In the pilot of the hit show Silicon Valley, low-level programmer Richard Hendricks (portrayed by Thomas Middleditch) accidentally creates a file-compression algorithm that could revolutionize the digital landscape. Over the course of the first season, Hendricks is offered a $10 million buyout, fires his best friend, gets in a trademark dispute, competes directly with the world’s biggest tech company, wins a major business plan competition, and must recode his algorithm from scratch—twice.
The dramatic ups, downs, and loop-the-loops of Hendricks’ startup journey, embellished with a quirky cast of socially awkward characters, seem perfectly orchestrated for the HBO comedy—outlandish and laugh-out-loud hilarious. But this is a case where reality actually lives up to fiction: the show depicts the obstacles, dilemmas, and baffling questions faced by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs with remarkable accuracy.
Through the several startups my husband has founded, he and I have met some version of nearly every character on the show, from eccentric venture capitalists and smarmy consultants to bright-eyed MBAs and pagan engineers. His companies have flirted as much with wild success as with bankruptcy and collapse. We know intimately the highs of landing an investor or a big customer and the lows of product failures, personnel crises, and threatened lawsuits.
Throughout its three seasons, Silicon Valley’s producers have clearly researched the tech startup ecosystem in detail. The young, male-dominated cast closely resembles the ethnic and gender demographics of the Valley, where white men continue to control the money and the decision-making. Fictional investor Peter Gregory (in a brilliant turn by Christopher Evan Welch, who died of cancer during the filming of the first season) was inspired by actual billionaire Peter Thiel, known best for encouraging entrepreneurs to drop out of college. For the current season, the show collaborated closely with startup Simplivity to mirror their office setup, corporate culture, and product.
Even the show’s profane language and explicit sexual references, which some viewers may find objectionable, mimic well the colloquialisms of the startup world. (The popular podcast StartUp, which follows This American Life producer Alex Blumberg’s innocuous journey to launch a business, has an explicit content warning attached to every episode.)
Beyond these quirky plotlines and players, Silicon Valley portrays with near-perfection the deeper, personal side of startup life: the entrepreneurial journey continually challenges and tests one’s character.
Protagonist Richard Hendricks—reclusive, insecure, and prone to panic attacks—faces what seem like life-or-death, do-or-die decisions at every turn of his company’s development. At each juncture he wrestles with competing priorities and strategies: funding versus control; efficiency versus quality; humility versus self-confidence; proven versus experimental; short-term profitability versus long-term impact.
Hendricks cannot make a move without constantly appraising his vision, his commitment, and his motivation: is he making this choice for his own ego, the company’s success, or the well-being of others?
In David Brooks’ bestseller The Road to Character, he describes two sides of our nature, which Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik called Adam I and Adam II. Adam I, explains Brooks, “is the career-oriented, ambitious side of our nature…. Adam I wants to build, create, produce, and discover things.” Adam II, in contrast, embodies the moral qualities we would most want to be remembered by. Adam II “wants to love intimately, to sacrifice self in the service of others, to live in obedience to some transcendent truth, to have a cohesive inner soul that honors creation and one’s own possibilities.”
The great challenge for aspiring entrepreneurs, including Christian entrepreneurs, is that they must develop a robust version of both Adam I and Adam II to succeed. Unsurprisingly, entrepreneurs tend to be more optimistic than most and have a rosy perspective of their own chances of success. But, as one Stanford business school professor teaches, the entrepreneur motivated primarily by money or power cannot withstand the immense personal sacrifice required to start and grow a business. Entrepreneurs need the wisdom to walk the fine line between ambition and moral character, and discern when to rely on each. They need to be very much in the world but not defined by it.
The truism often mocked in Silicon Valley—that all entrepreneurs say they want to change the world—is rooted in a legitimate reality: Only individuals who are driven toward something greater than themselves can have the internal compass to survive this complex balancing act. Such individuals can believe passionately in their vision and aim for large-scale impact without losing their souls.
Many entrepreneurs aren’t able to nurture both Adam I and Adam II. In the startup world, everyone knows someone whose business “made it,” but his marriage crumbled, her ego got out of control, or he become crippled with anxiety and depression. We also know people whose ventures failed or were minimally fruitful; however, in their risk-taking, they became individuals of gratitude, humility, and resilience.
This journey of adversity, mettle, and unpredictability—however absurd it becomes at moments—is what continues to draw millions of viewers to Silicon Valley. Whether or not the startup survives is secondary. Far more compelling is the question, Who will Richard Hendricks become as a result of this wild ride? Is it possible for him to survive so much adversity and find some measure of success without completely compromising his character?
This dilemma resonates with the high proportion of unchurched individuals in Silicon Valley as much as followers of Jesus. We want to be people who are willing to brave rejection, disappointment, sacrifice, and failure in pursuit of a higher vision and purpose—and come out better for it. But we don’t know if we can be such individuals unless we take the risk to try.
Entrepreneurs, who intentionally pursue ventures that require leaps of faith and persistent soul-searching, are models of the courage and conviction that all Christians should hope to have. Only then, God willing, can we change the world.
Silicon Valley airs Sunday nights on HBO. CT’s review of the first season appears here.
Dorcas Cheng-Tozun also writes about how startup life affects families for Inc.com; her husband is the CEO and co-founder of a social enterprise called d.light.
