TV Show Start-Ups: Silicon Valley | Hacker News Reader

A Review of the TV Show Start-Ups: Silicon Valley

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46 pointsacangiano46 comments

This show is pure mind-rot television. It's as accurate in portraying startups as The Real Housewives portrays real families, or The Hills portrays real friendships. If you have never worked in a startup before and you're looking to see what its like, you are being misled. And if you have worked at a startup before, this show comes off as entertaining at best. Personally, I really like SharkTank. While I've never had experience pitching an idea, the investors always give sound feedback and I enjoy the backstory and follow-ups that they do with the companies.

Great example using Shark Tank, which is also dramatized for TV. They take the most entertaining pitches, most people don't get a deal, because the show isn't about making deals, it's about selling entertainment. And the 'investors' are their for their image, not their deal flow.

I find it to be an ok reality tv show that is disconnected from reality enough to be entertaining, but with hints of real life poking through.

How many of us have known someone who had an idea for a startup, but can't do an elevator pitch? Or known a self-promoter with a bunch of shallow relationships, but styles themselves as a serious networker? Or someone who when they make a little money, blows it on fancy toys and cars? Or someone who thinks pitching is just a formality to getting money?

These are real archetypes. They exist. I've met plenty of them. Sometimes, against all odds, they are even successful.

Another archetype is the guy who tries so hard to be a "brogrammer". Sadly those guys exist too.

Oh and the girl who says that engineers are secondary to the success of a startup and that people with ideas are the key element. There are a lot of those people around here.

Really? Do we really have "entrepreneurs" in bay area who say "engineers are secondary"? I guess thats why investors complain there is more noise rather than signal in the bay area nowadays. I wonder is it because movies like Social Network. I also fear shows like this might excite wrong audiences.

Are you being sarcastic? Of course, you have people who have never worked with anyone before, come along with an idea, and think they are the most important people.

I agree with everything this article says, but the segment showing the Dave McClure pitch was the most "real" and fun part of the first episode. It was intense, exciting, and quiet realistic, if not a bit predictable (when Ben proudly states that he has 42 other businesses). In my opinion, the 5 minute segment filmed at Dave McClure's desk made up for sitting through an hour of b.s party scenes.

If you can find it, I recommend Startup .com (documentary about govWorks .com) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0256408/ It follows a dot-com bubble company's founders, but still relevant, interesting and very real.

I watched it a few years ago and it was a good documentary for sure.

Another show I remember liking a few years ago was Startup Junkies, it's available at hulu http://www.hulu.com/start-up-junkies

The thing isn't that this show is necessarily inaccurate, but that it betrays the spirit of what startup culture is supposed to be. A large reason why I, and I suspect many other people, got into this is that it was seen as a true meritocracy. It's supposed to be about people building something other people love. Nothing else is supposed to matter. It's not about your dad's friend being the boss, or that you were both alums at the same Ivy league school, or brothers in the same fraternity. It's supposed to be about your ability to create real value.

This show makes it seem like what we're doing is the bad parts of Hollywood mixed with the movie the social network. Again, it's not that it's necessarily inaccurate to some, but, at least for me, it's not what it's about. I just wish that a show like this could have promoted startup culture as a kind of culture that promotes tearing down barriers and your merit being based on how hard you work and what you accomplish.

"betrays the spirit of what startup culture is supposed to be" is probably implied by "reality show"

As unfortunate as it is, this is Bravo TV. These people do exist (granted, as a minority), and they are relatively accurately represented IMO. The show seems to be going for the Sean Parker as represented in the movie The Social Network. They're trying to go for the most dramatic and outrageous scenes possible, and they do happen occasionally. Yes, it is missing out on a whole other side of it all and I hope that they at least show the audience a few scenes of the actual culture (if even in a condescending matter).

I have to say that it was mostly the girls in the show that annoyed me. The guys were pretty believable in my opinion, and also legitimate. One of them was the founder of Carsabi (YC company).

I'm a startup founder and I've been to a costume party or two in my time. I'm not just at home coding all day. And yes, I've drank alcohol before and had fun, drunken, crazy nights.

For some reason I feel like the people who are bitter about this show are bitter because they work 24/7 and are completely stressed out. They don't like the idea that some people are making startups and having fun as well.

In the end, though, people need to stop taking this thing so seriously. They obviously took 6 people with the most extreme personalities out of Silicon Valley to do a TV show to ENTERTAIN. People understand that. People know that not everybody in Jersey acts like the guys in Jersey Shore.

I will say that the Sarah girl annoyed the hell out of me. When she said that one of her tweets was worth $10,000 I just laughed. She barely even has any followers.

It is about the balance though. Sure everyone goes to parties, I wouldn't devote most of an episode to it unless it was relevant to what they were doing.

Clearly though it isn't directed at the majority of people working in startups, who would be way more interested in what the characters were building and how they were doing it.

It's almost always unfair to dismiss criticism of a thing as being solely due to jealousy.

What I would really like is a show following a Y Combinator batch, from start to finish and beyond.

though I too would find it super interesting to watch, it would be a tremendous distraction to actually building a business.

Bloomberg did something like this with TechStars: http://www.bloomberg.com/tv/shows/techstars/

Well, this looks a lot better than the other show. Thanks for sharing!

From the couple of eps I watched it still is a little reality tv style. But compared to this show it is great.

There was an interesting post from one of the founders after the series began: http://melanie.io/2011/09/30/techstars-lies-videotape/

You might like "Aardvark'd" then, if you haven't seen it already: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2005/11/07.html

"If you're not aiming for something a billion dollars or larger, why waste your time?" This sounds a lot like a show about sell-outs and brogrammers.

Isn't this generally what investors look for in a market? Something large enough that even a small share can earn a handsome return? I wouldn't judge Dwight on that statement alone; Ms. Zuckerberg just needed something juicy for her audience. My guess is there's much more to him than that.

I've actually enjoyed the first two episodes (half watching while programming); they're are quite entertaining! I think it's a bit unfair to judge the overarching merits of the personalities depicted just yet because we haven't gotten to know most of them. We know Sarah Austin, the life blogger, and the Way duo. The first 2 episodes haven't focused much on Kim Taylor, who has, in fact, worked in the industry over the past few years. Nor do we know much about Dwight's ambitions (yea, we've seen him party and make some general statements about his goals, but we don't know much about the process he went through with regards to Carsabi), though he and his co-founder are apparently Berkeley grads.

If at some point we get to more more about the lives of these two over the last 6 months, I think the overall tone of the show will have shifted.

So where can people not in the US find the show? (can't get it in itunes, doesn't air on TV here).

It's a little far fetched to be surprised that the tech industry would be poorly portrayed. If you've ever seen a police, medical, spy, or law drama on TV you know what to expect. Good, brainless fun.

Try http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=ELdlNqFzO2slw&featu...

Nope. Not outside the US at least.

I'm in different because it's "reality" Television; with "television" being the operative word. We can talk about how it misrepresents the real Silicon Valley (Note: Which I know nothing about) but let's not forget, that it's a business and not a non profit. So the objective of the creators has been achieved: 1)Tell an entertaining story, 2)Get people to promote it by talking/blog about it about because they love or hate it, and 3) know that the promotion will bring eyeballs/ratings which leads to underpants and profits! At least for one season, it's mission accomplished for Randi.

But anyone familiar with Bravo programming knows that it's just par for the course. After all, it's on the same channel as all the Real Housewives shows. Bravo reality shows depict glamorous and dramatic lives that most people won't experience, whether it be first or second-hand. They're realistic, but in a weed through ten thousand people until you find 5 who fit the mold you want to fill kind of way. They're not all like American Pickers or other shows in that sub-genre which depict normal, everyday people that you encounter every day.

I think what it comes down to is that the show was crafted for Bravo's target audience which is not anyone that reads Hacker News. The general silliness of it is a by product of inputting the start-up Silicon Valley theme into there show generator it outputs a flaky drama. The flaky drama core of the show is what makes it a Bravo show. All there other shows have that same core. I changed the channel after 5 minutes.

What would a better start-up show look like?

Well, this is a very serious review, which is what you'd expect from an SV industry insider. If you'd rather read a funnier one, take a look at "I’m Not Here To Make Friendster" - http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/television/2012/11/tech_b...

And another funny one: http://betabeat.com/2012/10/silicon-valley-reality-tv-show-s...

I thought the show was terrible. It was 99% drama and 1% actual content.

Sharktank and Dragon's den are much better.

Yes, some of these people exist in silicon valley. But the fact that the entire cast is white, not one asian or indian, there are only a couple engineers, and they live extravagantly, they did not pick a good cross-section of what the valley is really like.

I know shameless networkers, I know wantrepreneurs, I know brogrammers (kind of am one to be honest). But seriously? the entire valley isn't like that, and this only reinforces those negative stereotypes.

You can find plenty of drama with real life experiences. We got a frivolous cease and desist letter that stressed me out for an entire day when I thought we might have to change our name, I slept on my roommates floor so I could make a few hundred dollars off my room on AirBnB during the Outside Lands weekend. My friends and family loaned me money, paid for meals, let me airbnb out their apartments for profit while they were away and gave me almost all the proceeds. Follow enough entrepreneurs and you won't need to manufacture drama and you don't need to show me searching for a semicolon in my code.

In conclusion, a wasted opportunity.

QED

There aim is to entertain, not represent an accurate idea of the life of startups. More popcorn, less historical.

Because they want more people to watch it.

I like how there's almost no footage in the second episode for the car guys. Just a two second shot of code being written before the producers gave up.

Where can I watch this show online?

The first episode is available for free on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/tv-season/start-ups-silicon-vall...

It's a travesty, and puts female entrepreneurs in a poor light, pitting them against each other and making them look petty.

Thought it was going to be about Startups doing TV Shows. In reality it is about TV shows about Startups. Be warned.

They most prominent ones are depicted as social butterflies trying to use their connections to succeed. Who you know does matter, but it’s definitely not the focus in the disruptive environment of startups.

Maybe its just me, but I felt this show accurately depicts a large segment of SV startups, i.e., startups funded on the basis of founder connections rather than the merit of the underlying idea or execution (i.e., Color). It also accurately depicts the outright silliness of so many startup ideas (see...whatever the idea is behind the siblings' startup, plus the ones described in the second episode at the blonde's conference.)

Overall this show is an utter travesty and a complete misrepresentation of what the startup world is really like. It is to the startup world what porn is to real sex. It’s Hollywood’s misunderstanding of what the nerdy neighbors in Silicon Valley are doing.

The show is very representative of the experience of these particular individuals. They are all working in the startup world. Just because their experiences aren't his experiences doesn't make them any less real. Indeed, I've seen all of those "contrived" disagreements and drama take place in startups that weren't on TV. I've met people just like the siblings, just like that one girl who actually does some work, just like the gay programmer guy, and just like that Carsabi guy.

The sacrifices, risks, low profile, and 70+ hours workweeks of most actual startup founders are mocked and trivialized by a show that portrays a carefree world where you can easily make it if you’re connected enough and can pull the right strings. Where partying and looks come first, and where they are virtually never shown, you know, actually doing any hard work.

This pretty accurately describes my experiences with both SV and Silicon Beach (in Santa Monica).

The goal of this show is not to be educational. It is to be entertainment. It's not going to focus on, or even show the boring stuff.

>> This pretty accurately describes my experiences with both SV and Silicon Beach (in Santa Monica).

I work at a prominent co-working space for startups in bay area. And I always see majority founders/early employees working frantically. Most of the time, they (both guys and gals) also don't care about their appearance.

>> The goal of this show is not to be educational. It is to be entertainment. It's not going to focus on, or even show the boring stuff.

I haven't seen any episodes yet. But based on trailer, I believe it shows things that don't happen (generally) in startupland (especially very early stage ones where there are no employees). There is lot of "drama" in startups-- customer canceling your deal at the last moment, founders getting cease and desist letters, startup running out of cash, fundraising hustle etc. I hope the show covers this real drama rather than parties, fun etc.

I agree, while it's not an accurate representation of the majority of startups, it is a pretty accurate representation of some of the wanteprenuers that are "business people" with some money that no nothing about programming and want to get into Startup Life (tm)

Fake, and gay. Go to the Hacker Dojo to see the real shit.

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