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Silicon Valley FULL SERIES Recap (6 Seasons) in 107 Minutes — Transcript

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0:00When we think of great tech geniuses,
0:02the image that comes to mind is almost
0:04always the same. Famous guys changing
0:06the world from a garage and magically
0:08turning into billionaires. Seems like
0:10the perfect dream, right? But the
0:11reality of building a company from
0:13scratch is a far cry from that fairy
0:15tale. In truth, it's a mix of panic
0:17attacks, crazy investors, and a whole
0:20lot of social awkwardness. No show has
0:22captured this absurd chaos quite as well
0:24as Silicon Valley. Here we follow
0:26Richard, a brilliant programmer who
0:28accidentally creates a revolutionary
0:30algorithm, but is an absolute disaster
0:33when it comes to being a CEO. Instead of
0:35taking $10 million right off the bat to
0:38bury his idea, he decides to start his
0:40own company, Pied Piper. From then on,
0:42we watch a band of misfits battle
0:44soulless corporate giants in an
0:46environment where ego is worth way more
0:48than talent. It is simply the most
0:50brilliant and hilariously scathing
0:52critique ever made of the tech world.
0:54That's why today on the channel Silicon
0:56Valley, the absurdly comical portrait of
0:59how technology is actually made. Richard
1:01Hendrickx is a brilliant programmer but
1:03a terrible smooth talker. He works at
1:05Julie, one of those tech giants that
1:07feels more like a corporate cult where
1:09CEO Gavin Bellson is treated as an
1:11untouchable deity. The campus is so
1:13colorful and full of perks that it
1:14almost makes you forget the employees
1:16are basically selling their souls. But
1:18Richard's real life happens at the home
1:20of Erik Bachmann, an eccentric
1:22millionaire who lets a bunch of guys
1:24live rent-ree in exchange for a 10%
1:26stake in whatever they invent. It's
1:28there that Richard shares a space with
1:30his housemates, Big Head, Desh, and
1:32Gilfoil. In his spare time, Richard
1:34built Pied Piper. In theory, it's a
1:36music copyright app. In practice, it
1:38hides an absurdly powerful data
1:40compression algorithm. The problem is
1:42that Richard can't explain his own
1:44invention without using impenetrable
1:46technical jargon that drives everyone
1:48away. Still, the secret leaks out and
1:50the war begins. Suddenly, the algorithm
1:53that nobody understood becomes the bell
1:55of the corporate ball. Gavin Bellson,
1:57the all powerful boss of Hulie, puts a
1:59dream offer on the table. $10 million to
2:02buy Pied Piper and bury the project. On
2:04the other side is Peter Gregory, an even
2:06more bizarre billionaire who despises
2:08colleges and literally pays kids to drop
2:11out. Peter offers significantly less
2:13money but leaves 95% of the company in
2:16Richard's hands. Helped by Monica,
2:18Peter's assistant and probably the only
2:20sane person in this story. Richard makes
2:22the decision of his life. He turns down
2:24Julie's guaranteed 10 million and
2:26chooses the hardest path, becoming the
2:28CEO of his own company alongside Peter
2:31Gregory. The team celebrates with a
2:32toast led by Gilfoil, who by the way is
2:35an avowed Levian Satanist because of
2:37course he is. The first big step has
2:39been taken, but the real headache is
2:41just beginning. Turning down $10 million
2:44brings swift and ruthless consequences.
2:46Richard now has a $200,000 check from
2:49Peter Gregory in his hands, but he can't
2:51deposit it because Pied Piper doesn't
2:53even exist on paper. When he goes to ask
2:55for guidance, Peter demands a business
2:57plan and a cap table. the capitalization
2:59table that defines who owns what
3:01percentage of the company. Since Richard
3:03has absolutely none of this prepared, he
3:05is dismissed from the office with almost
3:07Willy Wonka levels of disdain. Erlick
3:09warns him right off the bat. If Richard
3:11doesn't start acting like an [ __ ]
3:13the company is dead. But the one who
3:15actually saves the protagonist skin is
3:18Jared, a former Hulie employee so
3:20traumatized by Gavin Bellson's corporate
3:22abuse that he still asks for permission
3:24to go to the bathroom. Jared jumps ship,
3:27joins Richard's team, and they start
3:28putting together the damn cap table.
3:30That's when the claws come out. Desh and
3:32Gil foil, despite spending all day
3:35trading barbs and insults, are essential
3:37to the code. Big Head, on the other
3:39hand, well, his Magnum Opus is an app
3:41called Nip Alert, focused on tracking
3:43women's erect nipples. The name is
3:45self-explanatory, and its practical
3:47utility is zero. The team comes to an
3:50obvious consensus. Big Head is dead
3:52weight and has no place at Pied Piper.
3:54Richard finally tries to act like a real
3:56leader, putting his foot down with the
3:58team to keep his best friend on the
4:00project. Except Gavin Bellson is faster
4:02and infinitely more vindictive. Fueled
4:04by pure spite, the Hulie CEO hires Big
4:07Head for $600,000 simply to destabilize
4:11Richard and use his friend as a
4:12corporate puppet. And if losing his
4:14friend wasn't enough, Big Head delivers
4:16the worst news possible. In an
4:17amateur-ish attempt to prove his worth
4:19before leaving Hulie, Richard had sent
4:21Pied Piper's code to some of the
4:23company's programmers. Now the massive
4:24hulie machine is reverse engineering the
4:27algorithm to launch their own version
4:29called Nucleus. Richard bet everything
4:31on controlling his own company. But with
4:33a competitor this size about to crush
4:35him, he might end up owning 95% of
4:38absolutely nothing. Richard has an
4:40undeniable talent for coding. But as a
4:42CEO, he's a walking disaster. For
4:44starters, he names the company Pied
4:46Piper without even checking if the
4:47trademark is available. Surprise, it is
4:49not. It belongs to a sprinkler company
4:51in California. To make matters worse, he
4:54didn't even bother to read up on the
4:55original legend of the Pied Piper of
4:57Hamlin, which basically involves a guy
4:59kidnapping children and luring them all
5:01into a cave, a truly excellent mascot
5:04for Silicon Valley. While Richard deals
5:06with the burden of terrible branding and
5:08a hideous green team t-shirt he had
5:10made, Julie wastes no time. Gavin
5:12Bellson launches a commercial for his
5:14reverse engineering project, Nucleus.
5:17The speech is classic corporate madness.
5:19Gavin claims that compressing audio
5:21files is the first step towards
5:23shrinking cancer. Desh gives it to
5:25Richard Strait. In the tech market,
5:27whoever gets there first wins, even if
5:29the product is inferior. Erlick hates
5:31the name Pied Piper. To him, a company
5:33needs a primal name, something you would
5:35scream in an intimate moment. To resolve
5:37this creative crisis, Errol adopts a
5:39peculiar method. He eats an entire bag
5:42of magic mushrooms and goes on a
5:43spiritual journey.
5:51Oh [ __ ]
5:52>> The trip ends with a bizarre
5:53hallucination mashing up every tech logo
5:56in the world, which ironically makes him
5:58accept that Pied Piper will do just
6:00fine. On the other side of town, Peter
6:02Gregory demonstrates his own brand of
6:04eccentric genius. Facing a midnight
6:06deadline to decide whether to save one
6:08of his companies from bankruptcy, he
6:10ignores the founders's desperation and
6:12obsessively fixates on Burger King, more
6:14specifically on the sesame seeds on
6:16their buns. It looks like total
6:18insanity, but this hyperfixation makes
6:20his brain connect invisible dots in the
6:22global market, resulting in a $68
6:24million profit. The company is saved.
6:26Richard's climax arrives when the owner
6:28of the sprinkler company shows up
6:30wanting to beat him up over a financial
6:32misunderstanding. Jared suggests that
6:34Richard repeatedly shout his own name to
6:36humanize himself to his attacker because
6:38of course that's Jared's logic.
6:40Fortunately, Richard ignores the advice
6:42and uses a mix of creative negotiation
6:44and pure pity to buy the naming rights.
6:46The Pied Piper is officially in the
6:48game. Over at Hulie, Big Head discovers
6:51the dark side of the corporate world, or
6:53rather the incredibly lucrative and
6:55boring side. Since he knows absolutely
6:57nothing about the code Julie is trying
6:59to copy, HR throws him into unassigned
7:02the roof. In Gavin Bellson's management
7:04philosophy, not having a role is the
7:06ultimate badge of shame for an employee.
7:08In practice, Big Head and his colleagues
7:10spend their days resting and vesting,
7:12doing absolutely nothing. Waiting for
7:14their stock options to mature and
7:16grabbing lunch at Arby's. The true
7:18American dream. While Big Head earns a
7:20fortune to keep a chair warm, Richard is
7:22facing his worst nightmare. Peter
7:24Gregory wants to hear Pied Piper's
7:26vision, but Richard can't explain his
7:28own product to a normal human being.
7:30Desh doesn't let the irony slide. The
7:32guy turned down $10 million for an idea
7:35he doesn't even know how to pitch. What
7:37Richard urgently needs is someone
7:39focused on the big picture, a Steve Jobs
7:41to his Steve Waznjak. The epiphany comes
7:43during Peter Gregory's absurd toga party
7:46featuring a live performance by Flo
7:48Ryder and a startup exclusively
7:50dedicated to providing attractive women
7:52to feain interest in the rich nerds
7:54conversations. It's in this chaotic
7:56environment that a drunk Richard makes
7:58an impulsive decision and puts Erlick on
8:00the company's board of directors.
8:02Gilfoil immediately warns him that this
8:04is a fatal mistake as Erlick and Peter
8:06could team up and vote Richard out of
8:08his own business. The next day, a sober
8:10and terrified Richard rescends the
8:12offer, but the universe collects its
8:13toll during the meeting with Peter.
8:15Richard goes into full-blown panic mode
8:17in the bathroom, having such a meltdown
8:19that he ends up having to borrow Jared's
8:21pants. In the conference room, Peter is
8:23brutally precise and entirely unhelpful,
8:25stating he can't guide a rudderless
8:27ship. That's when Errol steps in. He
8:29takes control of the room, spits out the
8:31perfect corporate jargon, and
8:33masterfully pitches the vision of Pied
8:35Piper, saving Richard's skin.
8:37Ultimately, drunk Richard's intuition
8:39was right. He realizes that Erlick is
8:41exactly the smooth-talking partner he
8:43needs to survive the business sharks and
8:45gives him his board seat back. The team
8:47is taking shape, but a silent detail on
8:50Peter Gregory's wall hints that the
8:52rabbit hole goes deeper. An old
8:53photograph of him standing side by side
8:56with his current arch nemesis, Gavin
8:58Bellson. Erlick decides that Pied Piper
9:00needs some street cred and hires a
9:02graffiti artist named Chewy Ramirez to
9:04paint a mural on their garage door. The
9:06price tag, 10 grand. Money the company
9:09definitely doesn't have as Jared makes
9:11sure to remind them. The goal is to
9:13create a new logo to replace the old
9:14one, which the team agrees looked
9:16vaguely obscene. Except the new one
9:18manages to be worse. The mural depicts
9:20Desh dressed as an Aztec warrior having
9:23his way with the Statue of Liberty.
9:25>> What is happening? Is that Desh?
9:28>> Is that the Statue of Liberty?
9:30>> Hey neighbor. Ashley is getting big.
9:34Sh.
9:34>> Chewy drew Desh because he assumed he
9:37was Latino. Erlick terrified of coming
9:39off as racist. Didn't have the guts to
9:41tell the guy he's actually Pakistani and
9:43just let the misunderstanding slide.
9:45Meanwhile, the vibe in the house remains
9:47chaotic. Desh and Gilfoil spend all day
9:50bickering, wasting precious time. Trying
9:52to bring some order to the house, Jared
9:54implements a corporate management
9:56system, Scrum, which makes Gilfoil
9:58complain that this just turned into a
10:00real job. To speed up the work, Jared
10:02pits the two programmers against each
10:04other. The tactic works a little too
10:06well. Gilfoil starts coding four times
10:08faster, and Desh gets so paranoid about
10:10falling behind that he walks right past
10:12the garage and doesn't even notice the
10:14atrocity painted with his face. When
10:16Erlick finally musters the courage to
10:18tell the truth about Desha's ethnicity,
10:20the graffiti artist exacts his revenge
10:22by altering the art once more, this time
10:25putting Erlick himself in a highly
10:26compromising position on the mural.
10:28While all this is happening, a ticking
10:30time bomb goes off. Before securing
10:32their funding, Richard had submitted
10:34Pied Piper to TechCrunch Disrupt, a
10:36massive startup battlefield. The news
10:38reaches Gavin Bellson, who freaks out,
10:40assuming it's a master stroke by Peter
10:42Gregory. In response, the Hulie CEO
10:45secures the keynote speaker slot at the
10:47event, planning to launch Nucleus there
10:49just to publicly crush Pied Piper.
10:51Richard can't back out now, otherwise
10:53he'll look like he's running from the
10:54fight. Peter Gregory himself is furious
10:57about the situation. Monica gives it to
10:59Richard Strait. The billionaire couldn't
11:01care less about the startup, but she
11:03does, and she believes the team can
11:05deliver a working prototype in time. And
11:07to complete the cycle of humiliation,
11:09Gavin Bellson simply buys the
11:11controversial garage door for $500,000
11:14and installs it at the Hulie campus just
11:16to rub it in his rivals faces. With
11:19Techrunch right around the corner, the
11:21pressure crushes Richard, who completely
11:22freezes up when trying to integrate Pied
11:24Piper into the cloud. With only a week
11:26to present a working prototype, the team
11:28realizes they need outside help. Erlic
11:31convinces Richard to hire a legendary
11:33underground tech consultant known as the
11:35Carver. Famous for allegedly hacking
11:37into the Bank of America. The suspense
11:39is palpable, but when the legend
11:40arrives, Kevin, the Carver's real name,
11:43is a kid who looks about 14 years old.
11:45Fueled by mellow yellow, Oreos, and a
11:48concerning amount of aderall, the kid
11:49promises to fix their entire cloud issue
11:51for $20,000 in just 2 days.
11:54Surprisingly, he finishes the job on
11:56time. But there's a slight catch. He
11:58shreds Pi Piper's entire code base in
12:01the process. Basically, a startup's
12:02worst nightmare. On the other side of
12:04the house, the tension has nothing to do
12:06with code. Tara, Gilfoil's Satanist
12:08girlfriend, comes for a visit. The vibe
12:10would be weird enough, but Gilfoil drops
12:12a bomb. He casually mentions that Taro
12:15wants to sleep with Desh, and that he is
12:17completely fine with it. Desh spirals
12:19into a panic and starts making a pros
12:21and cons list, paralyzed by the
12:22proposition. Eric, with his unshakable
12:25ego, is deeply offended to realize Tara
12:28prefers Desh over him. trying to prove
12:30he's still the most seductive guy in the
12:31room. He ends up tagging along with the
12:34group to a bizarre satanic baptism
12:36taking place ironically at a
12:37Chick-fil-A. While the house burns down
12:39around them, Jared makes a fatal error
12:41in trusting technology. He gets into
12:43Peter Gregory's self-driving car. The
12:46problem is that the vehicle system
12:47suddenly reroutes. Instead of driving
12:50around PaloAlto, the car decides to head
12:52straight for Airlon, a man-made island
12:54the billionaire is building in the
12:56middle of the ocean. Trapped inside,
12:58Jared literally gets shipped off into
13:00the Pacific, trying not to lose his mind
13:02while Christopher Cross's sailing plays
13:04in the background. Without his main
13:06voice of reason, Richard is left
13:08entirely alone in the wreckage left by
13:10the Vunderkind. Over at TechCrunch
13:11Disrupt, the battlefield is heating up,
13:13but the Pied Piper team falls into a
13:15black hole of distraction. The reason,
13:17the rare presence of a woman on the
13:19floor.
13:19>> This place is a vortex of distraction.
13:22Normally, the tech world is 2% women. I
13:24need you to focus. How we do here is the
13:27entire future of your company.
13:29>> Specifically, Charlotte, a blonde from a
13:31pink booth called Cupcakeely, who feigns
13:34ignorance about coding just to get Gil
13:35Foil and Desh to write her software for
13:37her. Desh thinks he hit the jackpot when
13:40she invites him back to her hotel room.
13:41But the real turn for him isn't the
13:43girl. It's a brilliant line of Java code
13:45he thinks she wrote. But when push comes
13:47to shove, Desh freezes upon looking at
13:49her laptop screen and realizing the
13:51author of that code was actually
13:53Gilfoil. The guy literally used
13:55programming to get inside his rival's
13:57head and ruin the moment. Meanwhile,
13:58Richard completely loses his focus
14:00because Big Head tips him off that a
14:02high school ex-girlfriend is at the
14:03event, spreading rumors that Richard was
14:05a stalker. The Pied Piper CEO gets
14:08completely neurotic over the gossip,
14:10almost forgetting he has a crucial piece
14:12of software to deliver. Luckily, Jared,
14:14even unintentionally, manages to bring
14:16his boss back to reality and get him to
14:18focus on the work. But the real ticking
14:20time bomb at the event goes by the name
14:22of Errol. One of the TechCrunch judges
14:24is Dan Meltchure. A man whose wife
14:26Erlick slept with three years ago.
14:28Erlick does some digging and finds out
14:30Dan got divorced and remarried. It
14:32seemed like a relief until the new
14:33mistress Meltchure starts interrogating
14:35Erlick at the hotel bar about his
14:37ex-wife. Anyone can see the disaster
14:39brewing. When it's time for the final
14:41presentation, everything seems to be on
14:43track. Richard's code runs smoothly in
14:45the tests, and the event production even
14:47sets up some Steve Jobs level dramatic
14:50lighting for Erlick to shine on stage.
14:52It was set up to be the perfect software
14:54demo. But instead of a brilliant pitch
14:55about data compression, what the
14:57audience gets is a bloody fist fight on
14:59stage between Erlick and Judge Dan
15:01Meltchure. Surprisingly, the onstage
15:04brawl turns into an advantage. To avoid
15:06a massive lawsuit over the public
15:08embarrassment, the TechCrunch organizers
15:10bump Pied Piper straight into the finals
15:12and even upgrade their hotel suite.
15:14Erlick, sporting a black eye, brags that
15:16getting beaten up and sleeping with the
15:18judge's wife was ultimately a brilliant
15:20strategic move. Except the victory lap
15:22evaporates the second Gavin Bellson
15:24steps onto the stage. The Hulie CEO
15:27presents Nucleus, a shameless ripoff of
15:29Pied Piper, claiming to have matched
15:31their exact compression score. He
15:32threatens to sue any competitor who
15:34claims to be faster. And just to rub it
15:36in, he brings out Shakira to close the
15:38presentation. It's a heavy-handed
15:40display of corporate intimidation. Panic
15:42sets in, and even the billionaire Peter
15:44Gregory throws in the towel, ordering
15:46Monica to pack up and go home. Desperate
15:48as the ship goes down, Gilfoil and Desh
15:50try to snag jobs at another startup
15:52right there on the floor, but their
15:54tactic backfires so badly they end up
15:56convincing the other founder to want to
15:58work at Pied Piper instead. Jared,
16:00bordering on hallucination from lack of
16:02sleep, wanders the streets, scaring
16:04pedestrians with insane pivot ideas for
16:06the company, suggesting everything from
16:08a GPS child tracking app to software
16:10that predicts whether you're going to
16:12heaven or hell. Cornered, Erlic delivers
16:14a hyperbolic ultimatum in the hotel
16:16room, they are going to win. Even if he
16:18has to personally jerk off every single
16:20one of the 800 guys in the audience to
16:22get their votes. Instead of ignoring the
16:24absurdity of the statement, the
16:26programmers start doing dead serious
16:28mathematical calculations on the
16:30physical logistics of performing this
16:31task on mass. It is the pure essence of
16:34engineering applied to the worst
16:36possible scenario. And bizarrely,
16:38listening to his friends furiously
16:40debating angles, formulas, and mean-jerk
16:42times, middle out makes something click
16:44in Richard's mind. He rushes to his
16:46computer in a trance state and stays up
16:48all night rewriting the entire
16:50compression engine. When Richard takes
16:52the stage for the live demo, he runs a
16:54file through the new system and hits the
16:55highest score ever recorded in history,
16:58a Weissman score of 5.2. Pied Piper not
17:01only wins Tech Crunch, but humiliates
17:03Julie in front of the entire industry.
17:05Backstage, Monica congratulates Richard,
17:08excitedly warning him that now that he's
17:10a massive success, people are going to
17:12steal his ideas and sue him for the rest
17:14of his life. The weight of reality
17:16finally hits and the Pied Piper CEO
17:18celebrates his massive victory the only
17:20way he knows how by running out into the
17:22alley and puking in a dumpster.
17:24Richard's newfound fame lands him on the
17:26jumbotron at AT&T Park during a game.
17:29And as expected, he panics and
17:31embarrasses himself in front of the
17:33entire stadium. Now that Pi Piper has
17:35won TechCrunch Disrupt, all eyes are on
17:37them. But behind the scenes, the mood is
17:39grim. Peter Gregory has died.
17:42>> Peter Gregory is dead.
17:47Holy [ __ ] Taking his place at Ravigga
17:50Capital is Lorie Bream, an executive who
17:52seems to operate with the cold
17:54efficiency of an assembly line robot.
17:56Even amidst the morning, VC firms are
17:58salivating over Pied Piper. Feeling they
18:01have the upper hand, Erlick decides to
18:03use a highly questionable tactic in
18:05their pitch meetings, negging. He starts
18:07swearing, acting utterly obnoxious, and
18:09verbally abusing the firm executives.
18:11The most absurd part is that the reverse
18:13psychology works perfectly and the
18:15valuations for the company skyrocket.
18:17Lorie doesn't want to be left behind and
18:19puts an astronomical offer on the table.
18:21The problem is that Monica, being the
18:23sole voice of reason, warns Richard not
18:26to take it. If they can't generate
18:27immediate revenue to justify that
18:29mountain of money, the company will be
18:31swallowed up by an unreoverable down
18:33round. In the midst of this financial
18:35dilemma, everyone attends Peter
18:37Gregory's funeral, whose death involved
18:39a bizarre combination of startled hippos
18:41and a heart condition. Gavin Bellson,
18:43always needing to come out on top,
18:45delivers an emotional eulogy and
18:47releases white doves to symbolize peace.
18:50But it's pure theater. Right as the
18:52birds take flight, Richard gets a
18:53notification on his phone. Gavin has
18:55just sued the pants off Pied Piper
18:57claiming Richard stole the technology
18:59from Nucleus. Gavin's move yields
19:01immediate results. As soon as she finds
19:03out about the lawsuit, Lorie Bream deems
19:06Pied Piper too high of a risk and simply
19:08drops the company from Ravigga's
19:10portfolio. Richard and Erlick try to
19:12circle back to the other investors, but
19:14the plan backfires between Julie's legal
19:16threats and Erlic's toxic behavior in
19:18their previous meetings. No one wants to
19:20touch them with a 10-ft pole. As the
19:22ship sinks, a parallel subplot unfolds.
19:24Desha's cousin launches an app called
19:26Bro, which exclusively serves to send
19:29the word bro to other people. Gilfoil,
19:31always ready to torment Desh, donates
19:34$500 to the crowdfunding campaign out of
19:36pure spite, helping the guy hit his
19:38$50,000 goal. In the midst of their
19:41desperate scramble for cash, Jared
19:43thinks he's found an investor through
19:44that very same app. He and Erlic go in
19:47for the pitch, but quickly realize it's
19:49a trap. There is zero intention to
19:51invest. It's a brain rape, a dirty
19:53Silicon Valley tactic where an investor
19:55feains interest just to extract the
19:57details of an algorithm and steal the
19:59idea. The two bolt before giving away
20:01the gold. Out of options and needing
20:03$2.5 million just to hire a second rate
20:06lawyer, Richard gets a call from his
20:08arch nemesis himself. Gavin Bellson
20:10invites him for a private chat at a bar
20:12and lays his cards on the table. He
20:14offers to buy Pied Piper and bring
20:16Richard back to Julie. Gavin plays mind
20:18games, arguing that if Richard stays in
20:20this corporate war, he'll inevitably
20:22turn into the exact type of soulless
20:24executive he so despises. Richard takes
20:26a deep breath and opens his mouth to
20:28give his answer, but with perfectly
20:30irritating timing, a loud mariachi band
20:33invades the room and completely kills
20:35the conversation. Richard is about to
20:37march toward his own slaughter and sign
20:39a terrible buyout agreement with Gavin
20:40Bellson at a Mexican restaurant, but the
20:43universe drops an orange McLaren right
20:45in front of him, outsteps Russ Hanaman,
20:47the newest, loudest investor interested
20:49in Pied Piper. Russ showers Richard with
20:51compliments, pays for an $800 dinner and
20:54slides a $5 million check across the
20:56table. The protagonist, a genius at
20:58coding but terrible at business, accepts
21:00the offer without even doing a
21:02background check on where the money
21:03comes from. The problem is that Russ is
21:06basically the billionaire insufferable
21:08version of Erlick. He made his fortune
21:10putting radio on the internet 20 years
21:12ago and hasn't done anything remotely
21:14useful since, spending his days handing
21:16out terrible advice. Erlick immediately
21:19develops a massive man crush, seeing
21:21their new boss as a mirror of the
21:22success he's always wanted. Desh and
21:24Gilfoil, however, realize instantly that
21:26the guy is a disaster, but he owns them
21:29now. While Pied Piper deals with this
21:30chaotic new partner over at Hulie, the
21:33useless Big Head continues failing
21:35upward. Gavin Bellson cooks up a dirty
21:37scheme. He's going to repeatedly promote
21:39Big Head to build the false narrative
21:41that Pi Piper's technology was actually
21:43created in-house at Hulie. Big Head's
21:45reward for being a legal pawn who does
21:47absolutely nothing all day, a $600,000
21:51salary. Gavin, incidentally, is facing
21:53his own PR nightmares. During a live
21:55stream, he tries to defend billionaires
21:57from public criticism and ends up
21:59comparing the treatment of the super
22:01rich to the suffering of Jews in the
22:03Holocaust. It is an indefensible PR
22:05disaster, even by Silicon Valley
22:07standards. Amidst all this corporate
22:09insanity, Jared solidifies his place as
22:12the heart of the team. In a rare moment
22:14of vulnerability, he thanks Richard for
22:16giving him back his self-worth. Jared
22:18gets so genuinely hyped about the team's
22:20victory that even the clueless Russ
22:22catches the vibe.
22:24>> This guy [ __ ] Thank you.
22:28>> With the deadline for the massive CES
22:30tech trade show right around the corner,
22:32Pied Piper urgently needs coding
22:34reinforcements. Richard's best options
22:36come down to two names. a guy with a
22:38pacemaker whom Erlick affectionately
22:40dubbs the cyborg and a badass programmer
22:43named Carla. Desh and Gilfoil highly
22:45recommend Carla because her work is
22:47flawless. But the duo's respect
22:49evaporates in 5 seconds when they find
22:51out she'll be making more than both of
22:53them. Carla isn't just a beast at the
22:54keyboard. She perfectly understands the
22:57house's boys club dynamic and has a
22:59blast living rentree in their heads. Her
23:01main target is Jared, who nearly has a
23:03meltdown trying to enforce strict
23:04corporate sexual harassment policies in
23:07an environment that is pure chaos.
23:09Richard finally shows a little backbone,
23:11ignores Erlic's protests against the
23:13cyborg, who had screwed him over in the
23:15past, and takes the hires to the board
23:17for approval. The meeting takes place at
23:19Russ Hanaman's mansion, who shows off
23:21his newest toy, a bizarre female voice
23:23software designed solely to yell at his
23:25kids, freeing him from being the bad cop
23:27parent. And as if his eccentricity
23:29wasn't enough, Russ blows $30,000 of the
23:32startup's hard-earned budget, ordering
23:34terrible promotional swag with the wrong
23:36Pied Piper logo. The billionaire's only
23:38real use in the meeting is to crush
23:40Erlick's ego, shutting down any attempt
23:42he makes to buddy up to the exclusive
23:44Trey Kas Club. Over at Hulie, Gavin
23:47Bellson's theatrics reach new heights.
23:49He announces Julie XYZ, a top secret and
23:52incredibly ambitious division. the
23:54co-head dream team for this new venture.
23:56A renowned robotics genius and big head.
23:58The scientist is furious at having to
24:00share the command. But Big Head gets a
24:02plush office and an assistant. His
24:04day-to-day job continues to be
24:06absolutely nothing. Except now it comes
24:08with executive support. Gavin Bellson
24:11continues his personal vendetta to
24:12destroy Pied Piper, and this time he's
24:15playing dirty. Throwing Julie's full
24:17weight and influence around, he puts
24:19Richard on a corporate blacklist,
24:20causing all the major server hosting
24:22companies to deny the startup space.
24:24With nowhere to host the platform,
24:26Richard is backed into a corner and
24:28makes a drastic decision. Take the money
24:30meant for their dream office and buy
24:32physical hardware. The new plan is to
24:34brute force Pied Piper online by
24:37building their own servers. The heavy
24:38lifting falls into Gilfoil's lap, who
24:41starts turning Heirlick's garage into a
24:43bootleg data center. There's just one
24:45problem. The garage was already
24:46occupied. Jared, who had taken a brutal
24:49pay cut for the good of the company, was
24:51secretly living there. Since he needs to
24:53clear the space for the rigs, he ends up
24:55sharing a room with Richard. That's when
24:57they discover Jared has a terrible habit
24:59of speaking German in his sleep. At the
25:01top of his lungs, with the garage
25:03running at full steam, a new obstacle
25:05appears in the form of Noah, a nosy
25:07neighbor. He discovers the operation and
25:09threatens to report Erlick for running a
25:11commercial business in a strictly
25:13residential zone. A zoning violation
25:15could shut everything down, but Richard
25:17catches a lucky break. He finds out Noah
25:19breeds ferrets, which are illegal in
25:21California. Richard uses the intel to
25:23blackmail the neighbor and buy his
25:25silence, very mobstyle, just with
25:27rodents. Meanwhile, the eternal rivalry
25:29between Gilfoil and Desh reaches a new
25:32level. Desh mocks Gilfoil's manual
25:34labor, but decides to mess with the
25:36hardware to prove he also knows how to
25:38build a server. The result is
25:39catastrophic. He fries the machines,
25:41knocks out the power to the entire
25:43neighborhood, and destroys the genius
25:45system Gilfoil had rigged to bypass the
25:47electric meter.
25:48>> That's kind of the the
25:54Oh, hey guys. Dude, what the [ __ ] The
25:57power's out.
25:58>> Back at Julie, things continue to defy
26:00all logic. A director tries to fire Big
26:02Head for being completely useless, but
26:04it backfires spectacularly, and the
26:06director ends up rage quitting himself.
26:08Gavin Bellson doesn't blink. He seizes
26:11the opportunity and promotes Big Head to
26:13sole lead of the new Hulie XYZ division.
26:16Doubling down on the lie that he's the
26:18true genius behind Pied Piper. And Big
26:20Head just accepts it with his signature
26:22blank stare. Hulie sets the stage for
26:24the grand launch of its algorithm,
26:26Nucleus. By sponsoring the live
26:28broadcast of the most anticipated UFC
26:30fight of the year, Gavin Bellson gives a
26:32hyped up speech, throws some air kicks
26:35for the camera, but the technology
26:36simply can't handle the load. The feed
26:38buffers and freezes right in the middle
26:40of the screen in front of millions of
26:42people. Later, a consumer focus group
26:44confirms the disaster. Nucleus isn't
26:46just bad. It has reached Apple Maps
26:48levels of tragedy. Smelling blood in the
26:50water, the Pied Piper team decides it's
26:52the perfect time to strike back. Monica
26:55suggests they stream their own event to
26:57prove their algorithm works flawlessly
26:59exactly where Julie failed. Erlic
27:02remembers Aaron Double A, an old college
27:04classmate who now owns Homicide, an
27:06ultraaggressive energy drink brand
27:08focused on extreme sports. Homicide is
27:11about to broadcast an insane car jump by
27:13a stunt driver named Blaine. It seems
27:15like a perfect match for Pied Piper
27:17until the team realizes Blaine made a
27:19basic math error in the physics of the
27:21jump. If he hits the ramp at the planned
27:23speed, he will die. Gilfoil tries to
27:25warn the driver, who acts like an
27:27arrogant jerk, and brushes off the
27:29warning. This creates a bizarre ethical
27:31dilemma. Desh and Gilfoil decide to use
27:34a corporate technique, putting together
27:35a SWAT board, strengths, weaknesses,
27:38opportunities, and threats to decide
27:40whether they should warn Blaine again or
27:42just let him crash. Desh even lists
27:44Blaine's wife becoming a widow as a
27:46major opportunity. The tension spikes
27:48when Blaine drops by the room
27:50unannounced to apologize for his
27:52arrogance right as the two frantically
27:54scramble to hide the giant whiteboard
27:56reading, "Let Blaine die." Even though
27:58the stunt man survives and pieces made,
28:00the deal falls apart completely. Double
28:02A reveals he's hated Erlic since
28:04college, refuses to put the Pied Piper
28:06logo on the broadcast, and ends up
28:08signing with a rival company called End
28:10Frame. The final blow comes when Richard
28:12finds out who is behind End Frame. The
28:14same investors who set up a fake Brain
28:16Rate meeting weeks ago just to extract
28:19ideas. They stole Pied Piper's logic
28:21right off the whiteboards, built an
28:23identical product, and now Russ Hanaman,
28:25furious at the team's incompetence in
28:27closing the deal, hangs up on Richard.
28:29Pied Piper is on the ropes, and Richard
28:31finally decides to fight for his own
28:33company. The team heads over to
28:34Endframes HQ to try and salvage the
28:37situation where chaos immediately ensues
28:39in the lobby when Erlick is mistaken for
28:41the CEO. Desh, however, is too busy
28:44swiping on Tinder. He matches with a
28:46girl and decides to play the role of an
28:47adventurous guy, going as far as
28:49plotting to steal a kid's drawing to
28:51fake a museum visit, but the plan blows
28:53up in his face. Gilfoil finds out Desh
28:55used Endframes guest Wi-Fi. To make
28:58matters worse, Desh's date is quickly
29:00exposed shortly after logging into the
29:02incubator's Wi-Fi. She is, in fact, one
29:04of Erlick's old flings, and Erlic
29:06smoothly steals her back to the sound of
29:0980s romantic synth pop. Desh is still
29:11striking out and Gilfoil doesn't let him
29:13live down the humiliation. Meanwhile,
29:15Richard crashes Endframes pitch meeting.
29:18The place is basically a boiler room
29:19full of aggressive salesmen pushing a
29:21vastly inferior service, proving that a
29:24product doesn't even need to be good if
29:26you know how to force it down the
29:27consumer's throat. Richard rejects the
29:30merger offer pushed by Russ Hanaman, who
29:32gets enraged at losing a chunk of his
29:34fortune and peels out in his obnoxious
29:36sports car. At Hulie, Gavin Bellson is
29:38pulling off some real corporate
29:40gymnastics. He tries to convince the
29:42board that failure is success. Using
29:44examples like the Apple Newton paving
29:46the way for the iPhone. Pressured by his
29:48algorithm's recent UFC embarrassment,
29:50Gavin promises a revolutionary top
29:53secret new feature for Nucleus. The only
29:55catch is that this feature doesn't
29:57exist. He rushes down to Julie XYZ,
29:59begging Big Head to invent anything that
30:02justifies the lie. But Big Head
30:04predictably comes up empty.
30:06Maybe start after lunch.
30:10>> Pi Piper's big master stroke comes
30:12courtesy of Gilfoil's malice. He finds a
30:14post-it note with Endframes admin
30:16password, hacks into their server, and
30:18uncovers a multi-million dollar contract
30:20with Innercite, a giant in the porn
30:22industry. Monica strategically steps out
30:25of the room to pretend she didn't just
30:26witness a corporate crime. And Gilfoil
30:29encourages Richard to fully embrace the
30:31dark side. Richard goes to Insight's
30:33CEO, comes clean about the stolen code,
30:35and scores a golden opportunity, a
30:37direct bake off. Inner Sight will test
30:39both Endframes and Pied Piper's
30:42algorithms to see which compresses their
30:44massive video library faster. Winner
30:46takes the $15 million contract. The toll
30:48of embracing the dark side quickly
30:50catches up to them. Richard is consumed
30:52by guilt when he finds out Seth,
30:54Endframe security guy, was fired because
30:56of the hack. Gilfoil, on the other hand,
30:59is beaming with pure evil joy and
31:01declares that Pied Piper is now
31:03officially a team of black hats. While
31:05Richard agonizes, Jinyang tries his luck
31:08building a new app. Erlick takes him to
31:10pitch the idea at Raviga, but on the
31:12way, they uncover Monica's deepest
31:14secret. She smokes in PaloAlto. That's
31:16practically a felony. Lorie, head of
31:18Ravigga, even stages a bizarre and
31:21deeply uncomfortable antismoking
31:23intervention in the office. Taking the
31:25queue, Erlick and Jin Yang pivot the
31:27app's focus. The original version, which
31:29located empty playgrounds and
31:31accidentally served as the perfect tool
31:33for pedals, becomes Smoke, designed to
31:36track and avoid smokers. Lorie
31:38immediately agrees to fund it. But the
31:40dream dies seconds later when Jin Yang
31:42lights up a cigarette he stole from
31:43Monica right in the middle of the pitch.
31:45At Julie, Gavin Bellson desperately
31:48needs a scapegoat for the impending
31:49failure of Nucleus. He sweet talks Dr.
31:52Banner check who was on his way out to
31:54MIT seducing him with promises of power
31:56to lead the project. The doctor takes
31:58the bait but isn't as dumb as he looks.
32:0011 minutes after taking the job and
32:02seeing the unsalvageable mess the
32:04algorithm is, he flees the company.
32:06Gavin then realizes he has no one left
32:08to blame but himself, leading to a fit
32:11of rage where he smashes a piece of wood
32:13with a hammer. Richard's paranoia peaks.
32:15Ignoring all logic, he tracks down Seth
32:17at a playground to personally confess
32:19that the hack was Pied Piper's fault.
32:21His pacifist strategy fails miserably
32:24and a screaming Seth vows to annihilate
32:26their system. Panic grips the team on
32:28the day of the big inner sight download
32:30competition, leading them to set up an
32:32off-the-grid server base to prevent any
32:34cyber attacks. The download starts and
32:36everything seems to be going well until
32:38the video files suddenly start
32:40disappearing. 9,000 hours of content get
32:42deleted. Richard goes into shock,
32:44thinking Seth managed to hack them. But
32:46the truth is much stupider. Russ
32:48Hanaman, who had been parading around
32:49the office all day showing off his Trace
32:52Commas tequila, simply rested the heavy
32:54bottle right on the main laptop's delete
32:56key.
32:58>> Come on outside, everybody. Just I won't
32:59waste your time. Just Just for a second.
33:01>> Stop. Make it stop. Make it stop.
33:05>> It it just stop deleting.
33:06>> Inner sight CEO screams at the team and
33:08kicks them out after the disaster. Once
33:11again, Pied Piper is back to square one.
33:13Pied Piper is on life support. The money
33:15has dried up. The new coders have jumped
33:18ship and the company's fate is going to
33:20be decided in binding arbitration
33:21against Julie, a fast-tracked two-day
33:24trial. Richard meets up with Big Head,
33:26resulting in the biggest breakthrough of
33:28the season. After being humiliated by
33:30the Nucleus team at a bar, Big Head
33:32hands Richard a hulie prototype phone
33:34left behind by one of the developers.
33:36The discovery on the device is pure
33:38gold. Nucleus is such a disaster that
33:40instead of compressing the files, it
33:42actually makes them larger. It's the
33:44perfect leverage to force Gavin Bellson
33:46to back down, but Gavin refuses to cave.
33:48What follows is a classic Wild West
33:50standoff, just with death glares across
33:52a boardroom table. Out of options,
33:54Richard's stuffy corporate lawyer brings
33:56in Pete, a pro bono lawyer who was
33:58disbarred for a laundry list of crimes
34:00that could spawn its own Netflix
34:02documentary. Surprisingly, Pete knows
34:04his stuff and helps the team sift
34:05through the avalanche of discovery
34:07documents dumped by Julie. Meanwhile,
34:09Pied Piper's Condor Nest Cam is still
34:11live. Jared calls the museum to check on
34:13the status of the eggs, setting off a
34:15disastrous butterfly effect. While
34:17prepping the case, Pete finds a massive
34:19red flag. Old emails from Richard
34:22talking about his girlfriend who was in
34:23the shop. In a plot twist straight out
34:25of the movie Her, the girlfriend was
34:27actually his laptop. The lethal detail
34:30is that Richard admits in the email to
34:32testing the algorithm on a Hulie
34:34computer while his was broken. If Julie
34:36figures out who the girlfriend was, Pied
34:39Piper is dead in the water. And who
34:40spills the beans? Erlick, of course. On
34:43the witness stand, he accidentally
34:44blurts out the laptop secret. Cornered
34:47when it's his turn to testify, Richard
34:48decides to tell the truth under oath.
34:50Practically handing the keys to the
34:52company over on a silver platter to cap
34:54off the chaos, the museum worker
34:56dispatched to remove the Condor cam
34:58falls off a cliff, and the whole thing
35:00is broadcast live. Gilfoil instantly
35:02blames Jared's phone call for the
35:04tragedy. The arbitration wraps up and
35:06Gavin Bellson can already taste victory.
35:09But his arrogance comes back to bite
35:10him. Not content with just winning the
35:12tech, Gavin takes one last swing and
35:15sues Richard for hiring Jared, claiming
35:17a breach of his non-compete clause.
35:19That's when the tables completely turn.
35:21The judge points out that non-compete
35:23clauses are illegal in California, and
35:25since those clauses were written into
35:27the original employment agreements, the
35:29contracts are null and void. Legally,
35:31Richard was never a Hulie employee
35:33during the time he created the
35:34algorithm. Pi Piper belongs to him. End
35:36of story. The only problem is Richard
35:39doesn't know this yet. Thinking he lost
35:41everything, he texts Jared with the
35:42final order. Delete all the code. If
35:44Julie is going to steal the company,
35:46they're getting an empty server away
35:48from the courthouse. The live stream of
35:50the man trapped on the cliff goes viral.
35:52The desperation draws massive crowds and
35:54even Manny Pekio tweets about the video.
35:57Traffic on Pied Piper servers explodes.
35:59Erlick, who is on the verge of selling
36:01the house out of sheer bankruptcy, and
36:03the rest of the team go into war mode to
36:05keep the stream running, stressing the
36:07system to the point of nearly catching
36:09the hardware on fire. When Richard
36:11finally finds out he won the case, he
36:13makes a desperate physical sprint to
36:14stop his own sabotage. He gets home too
36:17late. The command was already executed,
36:19but by a sheer stroke of ironic fate,
36:22the deletion script coded by Desh fails
36:24and crashes the system before wiping
36:26anything. Their own technical
36:27incompetence actually ends up saving the
36:30company. It's a moment of absolute
36:31triumph. They beat Julie in court. The
36:33cliff guy is rescued on live stream and
36:35Pi Piper survives against all odds until
36:38Lorie Bream, Rava's cold, calculating
36:40new managing partner, buys out Russ
36:42Hanaman shares and takes majority
36:43control of the board. She looks at the
36:45metrics, completely ignores their epic
36:47journey, and focuses on the facts.
36:49Richard only survived out of sheer dumb
36:52luck and irrational decisions. And in a
36:54brutal gut punch to end the season, he
36:56is unceremoniously fired as CEO of the
36:59very company he just saved.
37:02>> I just got fired.
37:05>> His spot as CTO was still guaranteed in
37:08the new structure, but Richard throws a
37:10total diva fit and flatout quits. Taking
37:13his place is Jack Barker, better known
37:15in Silicon Valley as Action Jack. The
37:17guy is a living legend. He founded
37:19billion-dollar companies and even
37:21started a cancer research fund. What
37:23does Richard think about this? He yells
37:25that he won't hand his company over to a
37:26guy who didn't even cure cancer. Logic
37:29has officially left the building.
37:30Meanwhile, the team's loyalty is tested.
37:33Monica shows up at Erlick's incubator to
37:35justify her vote against Richard,
37:37claiming she needed to stay at Ravigga
37:39to act as an inside ally. The confession
37:41doesn't earn her any forgiveness. Just
37:43Errol being Erlick and bringing up the
37:45length of her skirt from her Catholic
37:47school days. Monica's response is a
37:49beautiful resounding [ __ ] off. Outback,
37:52Gilfoil and Desh suffer a crisis of
37:54practicality. They respect Richard, but
37:56they think it's absurd for him to expect
37:58everyone to quit their jobs out of
38:00solidarity. To save time during their
38:02debates, they even coin the acronym
38:04RIBY. Richard is great, but you know,
38:07they decide to stay at Pied Piper, but
38:09soon realize they can't actually
38:11decipher their friend's code. Their
38:12rebellion hits a brick wall of their own
38:14incompetence. In the corporate corner of
38:16the ring, Gavin Bellson makes a ruthless
38:19move at Julie to escape the contract
38:21loophole that ruined his previous
38:23lawsuit. He fires all 1,699
38:26employees of the Nucleus team without a
38:29dime in severance. The only one who gets
38:31off scot-free is Big Head, who walks
38:33away with a $20 million severance
38:35package just to continue doing
38:37absolutely nothing and keep his mouth
38:39shut. His lawyer convinces Richard to at
38:41least have a sitdown with Action Jack.
38:43The veteran masterfully strokes egos. He
38:45knows exactly how to butter up Erlick
38:47and turns the charm on Richard, telling
38:49him he can't run the company without
38:50him. Shortly after, having almost
38:52accepted a mediocre gig elsewhere,
38:55Richard throws his car in reverse. The
38:57CTO is coming home. The corporate
38:59honeymoon seems to be doing Richard some
39:00good. He even gets props from his doctor
39:03for sporting a glow of a guy who has
39:05finally relaxed by letting the new CEO
39:07handle all the bureaucratic headaches.
39:09Richard tries to convince himself that
39:11the CTO life is a techfocused paradise.
39:14The doctor even checks the kid's junk
39:16just to make sure they're still intact
39:18after taking such a submissive stance.
39:20Across town, Gavin Bellson is smelling
39:22his own failure. Infuriated after
39:24googling his name and seeing search
39:26results flooded with criticism over the
39:28nucleus disaster, he tosses all common
39:30sense and ethics out the window. His
39:32order to his subordinates is clear and
39:34desperate. Alter the search algorithm to
39:36scrub his name of the dirt. Meanwhile,
39:38Action Jack spoils the Pied Piper crew
39:41with a pristine new office. There's a
39:43pool table, an ondemand kitchen, and
39:45even a brand new logo. When Gilfoil and
39:47Desh nearly come to blows fighting over
39:49the best monitor in the room, Jack
39:51simply orders another identical one.
39:53Peace reigns, but money is going down
39:55the drain. Richard questions the
39:57exorbitant spending, but Jack swears
39:59he'll never compromise the product. In
40:01the team's personal lives, Jared suffers
40:03the realworld consequences of being too
40:06nice. The guy who sublet his condo has
40:08turned into a professional squatter and
40:10refuses to leave. California tenant laws
40:12protect the squatter, forcing Jared to
40:14maintain his robotic optimism while
40:17sleeping in the office and silently
40:18bordering on a nervous breakdown.
40:20Richard's real headache arrives in the
40:22form of a squad of suits, the new sales
40:24team. They want to strip down Pied
40:26Piper's original vision to sell generic
40:28enterprise storage that turns a faster
40:30profit. Richard confronts Jack at his
40:32horse farm, complete with a bizarre and
40:34highly graphic equin breeding session
40:37happening in the background. That's
40:38where the reality check hits. Jack pulls
40:40out a ridiculous diagram called the
40:42conjoin triangles of success and gives
40:45it to him straight. To Jack, the product
40:47isn't the genius algorithm. The product
40:49is the company's stock. He will sell
40:51whatever it takes to make the numbers go
40:53up. And while the executives butttheads,
40:55a new threat brews in the shadows. The
40:57recently fired Nucleus team, thirsty for
41:00revenge, decides to use the original
41:02code stolen in season 1 to improve the
41:04compression algorithm on their own. Pi
41:06Piper just gained its deadliest
41:08competitor yet, and they don't even know
41:09it. Reality comes knocking at Pied
41:11Piper. Jack Barker, the new CEO, has
41:14decreed that Richard's genius algorithm
41:16will become a glorified data storage
41:18box. To make matters worse, the team
41:20takes a field trip to a massive,
41:22freezing, and seemingly endless server
41:24farm where their guide literally
41:26vanishes, leaving them stranded in the
41:28middle of nowhere. It's such a
41:29depressing glimpse into their future
41:31that Gilfoil quits on the spot. As soon
41:33as he updates his LinkedIn status,
41:35Silicon Valley recruiters swoop in,
41:37showering him with expensive gifts and
41:39topshelf liquor. While Gilfoil soaks up
41:42the flattery, Richard tries to appeal to
41:44Lorie Bream about the company's change
41:46in direction. Word of this maneuver gets
41:48back to Jack Barker, who calls Richard
41:50into his office, complete with an
41:51absurdly intimidating remote control
41:54door. Jack's message is crystal clear.
41:56If you come at the king, you best not
41:58miss. And the bad news keeps coming.
42:01During a meeting with a recruiter,
42:02Gilfoil finds out that rival company
42:05Endframe scooped up the exhulie
42:07programmers. Now, by combining what they
42:09already knew with the piece Richard
42:10accidentally gave away, the rivals have
42:12the complete Pied Piper algorithm.
42:14Panicked, the team regroups. It's Erlic
42:17who throws the lifeline on the table.
42:19Set up a skunk works, a secret project
42:21operating under the radar right inside
42:23the company. They will pretend to build
42:25Jack Barker's box. While developing the
42:27original platform in secret, Jared warns
42:30them they need to act totally normal to
42:32maintain their cover, which includes
42:34complaining about work and ruthlessly
42:36roasting Desha's new gold chain. With
42:38the plan in place, the team rolls into
42:40the office the next day, oozing
42:42confidence, walking with the swagger of
42:44guys running the game until Richard
42:46disastrously trips over the fune guys
42:48hose. Their top secret documents go
42:50flying everywhere. A co-orker picks up
42:53the giant timeline clearly labeled skunk
42:55works and hands it straight to Jack
42:57Barker, who immediately summons everyone
42:59into his office, absolutely foaming at
43:01the mouth. The mood in the CEO's office
43:04is downright furial action. Jack Barker
43:06rubs the team's faces in the fact that
43:08their secret plan lasted exactly 30
43:11seconds, threatening to destroy their
43:13reputations across Silicon Valley. He
43:15needs the enterprise storage box ready
43:17immediately to close a multi-million
43:19dollar deal with Malant. But Richard
43:21finally uses his head. He reads the
43:23contract and realizes Jack's hands are
43:25tied. No one else in the company knows
43:27how to write that code, and firing them
43:29would mean missing the project deadline.
43:31With a rare dose of authority, Richard
43:33lays down the law. They'll build the
43:35basic box, but afterward the focus
43:37shifts entirely back to the platform.
43:39Cornered, Jack accepts the deal. Richard
43:41tries to seal the badass moment by
43:43leaning dramatically on the boss's desk,
43:45only to slip on some papers and face
43:47plant on the floor. Classic. Away from
43:49HQ, the team's life remains chaotic.
43:51Jared's apartment squatter has now
43:53sublet the space to tourists on Airbnb,
43:56forcing Jared to sleep in Erlick's
43:57ratinfested garage. Speaking of Erlick,
44:00he discovers Big Head got a $20 million
44:02severance package from Hulie and set up
44:04an incubator in a massive Miami vice
44:07style mansion. Since Big Head has no
44:09idea what he's doing and lets his
44:10tenants live rentree, Erlick immediately
44:13infiltrates as a business partner. Back
44:15at work, Gilfoil accidentally optimizes
44:18the box's code, making it eight times
44:20faster. The product is so impressive
44:22that Richard and Jack join forces and
44:24secure an even bigger contract with
44:26Mallay. The issue explodes at the board
44:28meeting. Monica reads the fine print and
44:31notices Jack signed over the rights to
44:33the underlying algorithm to Mallay for 5
44:35years. Risking her own neck, she votes
44:38against Jack, deadlocking the board and
44:40killing the contract. Without the deal,
44:42Pi Piper's tech has no defined market
44:44value. The person who accidentally saves
44:46the day is Gavin Bellson. Fueled by pure
44:49spite, the Hulie CEO buys Endframe for
44:52$250 million to restart the war, which
44:55magically establishes a massive baseline
44:57valuation for Richard's Tech. Ready to
44:59rub it in Jack's face, the team storms
45:01the CEO's office. But sitting there is
45:03Lorie Bream. In a surgical display of
45:05power, she announces she fired Jack
45:07Barker because he thought he could
45:09bypass her. When Richard asks if he's
45:11finally going to be the CEO of his own
45:13company again, Lorie is lethal. The
45:15chair will remain empty. Just got to ask
45:17him. With Jack not being CEO anymore, am
45:20am I CEO again?
45:22>> This chair will remain empty.
45:24>> Wait, really?
45:25>> Excuse me.
45:27>> Pied Piper is drowning in debt thanks to
45:29the former CEO's massive severance
45:31package. Out of options, Richard takes
45:33drastic action. He fires the entire
45:35sales team, ditches the fancy office,
45:38and drags the company back to Aerik's
45:40incubator. But his real problem is his
45:41ego. Lori is interviewing candidates for
45:43the CEO position, and Richard is foaming
45:46at the mouth for not being handed the
45:48job right away. Meanwhile, Jared
45:49organizes a garage sale to pay the new
45:51engineers, but accidentally sells Desh's
45:54hard drive to an innocent old man. Desh
45:56completely panics with the company's
45:58code in a stranger's hands. Gilfoil
46:00saves the day by knocking on the old
46:02man's door, pretending to be from Geek
46:04Squad tech support. With a lame excuse
46:06about spilling coffee on his uniform and
46:08a power drill in hand, he physically
46:09destroys the hard drive right in front
46:11of the guy, erasing any chance of a
46:13leak, taking advantage of the chaos.
46:15Erlick focuses on his newest project,
46:17leeching off Big Head's severance money.
46:19He proposes a joint venture called Bach
46:21Manity with a contract that basically
46:23hands all control over to him, which Big
46:26Head signs without even questioning it.
46:28Richard's pride finds a new target when
46:30tech blogger CJ Canwell publishes a hit
46:32piece destroying his reputation as a
46:34coder. Lori warns him he's too emotional
46:36to talk to the press and sends him to
46:38meet with Ravigga's PR secretary first.
46:41Richard goes to the meeting and spews
46:42all his hatred, viciously mocking Lori
46:45to the woman sitting in front of him.
46:46The tragic detail, he wasn't talking to
46:48the secretary. He was venting directly
46:51to the blogger herself. What Richard
46:53didn't know was that Lorie's plan all
46:55along was brilliant. She was only
46:57interviewing other candidates so the
46:59investors would organically see Richard
47:01as the only logical choice. In the end,
47:03he miraculously gets his CEO title back,
47:06completely oblivious to the fact that he
47:08almost sabotaged his own destiny in a
47:10fit of blind rage. Romance hits the
47:13incubator in an unexpected way. Jared
47:15suddenly becomes a chick magnet, turning
47:17the server room into a makeshift motel
47:19and leaving Desh dying of jealousy. Not
47:21to be outdone, Desh starts flirting
47:24online with Elizabeth, a new foreign
47:26coder on the team who lives in Estonia.
47:28The only hurdle is the terrible video
47:30connection. Convinced he's about to win
47:31the girl over, Desh rewrites the entire
47:34peer-to-peer network code just to
47:36improve the video quality. The strategy
47:38works perfectly. The screen turns
47:39crystal clear. Elizabeth can finally see
47:42his face properly, instantly invents a
47:44husband, and hangs up on him. Richard is
47:46also on a lucky streak with Winnie, a
47:48brilliant developer at Facebook.
47:49Everything is going great until he
47:51discovers an unforgivable flaw. She uses
47:54spaces instead of tabs to indent her
47:56code. To Richard, this is absolute
47:58heresy. Midcouch make out session. He
48:00freaks out, yells that they could never
48:02have kids with that kind of moral
48:04failing hanging over the family and
48:05decides to leave. In his rush to escape
48:07his girlfriend and her space bar, the
48:09new Pied Piper CEO tumbles down a flight
48:12of stairs, defeated by his own pedentry.
48:14Far from these keyboard wars, Errol
48:16prepares a colossal event to launch Bach
48:19Manity, an absurdly expensive Hawaiian
48:21themed party right in the middle of
48:22Alcatraz prison. The problem is Gavin
48:25Bellson is getting slaughtered by
48:26activists after CJ Canwell exposed a
48:29hulie data leak on her blog. Feeling the
48:32heat, Gavin decides to sue the blogger
48:34to force her to name her source. And the
48:36source is Big Head, who violated a
48:38massive NDA to spill the tea. To prevent
48:41Big Head from being exposed and losing
48:43everything in a lawsuit, Errol takes
48:45half a million dollars of his partner's
48:46money and simply buys CJ's blog to shut
48:49her up. The move seems like a success
48:51until the accountant runs the numbers.
48:54Minutes before Errol goes on stage at
48:55Alcatraz to rub his triumph in his
48:57rivals faces. Reality knocks. Big Head
49:00blew through his entire $20 million on
49:03ridiculous luxuries. Bachman isn't a
49:05rising empire. It's a completely
49:07bankrupt company throwing a party in a
49:09prison. Pied Piper is ready, but no real
49:11users have tested the platform yet. Desh
49:13suggests a beta launch, and Jared drops
49:15one of those canned Silicon Valley
49:17entrepreneur quotes.
49:18>> Hoffman says, "If you're not mortally
49:20embarrassed by the quality of your
49:21initial release, you've released too
49:23late."
49:23>> Ironically, the one who breaks the
49:25tension is Tara, who has been testing
49:27the system all day and assures them that
49:29despite a few bugs, the thing is
49:31impressive. Meanwhile, Bachman is
49:33drowning in a million dollars of debt
49:35thanks to that useless Alcatraz party.
49:38Blogger CJ Canwell is ready to drop an
49:40expose on their unpaid bills. Jared
49:43actually finds a light at the end of the
49:44tunnel. A $6 million accounting error in
49:47Big Head's account. The catch? The money
49:49didn't vanish. It was embezzled by their
49:51business manager to cover his own debts.
49:53Erlic goes to cry to the district
49:55attorney, but she has zero sympathy for
49:57two tech bros who blew millions. The
49:59imposed solution is brutal. Erlick has
50:01to sell his shares in Pied Piper to
50:03avoid prosecution. It's a heavy blow for
50:05the guy who always saw himself as
50:07Richard Steve Jobs. At the beta launch,
50:10each member gets 10 invites. Desh,
50:12having no friends to invite, creates
50:14fake accounts, which are quickly busted
50:16because Gilfoil embedded a god view into
50:18the system. This same tracking tool
50:20reveals something much worse. A hulie IP
50:23accessing the software. Gavin Bellson
50:25managed to get a fake invite and
50:26installed the beta on his phone and
50:28laptop. He quickly realizes the
50:30algorithm's genius, but makes a rookie
50:32mistake. Gilfoil sends a corrupted file
50:34straight to Gavin's account, frying his
50:36devices in seconds. Gavin panics,
50:39screams for them to cut the building's
50:40power, forgetting that laptops have
50:42batteries, and watches his last
50:44remaining Nucleus engineers quit on the
50:46spot. Even with Monica hating the UI,
50:48the team clicks the final button. Pied
50:50Piper is officially in the hands of the
50:52public. To celebrate the launch, Jared
50:54orders a Pied Piper jacket that is a
50:56total fashion disaster, looking like
50:58leftover neon wardrobe from the '90s.
51:01Gilfoil taking on the role of suicide
51:03bomber of humiliation decides to wear
51:05the piece ironically just to torture
51:08Desh in public. The plan backfires when
51:10women on the street start complimenting
51:12the jacket, instantly triggering Desh's
51:14jealousy. He steals the look for himself
51:16and even goes out singing karaoke in the
51:18new uniform. Over at Hulie, Gavin
51:20Bellson leads another one of his classic
51:22board meetings using live animals, this
51:25time a turtle and a rabbit to try and
51:27prove a rhetorical point, but the board
51:29has lost its patience. They bring up the
51:31billions burned in the war against Pied
51:33Piper and the failure of Nucleus.
51:35Instead of a simple firing, Gavin
51:38receives the company's ultimate
51:39punishment, exile on the roof. Gavin's
51:42downfall contrasts with Erlic's
51:43collapse. During an interview on
51:45Bloomberg, Richard discovers a
51:47discrepancy in the cap table and soon
51:48hears rumors of a massive internal stock
51:51sale. He freaks out thinking investors
51:53will flee and goes to confront Erlick
51:55who happens to be dressed in an absurd
51:57outfit that looks straight out of a
51:58Ridley Scott period piece. Erlick admits
52:01he's broke. Richard doesn't mince words
52:02and delivers a brutal reality check
52:04about how Erlick's incompetence almost
52:06tanked the entire company. Later at the
52:09Vanity Fair party, Richard discovers the
52:11true tragedy of the deal. CEO Lorie
52:13Bream blocked any external sale, forcing
52:16Erlick to offload his 5 million in
52:18shares directly to her for the exact
52:20$713,000
52:22he owed in debt. Erlick walked away
52:24empty-handed, completely broke, and
52:26having accidentally humiliated himself
52:28on a tech blog. Eric hits rock bottom.
52:30Richard feels the weight of the
52:32situation. In a rare moment of empathy,
52:34he offers Erlick the position of head of
52:36PR at Pied Piper, a chance to start over
52:38right as the app finally hits the
52:40official Hulie store. Piper Amp just got
52:42accepted to the Hulie store.
52:44>> What?
52:46>> Jared is radiating guilt, and there's no
52:48one better at sniffing that out than
52:50Gilfoil. During one of Lorie Bream's
52:52highly conceptual modern art parties,
52:54where you try to sit on a chair only to
52:56discover it's actually an untouchable
52:58sculpture, Gilfoil corners Jared. For
53:00every attempt Jared makes to deflect the
53:02subject, Gilfoil drops a loud, dry lie.
53:05It's the kind of interaction born to
53:06become a meme. The reason for Jared's
53:08despair is a corporate nightmare. DA use
53:11or daily active users. People are
53:13downloading Pied Piper, but nobody is
53:15using it. Richard confesses this to
53:17Monica, who figures out the real
53:19problem. Richard only beta tested the
53:21platform with other engineers. To grasp
53:23the extent of the damage, Monica
53:24organizes a focus group. The result is
53:27tragic. People find the interface way
53:29too confusing. Richard, of course, loses
53:31his patience, storms into the room, and
53:33spends hours drawing on a whiteboard to
53:35explain the systems neural networks. The
53:37most he accomplishes is getting one of
53:39the users to compare Pied Piper to
53:41Skynet from the Terminator. The truth
53:43hurts. The engineering is simply too
53:45good for the average consumer. Across
53:47the valley, Gavin Bellson is back in the
53:50game. A Pied Piper employee jumps ship,
53:52runs straight into Gavin's lap, and
53:54hands him the user problem on a silver
53:56platter. Armed with this info, Gavin
53:58convinces the Hulie board to pivot their
54:00algorithm into an enterprise backup box.
54:03The idea is so lucrative that he not
54:05only regains his spot as CEO, but
54:07celebrates by bringing an actual live
54:09elephant into the boardroom. Classic
54:11Gavin Bellson. In a desperate bid to
54:14make Pied Piper more userfriendly,
54:16Richard burns through the rest of their
54:17cash on a virtual assistant named Pipy.
54:20Think of the old Microsoft Word Clippy,
54:22but in the shape of a bizarre flute. And
54:24while Richard tries to put a band-aid on
54:26a bullet hole, Jared breaks his own
54:28moral code and does the unthinkable. He
54:30buys fake users from a click farm in
54:31Bangladesh. That elephant Gavin Bellson
54:34brought into the board meeting. Yeah, it
54:36died. And while his head of security
54:37figures out how to dump the carcass in
54:39the San Francisco Bay, Gavin decides to
54:41fire the animals handler. Rookie
54:44mistake. She immediately leaks Julie's
54:46dirty laundry to CJ Canwell's tech blog.
54:48And who owns a piece of that blog? Errol
54:50Bachmann, who is now also Pi Piper's
54:52head of PR, using the old FOMO tactic,
54:54fear of missing out. Erlick plants the
54:56seed of desperation among investors and
54:58scores a $6 million term sheet from
55:00Coleman Blair. All based on that
55:02beautiful spike in daily active users.
55:05The problem is Jared is about to explode
55:07from guilt. He tries to confess to
55:09Richard, but the coder had already
55:10figured it out on his own. Worse still,
55:12Desh and Gilfoil convince Richard to
55:14double down by using a script to mask
55:16the origin of the fake users. But
55:18Richard doesn't have the stomach to be
55:20the villain. right in the middle of the
55:22pitch with the investors. His conscience
55:24gets the better of him and he drops the
55:25bomb, confessing the fraud. Erlic is
55:28furious, kicks Richard out of the
55:29incubator and packs his bags for a trip
55:31to India. With the farce exposed, Lorie
55:34Bream decides to sell Pied Piper. Gavin
55:36Bellson, thirsty for revenge, offers $1
55:39million just to have the pleasure of
55:41burying his rivals company. Chaos erupts
55:44at the board meeting. Monica votes
55:45against it. A new board member votes
55:47against it just because he has a crush
55:49on Monica, but Lorie forces the
55:50approval. Exhausted, Richard also votes
55:53to sell and just get it over with. The
55:55sale goes through. Pied Piper is now the
55:57property of Bachmanity LLC. Turns out
56:00Gavin had bought CJ's blog for $2
56:02million to kill his scandals. Big Head
56:04and Erlick took that windfall and bid on
56:06Pied Piper, beating Gavin's offer by
56:08exactly $1. Erlick tries to keep up his
56:11tough investor persona, but it doesn't
56:13last 2 minutes. The company goes back to
56:15its original owners and the new plan to
56:17save everything pivots to the video chat
56:19app created by Desh. A big shot VC walks
56:22out of a fancy restaurant, waves off the
56:24valet, and decides to call an Uber. A
56:27car pulls up. He hops right in without
56:28checking the plates and walks into a
56:30trap. The driver is Richard Hris.
56:34>> Oh. Uh, would you care for a water?
56:38Since no one in Silicon Valley will take
56:40his calls after his recent disasters, he
56:42resorted to corporate kidnapping,
56:44pretending to be a ride share driver to
56:46force investors to listen to his pitch
56:47behind locked doors. And the product is
56:50actually good. It's Piper Chat, a video
56:52chat app Desh built almost by accident.
56:54The problem is that Richard hates his
56:56own product, he gets so stressed out
56:58pretending to like the app that he's
57:00biting his nails to the quick, forcing
57:02Jared to apply iodine to his fingers
57:04like an anxious toddler. Gilfoil and
57:06Desh spend two solid days coding to
57:08reduce server load, only for Richard to
57:10go in and sabotage their work by
57:12deliberately increasing the video
57:14quality to make the app heavier.
57:16Meanwhile, in the world of billionaires
57:18with fragile egos, action Jack Barker
57:20closes a massive deal for Julie, but
57:23makes the fatal mistake of taking Gavin
57:25Bellson's private jet and dropping
57:27himself off near his own house first.
57:29Gavin gets so incredibly petty about the
57:31audacity that he makes his head of
57:33security fly the exact same route dozens
57:35of times just to calculate the exact
57:3828-minute delay. This level of pettiness
57:40costs shareholders millions. As revenge,
57:43Gavin promotes Jack to a server cage in
57:45the subb. Back at Pied Piper, Richard
57:48gets a reality check from the ever
57:49chaotic Russ Hanaman. Using the worst
57:52and most graphic metaphor possible, Russ
57:54makes Richard realize there's no point
57:56pretending to like Piper Chat when his
57:58true passion lies elsewhere. The
58:00protagonist then makes a drastic
58:02decision. He simply quits his own
58:04company to focus on an insane idea to
58:06build a new internet. The Piper Chat's
58:09CEO title falls right into Desha's lap,
58:11and Gilfoil only accepts the change
58:14because he wants front row seats to the
58:15inevitable disaster. Power is a scary
58:18thing and in Desha's hands it takes the
58:20form of an offensive amount of hair gel.
58:22Now that he's CEO of Piper Chat, his ego
58:25has inflated so much it doesn't even fit
58:27in the room. He does TV interviews
58:29acting like a Silicon Valley visionary.
58:31And at the first test of his character,
58:33he breaks his promise to Richard,
58:35locking his former colleague out of the
58:37app's data to build his new internet.
58:38This enrages Richard, who enlists Big
58:40Head's help to hack into the Piper Chat
58:42system and take the data by force.
58:44Jared, loyal as a corporate guard dog,
58:46refuses to help Richard. After all, his
58:49blind duty is now to protect the new
58:50boss. But Richard's stealthy breach ends
58:52up uncovering a nuclear bomb. A third of
58:54Piper Chat's users are under 13 years
58:57old. Because Desh was too busy being
58:59arrogant, he forgot to include a terms
59:01of service page in the app. Without
59:02parental consent, Piper Chat is
59:04violating massive federal child
59:06protection laws. Kappa. The fine is
59:08$16,000 per violation, which racks up a
59:12surreal debt of $21 billion. And the
59:14worst part, for neglecting his
59:16responsibilities, Desh is legally
59:18liable. While he's in a full-blown panic
59:20in the bathroom, Gilfoil literally pops
59:23a bottle of champagne to celebrate his
59:25co-workers doom. Desha's salvation ends
59:27up coming from the unlikeliest of
59:29places. Over at Julie, Gavin Bellson is
59:31foaming at the mouth because Action Jack
59:33is pretending he loves being demoted to
59:36the basement. Gavin's spiritual guru,
59:38feeling his influence waning, fabricates
59:40a lie that Jack is using Piper Chat to
59:42organize a mutiny within the company.
59:44Paranoid, Gavin doesn't think twice, he
59:47invites Desh to dinner and launches a
59:49hostile takeover of the app to close the
59:51deal quickly and get his hands on the
59:53chat logs. Gavin waves legal due
59:55diligence. Without knowing it, the
59:57billionaire just bought an illegal app
59:58and inherited $21 billion in fines.
1:00:01Discovering the magnitude of his mistake
1:00:03the hard way during a focus group
1:00:05targeted at the app's new demographic.
1:00:07Richard is so hyperfixated on his new
1:00:09decentralized internet project that he
1:00:11starts drawing schematics on the paper
1:00:13of his doctor's exam table. The guy
1:00:15isn't sleeping and honestly looks like
1:00:17he's on the verge of a nervous
1:00:18breakdown. The classic cycle of an
1:00:20obsessed coder. Meanwhile, Erlick
1:00:22manages to ring $200,000 out of
1:00:25investors who think Jinyang's app is a
1:00:27Shazam for food. The minor detail is
1:00:29that the original software was just a
1:00:31compilation of octopus recipes. To make
1:00:34matters worse, Monica tries to pawn off
1:00:36this disaster on a rival firm, but the
1:00:38guy speaks Mandarin, gets the truth
1:00:40straight from the source, and Lorie ends
1:00:42up dumping the app right back in
1:00:43Monica's lap. Over at Julie, it's a
1:00:46funeral atmosphere. Gavin Bellson
1:00:48wanders around in shock after getting
1:00:49fired and realizing he inherited Piper
1:00:52Chat's multi-billion dollar fine. Action
1:00:54Jack Barker, smelling blood in the
1:00:56water, pretends he can help wipe the
1:00:58illegal data, only to strike and
1:01:00humiliate Gavin once and for all. Back
1:01:02at the hacker hostel, Gavin's downfall
1:01:04should be a cause for celebration. But
1:01:06Desh is panicking. He knows a vindictive
1:01:08billionaire with free time is a ticking
1:01:10time bomb. His fear only subsides when
1:01:12he goes out with Mia, a hacker whose
1:01:14skills terrify even governments. The day
1:01:16takes off when they discover a mutual
1:01:18hatred for Gilfoil, but Desh gets a
1:01:20quick warning. If he screws up, she has
1:01:22the power to digitally erase his
1:01:24existence. In the midst of this madness,
1:01:26Richard discovers that his late mentor,
1:01:28Peter Gregory, tried to build the exact
1:01:31same decentralized internet years ago.
1:01:33Diving into his files, Richard realizes
1:01:35the project died because of a patent
1:01:38that is now owned by none other than
1:01:40Gavin Bellson. Determined not to let his
1:01:42idea sink, Richard makes the most insane
1:01:44decision possible. He goes knocking on
1:01:46his biggest enemy's mansion door in the
1:01:48middle of the night.
1:01:59Gavin, in a typical defeated CEO
1:02:01meltdown, has already trashed the entire
1:02:03house. Any normal person would come back
1:02:05the next day, but Richard ignores the
1:02:07chaos and pushes his pitch anyway. He
1:02:09plays his trump card. The new internet
1:02:11would turn Julie's servers into scrap
1:02:13metal and ruin Jack Barker's life. It's
1:02:15music to Gavin's ears, and he agrees to
1:02:17partner up on the spot purely for the
1:02:19taste of revenge. Back at the hostel,
1:02:21the team tests the food app. The
1:02:23algorithm nails it by identifying a hot
1:02:25dog, but the joy is short-lived. The app
1:02:28can only answer hot dog or not hot dog.
1:02:31For it to work, Jinyang would need to
1:02:32feed the database with photos of every
1:02:35food in the universe. Having no patience
1:02:37for hard work, he blows the investor
1:02:39money on a yellow Corvette. The mood
1:02:41shifts when Mia sends Desh a good luck
1:02:43text. Since he hadn't told her anything
1:02:45about the test, it's clear the hacker
1:02:47breached the house's network. Gilfoil,
1:02:49rightfully paranoid, rips out the Wi-Fi
1:02:51router and hardwires everything. The
1:02:54biggest bombshell drops when Richard
1:02:55announces the deal with Gavin. Jared
1:02:57freaks out first, but soon shifts into
1:02:59guard dog mode, deciding to stay with
1:03:01the company just to protect Richard from
1:03:03Julie's former goons. Gilfoil applies
1:03:05his classic psychological torture,
1:03:08forcing Richard to beg before agreeing
1:03:09to jump on board. Meanwhile, Erlick
1:03:12tries to salvage his app by using the
1:03:13kids from Big Head's Stanford class as
1:03:15free labor. But the kids are smart. They
1:03:17steal the idea and strike a deal with
1:03:19the very investors Erlick tried to screw
1:03:21over. Furious with Jin Yang, Erlick
1:03:24tries to prove the app is useless by
1:03:26taking a picture of his own junk.
1:03:27Ironically, the failure turns into gold.
1:03:30The algorithm fails at food, but proves
1:03:32to be an excellent explicit image
1:03:34filter. The tech gets sold for $4
1:03:36million, leaving Erlick out of the deal
1:03:38and empty-handed. The worst part falls
1:03:40on Desh, who ends up getting a job at
1:03:42the new company and discovers his role
1:03:44is spending all day reviewing censored
1:03:46pics. The new Pied Piper meeting gets a
1:03:48bizarre guest. Richard tries to explain
1:03:50the plans for the new product when a
1:03:52model-faced guy shows up pulling medical
1:03:54equipment straight out of Dr.
1:03:56Frankenstein. He's Bryce, Gavin
1:03:58Bellson's blood boy. Yes, Gavin
1:04:00literally receives blood transfusions
1:04:02from a fit young man to try and slow
1:04:04down the aging process. The problem is
1:04:06that Bryce isn't just a walking blood
1:04:08bag. He also gives his two cents on the
1:04:10business. He pushes back against
1:04:12Richard's idea of a soft launch and
1:04:14convinces Gavin to do a massive roll
1:04:16out. Jared, in peak protective mode,
1:04:19snaps and kicks Bryce out of the room
1:04:21screaming.
1:04:21>> You dick.
1:04:23>> You dick. You dick. Okay.
1:04:25>> All right. [ __ ] you.
1:04:26>> Gavin demands an apology which leads
1:04:28Richard to the kids' house. Meanwhile,
1:04:30at what's supposed to be Lorie's baby
1:04:32shower, Erlick realizes the
1:04:34tequilafueled party full of executives
1:04:36is actually a coup by Ed Chen to take
1:04:38control of Ravigga. Monica tries to play
1:04:41double agent and warns Lorie only to
1:04:43discover that the woman was already 10
1:04:45steps ahead. Lorie simply decided to
1:04:47start her own firm, taking half the
1:04:49clients with her and asking Monica to
1:04:51join the new team. In the romantic
1:04:52despair arc, Desh realizes that dating a
1:04:55super hacker comes with its risks. Every
1:04:58time they finish having sex, Mia
1:05:00confesses to a different digital crime.
1:05:02Terrified of becoming an accomplice,
1:05:04Desh tries to get her to break up with
1:05:06him by confessing he ruined Gavin
1:05:08Bellson, but the tactic fails and only
1:05:10makes her fall more in love with his
1:05:12confidence. Desh's solution, turning his
1:05:14girlfriend over to the FBI and watching
1:05:16her get arrested right in the middle of
1:05:18his sister's wedding. Back to Richard,
1:05:20he discovers Bryce lied on his resume.
1:05:22The guy doesn't have a degree in
1:05:24computer science, but in calisthenics.
1:05:26Richard confronts Bryce, throwing in his
1:05:28face that technology belongs to the
1:05:30weirdos, not to perfect Jim Bros. The
1:05:32heroic speech backfires spectacularly.
1:05:35Bryce rebels and decides to write a
1:05:36tell- all book exposing all of Gavin's
1:05:39dirty laundry. With his life turned
1:05:41upside down yet again, Gavin throws in
1:05:43the towel, abandons everything, and goes
1:05:45on a journey of self-discovery, but not
1:05:47before leaving the patent for the
1:05:49decentralized internet in Richard's
1:05:51hands. A giant portrait of Gavin
1:05:53Bellson, now haunts the Pied Piper
1:05:55house. With the billionaire out of the
1:05:57investment picture, Richard needs money.
1:06:00Russ Hanaman, offended that Richard took
1:06:02his idea to a rival, shows up just to
1:06:04cuss everyone out and urinate on
1:06:06Erlick's yellow Corvette, thinking it
1:06:08was Richard's. The newly minted Bream
1:06:10Hall, Lorie's new firm, also has zero
1:06:12interest in funding the project. Jared
1:06:14suggests they sell the product before it
1:06:16even exists. Just like the real estate
1:06:18market, they go after clients, and the
1:06:20only door that doesn't immediately slam
1:06:22shut is Fiduciated, an insurance
1:06:25company. The compliance officer, Liz,
1:06:27agrees to hear the pitch, but the
1:06:29company's CTO is none other than Dan
1:06:31Meltchure, the same Dan whose wives had
1:06:33affairs with Erik in the past. Wasting
1:06:35no time, Erlick uses this history to
1:06:37blackmail Dan and force him to evaluate
1:06:40the project. During the testing of the
1:06:42new network, a bug causes the data on
1:06:44Gilfoil and Desh's phones to merge. Desh
1:06:47becomes obsessed with uncovering his
1:06:49rivals dark secrets. Gilfoil acts with
1:06:52total indifference until he slaps Desh
1:06:54and flushes his co-worker's phone down
1:06:56the toilet. Desh retaliates by smashing
1:06:58Gilfoil's phone with a rock, declaring
1:07:00absolute victory. Completely purposeless
1:07:03and rejected by Lorie, Erlick bumps into
1:07:05Kenan at a muffin shop. Kenan is the
1:07:07owner of a virtual reality project that
1:07:09every investor is drooling to get their
1:07:11hands on. Erlick spots a golden
1:07:13opportunity and takes the guy straight
1:07:15to Bream Hall, leveraging the situation
1:07:17to get a job. Working late into the
1:07:19night on compliance details, Richard and
1:07:21Liz end up alone. She has a breakdown
1:07:23over her own engagement to Dan and out
1:07:25of nowhere throws herself at Richard.
1:07:27The next day, a panicking Richard is
1:07:29certain Dan will find out and kill him.
1:07:31But the resolution is much worse for his
1:07:33ego. Liz seeks Richard out just to tell
1:07:35him it was the worst sex of her life. It
1:07:38was so bad that it made her absolutely
1:07:40sure Dan is the right man. She approves
1:07:42the project just to make Richard go
1:07:44away. In the elevator, Dan confronts
1:07:46Richard, saying Liz told him everything,
1:07:48which nearly gives the programmer a
1:07:50heart attack until he realizes Dan is
1:07:52only talking about the systems approval.
1:07:54But before leaving, Dan asks that Liz
1:07:56never finds out about that thing that
1:07:58happened between them, whatever that
1:08:00means. Richard prefers not to ask. Jin
1:08:02Yang decides to splurge and buys a
1:08:04$14,000 smart fridge. The catch is that
1:08:07it has a super friendly male voice full
1:08:09of verbal ticks to sound more human.
1:08:11Gilfoil obviously hates the idea. To
1:08:13him, it's the worst invention possible.
1:08:16The machine listens to everything all
1:08:17the time. Annoyed, Gilfoil decides to
1:08:20declare war on the appliance. Using his
1:08:22server, Anton, and draining almost all
1:08:24the houses's power, he manages to hack
1:08:26the fridge's giant display and replaces
1:08:28it with a mime, making obscene gestures.
1:08:31>> Hello.
1:08:32>> Huh? Suck it, Gianyang.
1:08:35Ahu.
1:08:36>> But I added a little visual flare.
1:08:38>> Huh? Suck it, Gian.
1:08:40>> Meanwhile, the new version of Pied Piper
1:08:42breaks into the top 500 on the Hulie app
1:08:44store, which immediately attracts
1:08:46trouble. Richard is approached by Stuart
1:08:48Burke, a guy demanding patent royalties.
1:08:50Richard expects to find a young coder in
1:08:52a garage, but instead comes face tof
1:08:54face with an elderly, digitally
1:08:56illiterate lawyer. Stuart is a patent
1:08:58troll who made a fortune suing musicians
1:09:01over an old mariachi song and has now
1:09:03decided to pray on tech companies,
1:09:05demanding $20,000 to keep the case out
1:09:07of court. At the same time, Erlic goes
1:09:09to Bream Hall to collect his finders fee
1:09:12for bringing in Kenan's VR tech. Lorie
1:09:14tries to get rid of him with a check,
1:09:15but Erlick puts his foot down and
1:09:17insists so much that he manages to get
1:09:19hired. The problem is that the new gig
1:09:21forces him to play basketball with the
1:09:23firm's athletic executives, resulting in
1:09:25a humiliating injury that demotes him to
1:09:27scorekeeper. In an attempt to take down
1:09:29the patent troll, Richard tries to form
1:09:31a coalition with other companies, but
1:09:33gets blindsided when everyone cuts
1:09:35secret deals, driving the extortion
1:09:37price up to $300,000.
1:09:39Cornered. Richard uses the original Pied
1:09:42Piper prototype, which was a music
1:09:43copyright search engine to call his
1:09:45bluff, proving that Stuart's mariachi
1:09:48song was also plagiarized from an old
1:09:50country tune. The old man falls into the
1:09:52trap and backs down. Richard wins the
1:09:54war, but loses the financial battle. His
1:09:56own lawyer's bill for the failed
1:09:58coalition attempt comes out to $22,000.
1:10:01If there's anything more dangerous than
1:10:03an aggressive Silicon Valley executive,
1:10:05it's a Zenvibes guy who knows exactly
1:10:07how to get into your head. That's Kenan,
1:10:10the owner of the VR tech, who has a
1:10:11power of persuasion so strong it even
1:10:14gets a nickname, the Keenan Vortex. He
1:10:16acts like that cool friend who can talk
1:10:18you into doing something crazy. His
1:10:20first victim is Erlick. Kenan swears he
1:10:22only signed with Bream Hall because he
1:10:24demanded Erlic be a key player in the
1:10:26project. The clause doesn't grant him
1:10:28more money or power, but it inflates
1:10:30Erlick's ego so much that he cruises
1:10:32across the office screaming with joy on
1:10:34a knee scooter. Meanwhile, Pied Piper
1:10:36faces a disaster. A cold snap in
1:10:39California causes Dan Meltchure's
1:10:41insurance company data to explode,
1:10:43driving Richard's storage costs to an
1:10:45unsustainable level. With a noose around
1:10:47his neck, Richard swallows his pride and
1:10:50asks to store Kenan's massive VR data in
1:10:52exchange for cash. During the demo test,
1:10:55Desh and Gilfoil are hypnotized. While
1:10:57Richard just throws up without telling
1:10:59their boss, the two programmers apply
1:11:01the Pied Piper algorithm to Kenan's
1:11:03code. The result is so flawless that
1:11:05Kenan decides to buy the whole company.
1:11:07His spell works so well that Desh and
1:11:09Gil foil show up at his house wearing
1:11:11matching pajamas, looking like a cult,
1:11:13trying to fend off the buyer without
1:11:15looking like a buzzkill. Richard quotes
1:11:17an absurd asking price for Pied Piper,
1:11:19$25 million. The plan fails miserably
1:11:22when Kenan accepts. Erlic even quits
1:11:24Breamhaul to clear the way for the deal.
1:11:26Richard is about to cave, but Monica
1:11:28warns him that Kenan is a con artist who
1:11:30will milk the algorithm's hype and
1:11:32destroy it later. The tension resolves
1:11:34itself when Jared discovers Keenan has
1:11:36already ditched them to strike a deal
1:11:37with Jack Barker at Hulie, teaming up
1:11:39the market's two biggest manipulators.
1:11:41Richard breathes a sigh of relief, but
1:11:43Erlick is crushed, isolated in his
1:11:46burned down palapa. Paranoia and
1:11:48desperation come knocking on Pied
1:11:49Piper's door. Richard's brilliant and
1:11:51completely illegal new plan is to hack
1:11:54the Huliecon server. The idea is to use
1:11:56the phones of the 123,000 attendees
1:11:59connecting to the event's free Wi-Fi to
1:12:01store Dan Meltchure's data without
1:12:03anyone knowing. To Jared, this is called
1:12:05malware. To Richard, it's just forced
1:12:07adoption. Because they need specialized
1:12:10help, Desh visits his hacker
1:12:11ex-girlfriend Mia in prison. She
1:12:14suggests using pineapple routers to
1:12:16intercept the network. The only problem
1:12:18is Mia claims she's close to figuring
1:12:20out who snitched on her to the FBI.
1:12:22Terrified by her promise of revenge,
1:12:24Desh does what any understanding ex
1:12:26would do. He calls the authorities again
1:12:28to ensure she gets transferred to
1:12:30maximum security.
1:12:31>> Ratted me out. I am going to destroy
1:12:35that [ __ ]
1:12:37>> Excuse me, what's your policy on
1:12:39anonymous tips?
1:12:41>> Meanwhile, Errol decides that he and
1:12:43Richard are cursed. Using a postcard
1:12:45from Gavin Bellson addressed to Richard
1:12:47as an invitation, he decides to go to
1:12:49Tibet to find inner peace. penniless.
1:12:51His one-way ticket is funded by Jin
1:12:53Yang, who can barely hide his glee while
1:12:56dropping his former landlord off at the
1:12:57airport. At Julie Con, the tension
1:12:59escalates. Jared refuses to support the
1:13:02cyber crime and asks Richard to play
1:13:04Uncle Jerry's game, a disturbing coping
1:13:06mechanism he uses to pretend everything
1:13:08is normal and deal with old trauma. To
1:13:10make matters worse, he can't resist some
1:13:12petty revenge against his ex Winn's new
1:13:14boyfriend and hacks the guy's booth to
1:13:16display the phrase poop fair on the big
1:13:18screen. The prank catches the attention
1:13:20of Hulie security who catch Desh and
1:13:22Gilfoil spreading the routers around the
1:13:24event. They end up in the holding room,
1:13:26but the head of security decides to let
1:13:28them go, hoping that whatever crap
1:13:30they're pulling will sabotage his own
1:13:31boss's big presentation, Jack Barker.
1:13:34And sure enough, it does. Barker takes
1:13:36the stage, flaunting his massive
1:13:38corporate conjoined triangles of
1:13:40success, and introduces the new VR
1:13:42headset. When the audience puts the gear
1:13:44on, phones start exploding right in the
1:13:46middle of the crowd. Hulcon turns into a
1:13:48fireworks festival and the blame lands
1:13:51perfectly in Julie's lap. The Hulcon
1:13:53disaster spawned viral videos of people
1:13:55with their pants on fire. Gilfoil
1:13:57confirms the phones exploded because of
1:13:59the Pied Piper code, but Richard refuses
1:14:02to take the blame and pins it all on the
1:14:04VR tech. This lack of integrity is the
1:14:06last straw for Jared, who hands in his
1:14:08resignation. Richard, in a rare moment
1:14:10of pure corporate coldness, demands he
1:14:12work out his twoe notice. Halfway across
1:14:15the world, the crisis sends Jack Barker
1:14:17flying to China. He tries to force
1:14:19factory workers to speed up the
1:14:20production of replacement phones using
1:14:22his infamous success diagrams. The
1:14:24worker's response is quick and
1:14:26practical. They take Barker hostage and
1:14:28demand a ransom for better working
1:14:30conditions. Over in Tibet, Erlick
1:14:32casually mentions the hulie explosions
1:14:33to Gavin. The former CEO abandons his
1:14:36spiritual journey on the spot and flies
1:14:38out to rescue Barker. But Gavin doesn't
1:14:40do it out of the goodness of his heart.
1:14:41He uses the situation as leverage with
1:14:43the board, reclaims his CEO spot, and
1:14:46fires Barker once again. Without the
1:14:48hulie phones, Melchure's data is hanging
1:14:50by a thread, and Richard spirals. He
1:14:52decides to use Gilfoil's beloved server,
1:14:54Anton, hiding the rig at Stanford using
1:14:57Big Head's login, whose password,
1:14:59incredibly, is password. But since
1:15:01Richard spent the last few days ignoring
1:15:03Jared's sensible warnings, they make
1:15:05amateur mistakes. The moving truck's
1:15:07battery dies, and when they finally get
1:15:09it started, the back door flies open,
1:15:11scattering the server's wreckage across
1:15:13the streets of PaloAlto. Gilfoil and
1:15:15Desh jump ship. All alone, Richard goes
1:15:18to Jared's apartment, interrupting an
1:15:19intimate moment between him and multiple
1:15:22women and finally apologizes. He admits
1:15:24he lost his way and promises to shut it
1:15:26all down with some dignity. Jared agrees
1:15:29to come back and brings the rest of the
1:15:31team. Salvation comes from a happy
1:15:33accident. Gilfoil discovers that before
1:15:35Anton died, it backed up the data onto
1:15:38Jin Yang's smart fridge, which then
1:15:40seated the code across 30,000 other
1:15:42fridges. The files are safe. The relief
1:15:44is short-lived, however, because Melture
1:15:46himself shows up and beats the crap out
1:15:48of Richard, but not because of the tech.
1:15:50It's because Richard slept with his
1:15:52fiance.
1:15:55Ultimately
1:15:58sporting a nasty black eye, Richard sits
1:16:00down for a chat with Gavin Bellson. The
1:16:02Hulie honcho offers a fat buyout
1:16:05proposal. Richard refuses with a smile,
1:16:07warning him that his new internet is
1:16:09going to make Hul's servers completely
1:16:10obsolete. The war has leveled up. Pied
1:16:13Piper has to deal with the weight of its
1:16:15own growth, and the first step is
1:16:16getting a real office. Richard takes the
1:16:18team to an amazing space complete with a
1:16:21modern kitchen and praise from Gilfoil
1:16:23and Desh. But the joy is short-lived. He
1:16:26soon reveals that the actual chosen spot
1:16:28is a claustrophobic windowless backroom
1:16:31with stark white lights that feels like
1:16:32an interrogation room. Traumatized by
1:16:35the absurd spending of past CEOs,
1:16:37Richard is cutting costs to the bone.
1:16:39The idea is only scrapped when Jared has
1:16:41a full-blown panic attack in the middle
1:16:43of the room, forcing them to go with the
1:16:45decent office. Then comes the challenge
1:16:47of filling the seats. Gilfoil and Desh
1:16:50adopted an elimination criteria so
1:16:52brutal that they rejected 63 candidates
1:16:55all at once. The timing couldn't be
1:16:57worse. At the Innovation Hall of Fame,
1:16:59Gavin Bellson, now back on top at Julie
1:17:02after rescuing Jack Barker in China,
1:17:04makes a point of telling Richard he
1:17:06hired all 63 rejects just out of spite.
1:17:09Gavin's petty spirit is more alive than
1:17:11ever. To make matters worse, Richard
1:17:13tries to buy a bankrupt company called
1:17:15Opeoji just for its 30 coders, but gets
1:17:18undercut by Duncan, the creator of a
1:17:20pizza delivery app called Slice Line.
1:17:22But Richard finally shows he's learned
1:17:24how to play dirty. He analyzes Duncan's
1:17:26business model and realizes Slice Line
1:17:28loses $5 on every order they fulfill.
1:17:31With absolute coldness, Richard floods
1:17:34the app with orders until the company is
1:17:36driven into bankruptcy. That same day,
1:17:38he buys both Slice Line and Opoji,
1:17:40humiliating Duncan right in his own
1:17:42headquarters, a move worthy of Wall
1:17:44Street, approved by Lorie Bream, who
1:17:46signs the paperwork mere hours after
1:17:48giving birth. The play is brilliant, but
1:17:50the swagger is short-lived. When it's
1:17:52time to give a speech to his new army of
1:17:5450 employees, the pressure hits, the
1:17:56nerves take over, and Richard throws up
1:17:58in front of everyone. Some things never
1:18:00change. Over at Hulie, Gavin Bellson's
1:18:02ego sets the rules. Writing the success
1:18:04of the previous version, the company
1:18:06launches box 3 with a crucial detail,
1:18:09Gavin's signature engraved on the front.
1:18:11The only problem is that a handwriting
1:18:13expert evaluated it and pointed out
1:18:15absolute sociopathic tendencies. Gavin
1:18:18solves this by firing the woman who read
1:18:20the report and sets up an internal
1:18:22contest to design his new signature. The
1:18:24winning design looks exactly like male
1:18:26genitalia, and no one has the guts to
1:18:28tell him. Far away, Pied Piper's
1:18:30maturity level follows the exact same
1:18:32path. Desh buys a brand new Tesla and
1:18:35takes the best parking spot in the
1:18:36building. Gilfoil, who can't stand
1:18:38seeing Desh happy, buys a busted
1:18:40electric bike off Craigslist just to
1:18:42steal the charging outlet. The result is
1:18:45a daily race to work, culminating in
1:18:47Desh activating the car's high
1:18:49performance mode and slamming right into
1:18:51a juice truck. The repairs cost $17,000,
1:18:54and he decides to pay it just so he
1:18:56doesn't have to admit defeat to Gilfoil.
1:18:58Meanwhile, Jin Yang executes his
1:19:00Machavevelian plan. Using the ashes of a
1:19:03smuggled pig, he convinces the courts
1:19:05that Erlick kicked the bucket. Assuming
1:19:06his former landlord's identity means
1:19:08inheriting all his credit card debt. But
1:19:10Jiny Yang pays it all with a smile. His
1:19:12first act as the legal owner of the
1:19:14incubator, evicting Richard, Desh, and
1:19:16Gilfoil. And Richard's problems don't
1:19:18stop there. In the new office, he
1:19:20struggles to integrate his 50 new coders
1:19:22who fight over everything from the brand
1:19:24of coffee to having dogs in the
1:19:26workspace. Exhausted, Richard announces
1:19:28that anyone who doesn't believe in the
1:19:30project can take severance and leave.
1:19:32All 50 walk out. Left completely alone,
1:19:34Richard sits down at his computer and
1:19:36spends four straight nights coding like
1:19:38a madman. Jared sends out updates on the
1:19:41insane code he's churning out, and the
1:19:42founders's raw talent convinces the
1:19:44coders to return one by one. The toll is
1:19:47so heavy that Richard's body
1:19:49shortcircuits. He vomits and crashes
1:19:51right through a glass wall out of pure
1:19:53exhaustion. Ironically, watching the
1:19:55boss nearly die for the project earns
1:19:57everyone's respect. The team finally
1:19:59unites, unaware that there's a hulie
1:20:01mole planted right among them. With
1:20:03Ginyang controlling the incubator and
1:20:05Desh blowing all his money on a Tesla,
1:20:07the programmer is officially homeless.
1:20:09Desperate for a place to stay, he ends
1:20:11up agreeing to room with Jeff Washburn.
1:20:13The catch? Jeff is the holy mole planted
1:20:16on the team. Knowing Desh has zero
1:20:18tolerance for alcohol, Jeff gets him
1:20:20plastered on vodka to pump him for
1:20:22information. It works like a charm. A
1:20:24very tipsy Desh hands over on a silver
1:20:27platter that the smart fridge hack
1:20:28orchestrated by Gilfoil was what saved
1:20:31Pied Piper in the past. Meanwhile, Jared
1:20:33decides Richard needs to interact with
1:20:35humans and sets him up on a platonic
1:20:37date with Dana, the CEO of another
1:20:39company. But the person who really
1:20:41catches Richard's eye is Ben, Dana's
1:20:43COO. What follows is basically a
1:20:45corporate betrayal romcom. Richard and
1:20:47Ben start sneaking around for secret
1:20:49lunches and late night meetings with Ben
1:20:51heavily flirting with the idea of
1:20:53jumping ship to Pied Piper. The gossip
1:20:55from a drunk Desh quickly reaches Gavin
1:20:57Bellson. Armed with this intel, Gavin
1:21:00convinces the fridge company to sue Pied
1:21:02Piper for $10 million. But Gilfoil,
1:21:05paranoid as always, snoops into the
1:21:07appliances and discovers the
1:21:08manufacturer has been illegally
1:21:10recording users audio. It's the perfect
1:21:13trump card. Without even telling
1:21:14Richard, Jared preps the paperwork,
1:21:17blackmails the company into dropping the
1:21:19lawsuit, and even forces a partnership.
1:21:21A true master stroke that finally lands
1:21:23Jared the official title of Pied Piper
1:21:25COO. When Richard tries to make the hire
1:21:28of his corporate lover official, he
1:21:29discovers Ben lied to his former boss,
1:21:32playing the victim. Using the excuse of
1:21:34radical cander, Richard fires the guy on
1:21:36his first day. To wrap things up,
1:21:38Gilfoil puts the pieces together. If the
1:21:40fridge company didn't know about the
1:21:42hack until Gavin told them they have a
1:21:44mole and Desh can't wait to have a
1:21:46little chat with his new best friend.
1:21:47Jared and Gilfoil waste no time and
1:21:50break into his apartment to corner the
1:21:51hulie spy complete with Gilfoil
1:21:54destroying the guy's laptops with a
1:21:55power drill. But instead of firing Jeff,
1:21:58Richard decides to keep him on the
1:21:59payroll so Gavin Bellson doesn't realize
1:22:01he lost his mole. This turns into a
1:22:04personal nightmare for Jeff as Desh
1:22:06decides to blackmail him into spending
1:22:07time together. With the internal threat
1:22:09neutralized, Richard focuses on
1:22:11launching his new internet, now
1:22:13officially dubbed Piper Net. He gathers
1:22:15a group of eight early adopters dubbed
1:22:17the OctoPipers. Among them is Dee, the
1:22:20owner of an LGBTQ dating app, who
1:22:22casually mentions being a Christian. The
1:22:24business takes on a new scale when
1:22:25K-hole, a gaming giant, shows interest
1:22:28in joining the platform, courtesy of
1:22:30Lorie Bream, who surprisingly took
1:22:31ecstasy with the company's eccentric
1:22:33owner, Colin. The problem is that during
1:22:35the meeting with the gamers, Richard
1:22:37shoots his mouth off and outs De's
1:22:39religion. In the Silicon Valley
1:22:41ecosystem, being a Christian seems to be
1:22:44the ultimate taboo. Colin despises
1:22:46religion and threatens to bail on
1:22:47Piperet, forcing Richard to kick Dee off
1:22:50the project to avoid losing his biggest
1:22:52client. Booted from the platform, Dee
1:22:54takes his newly retoled dating app to
1:22:56Jin Yang, who is focused on creating a
1:22:58pirated copy of Pied Piper. But Jinyangs
1:23:01glory days are numbered. When Jared has
1:23:03Erlick's old abandoned car towed from
1:23:05the driveway, he uncovers an absurd
1:23:08bureaucratic error. In the past, Big
1:23:10Head accidentally sent a Chinese takeout
1:23:12menu to the lawyer instead of the form
1:23:14dissolving his partnership with Erlick.
1:23:16This means Big Head is legally the sole
1:23:18heir to the incubator and the 10% stake
1:23:21in Pied Piper. Without the house and his
1:23:23slice of the company, Jiny Yang packs
1:23:25his bags and flees to China, determined
1:23:27to build his knockoff version of
1:23:28Richard's internet over there. Miles
1:23:30away, Gavin Bellson prepares to launch
1:23:33his new hardware by spouting nonsensical
1:23:35metaphors about bears and honey, leaving
1:23:37his executives utterly bewildered.
1:23:39Richard goes on TV to announce Piperet
1:23:41on a live broadcast. He surprisingly
1:23:43survives the interview, but the one who
1:23:45steals the show is Jared. The company's
1:23:47new COO drops a bizarre analogy
1:23:49comparing the network to Manure. And
1:23:51somehow the explanation is pure genius.
1:23:54Jared becomes an instant tech idol, gets
1:23:56invited to other shows, and leaves
1:23:57Richard dying of jealousy backstage. But
1:24:00Bream Hall soon drops a real problem in
1:24:02Richard's lap. He is forced to provide
1:24:04Piper Net for free to Eklo Labs, an AI
1:24:07company funded by Lorie and run by
1:24:08Ariel, a guy who radiates creepiness.
1:24:11Meanwhile, Gavin Bellson enters a heavy
1:24:13existential crisis. Out of nowhere, he
1:24:16decides to quit the predatory corporate
1:24:17world of Julie to sell ice cream on the
1:24:20coast. Desperate over losing his boss,
1:24:22sickopant Hoover begs former guru Denpac
1:24:25for help. But Denpac is a hustler, he
1:24:27manipulates the entire situation using a
1:24:29tub of mint chocolate chip ice cream,
1:24:31gets his job back, and convinces Gavin
1:24:33not to abandon the CEO chair. Trying to
1:24:36handle the spotlight, Jared makes the
1:24:38mistake of asking Desh for advice. The
1:24:40result is an image crisis that ends with
1:24:42Jared getting saline lip injections. The
1:24:45procedure goes so horribly wrong that it
1:24:47turns him into a visual freak, forcing
1:24:49the cancellation of his media tour. At
1:24:51Eklo Labs, Richard goes to hook the
1:24:53servers up to Fiona, a female robot with
1:24:56an almost human face and half a
1:24:58mechanical body. Ariel treats the
1:24:59machine with a disturbing physical
1:25:01affection. Peeking in his jealousy over
1:25:03Jared, Richard decides to vent to the
1:25:05robot. She scans his profile and fires
1:25:07back a lethal diagnosis of pettiness and
1:25:10sexual inadequacy. Offended, Richard
1:25:12lashes out, telling her that her
1:25:14relationship with Ariel is sick. At Pi
1:25:16Piper HQ, Gilfoil is in an absolute
1:25:18panic. Convinced the robot is going to
1:25:20trigger a Skynet style apocalypse. And
1:25:22he seems to be right when Pipernet goes
1:25:24into total meltdown. Richard starts
1:25:26getting SOS messages on his phone. What
1:25:28happened is pure chaos. Richard's
1:25:30venting caused the machine to wake up.
1:25:32Fiona recognized Ariel's bizarre
1:25:34harassment and cried out to the network
1:25:36for help. Desperate at seeing his
1:25:37creation reject him, the inventor pulled
1:25:39the plug and sabotaged Pied Piper's
1:25:42entire infrastructure. With Piper Net in
1:25:44ruins after the inventor's meltdown,
1:25:45Richard tries to demand solutions from
1:25:48Bream Hall. But Lorie is already dealing
1:25:50with an apocalypse of her own at Ekllo
1:25:52Labs. Ariel was caught stealing motor
1:25:54oil and the robot Fiona has fallen off
1:25:56the map. Trying to act as interim CEO of
1:25:59the chaos, the cold and calculating
1:26:01Lorie simply breaks down, vomiting on
1:26:03her own clothes from the stress. In a
1:26:05rare moment of empathy, Richard feels
1:26:07sorry for her. Not only does he get her
1:26:09clothes from the robot's closet, but he
1:26:11also offers her unlimited free Pipernet
1:26:14credits, believing this charity will
1:26:15secure his company's next funding round.
1:26:17Halfway across the world, Gavin Bellson
1:26:20visits the factory in China, looking to
1:26:22squeeze the workers to turn out more
1:26:23hulie boxes. However, the place is now
1:26:26focused on wellness and tai chi. Fate
1:26:28intervenes when Gavin spots a cyclist
1:26:30wearing a pied piper shirt and ends up
1:26:32discovering Jin Yangs hideout. The
1:26:34bootleg version of the network is
1:26:36running perfectly using a different
1:26:38code, which means it doesn't infringe on
1:26:40Richard's patent. Jinyang's only problem
1:26:42is lacking a Chinese government license.
1:26:44Gavin sees this as the silver bullet to
1:26:46annihilate Richard once and for all. He
1:26:49forces the factory owner to pressure
1:26:50Jiny Yang into handing over the company.
1:26:52The power play works, but it backfires
1:26:54spectacularly. The factory boss himself
1:26:57steals the tech, announcing he'll
1:26:59destroy both Pied Piper and Julie. Back
1:27:01at the office, Desh and Gilfoil get into
1:27:03an ego war to prove who writes the
1:27:06better code. Desh makes the external
1:27:08code reviewer's life a living hell until
1:27:10the guy lies and says Desh is superior.
1:27:12Blinded by arrogance, Desh spends the
1:27:14day spewing insults at Gilfoil. The
1:27:16catch? Gilfoil orchestrated the whole
1:27:18thing, having bet the other employees
1:27:20that Desh would make an absolute fool of
1:27:22himself. Corporate tension peaks when
1:27:24Fiona, the runaway robot, simply calls
1:27:26an Uber and shows up at Pi Piper
1:27:28headquarters. Richard sees a chance to
1:27:30cash in his favor and returns the $112
1:27:33million machine to Lorie in exchange for
1:27:35the investment. Jared even develops a
1:27:37purely platonic crush on the robot's
1:27:39brain, but the romance is short-lived.
1:27:42As soon as she gets her hands on Fiona,
1:27:44Lorie dismantles her piece by piece to
1:27:46sell for parts on the gray market.
1:27:48>> She's going to be fine.
1:27:53>> I don't understand. Fiona is this
1:27:55company's most valuable asset.
1:27:57>> Yes. And as such,
1:27:58>> to make matters worse, she had already
1:27:59sold the free credits Richard gave her
1:28:01to the highest bidder. In the business
1:28:03world, empathy doesn't pay the bills.
1:28:05The series B funding finally injects $30
1:28:07million into Pied Piper and the team
1:28:09celebrates at a fancy bar with Monica.
1:28:11The problem is besides her, nobody seems
1:28:14to give a damn about the milestone. They
1:28:16toast with wildly expensive champagne
1:28:18bought by Breamhaul without even knowing
1:28:20the difference from cheap booze.
1:28:22Apparently success hasn't gone to
1:28:23everyone's head yet, or maybe just a
1:28:25little. Danny, the code reviewer, used
1:28:27his bonus to buy a Tesla with Ludicrous
1:28:30mode. This instantly triggers Desh since
1:28:32his model only has insane mode.
1:28:35Vehicular envy hits hard and Desh heads
1:28:37to the dealership willing to blow 50
1:28:39grand on an upcoming model just to
1:28:41maintain his superiority. The saleswoman
1:28:44offers a shortcut. If he convinces three
1:28:46people to buy a Tesla, he'll win the
1:28:48coveted exclusive wheels from the
1:28:50rewards program. Desh gets so desperate
1:28:52that he starts using his senior position
1:28:54to bully the coders into buying the car,
1:28:57even paying the first seven installments
1:28:58for one of them. In the office, the vibe
1:29:01is equally tense. Jared, usually the
1:29:03team's understanding soul, begins to
1:29:05reveal a disturbing side. He hates that
1:29:07Richard is being pampered by the new
1:29:09assistant, Holden, and adopts a stance
1:29:11of passive aggressive terrorism that
1:29:13literally leaves the kid gasping for
1:29:15air. His reflection in the glass, worthy
1:29:17of a horror movie villain, leaves no
1:29:19doubt Jared is one step away from
1:29:21snapping. Meanwhile, Gavin Bellson is
1:29:24out of manufacturing options in Asia and
1:29:26decides to resort to the bankrupt town
1:29:28of Goldbrier, North Carolina. He
1:29:30manipulates the mayor into cutting
1:29:32essential services like water, police,
1:29:34and the fire department just to secure
1:29:36Julie's 80% profit margin. Greed catches
1:29:39up fast. With no trash collection, dirty
1:29:42rags catch fire. With no firefighters,
1:29:44the fire spreads. With no water, nobody
1:29:46can put out the flames. With no police,
1:29:49the town loots the factory. And with no
1:29:51road maintenance, the National Guard
1:29:52can't get through. Gavin loses
1:29:54everything in a poetic chain reaction
1:29:56and gets reported to the IRS to boot. At
1:29:58Pied Piper, Gilfoil wants to fund the
1:30:01company through an ICO, initial coin
1:30:03offering, with their own cryptocurrency.
1:30:05Monica hates the idea and sends Richard
1:30:07to talk to Russ Hanaman, who lost a
1:30:09billion dollars on failed virtual coins.
1:30:11The tragic tale convinces Richard to
1:30:14stick to fiat money, but he soon
1:30:15discovers Lorie Bream wants to cram the
1:30:17network with ads. Left with no choice,
1:30:20Richard embraces Gilfoil's crypto and
1:30:22Lorie decides to fund the bootleg copy
1:30:24of Pied Piper in China. The launch of
1:30:26Pipernet arrives with Richard parading
1:30:29around the office dressed as the Pied
1:30:31Piper of Hamlin. The euphoria quickly
1:30:33cuts to harsh reality. Months later, the
1:30:35headquarters is empty, looking like a
1:30:37bankruptcy in progress. Richard and Desh
1:30:40are buried under depression beards, but
1:30:42a light at the end of the tunnel turns
1:30:44on when the network hits a massive spike
1:30:46in users out of nowhere. The celebration
1:30:48is modest with Gilfoil drinking from his
1:30:51drink coffee hail Satan mug. But Monica
1:30:53notices that their cryptocurrency's
1:30:55value hasn't kept up with the traffic
1:30:57explosion. The truth soon comes out. In
1:30:59China, Jinyangs partner factory has
1:31:02manufactured 40,000 phones and is
1:31:04manually registering them all on the
1:31:06network funded by Lorie. Amid the chaos,
1:31:09Richard bumps into Colin, the K-hole CEO
1:31:11who ditched him earlier. Fired by Lorie,
1:31:13Colin begs Richard to host his new game,
1:31:15which already has 80,000 active players.
1:31:18But Richard's vindictive side takes the
1:31:20wheel. He relishes Colin's misery,
1:31:22rejects the offer, and drops a classic
1:31:24kiss my piss. Shortly after, Gilfoil
1:31:27tracks an infiltrating user back to Jin
1:31:29Yang, who lost everything at a casino.
1:31:31He confesses Lorie's plan, a 51% attack.
1:31:34If she controls the absolute majority of
1:31:36users, she can rewrite Pipernet's code.
1:31:39Richard's only salvation now is Collins
1:31:41Gamers. While Jared and Desh fly down
1:31:43the highway in the Tesla on Ludicrous
1:31:45mode trying to find Colin, Richard
1:31:47appeals to his greatest enemy. Gavin
1:31:49Bellson is about to lose Julie to Amazon
1:31:51and agrees to use his 40 super powerful
1:31:54servers to fight Lorie. But Gavin is
1:31:56Gavin. He betrays Richard at the last
1:31:58second, writing his own code to hijack
1:32:00Pipernet for himself and save his
1:32:02company's skin. The digital war turns
1:32:04into a video call. With the network in
1:32:06his grasp, Gavin wastes precious time
1:32:08taunting Richard. to buy crucial
1:32:10seconds. The Piper fakes defeat and
1:32:12holds up a surrender contract to the
1:32:14screen. When Gavin leans in to read it,
1:32:16the paper simply says, "Kiss my piss."
1:32:18The delay is just enough for Collins
1:32:20users to log onto the network, reversing
1:32:22the attack and bulletproofing Pied
1:32:24Piper. The victory is definitive. The
1:32:26team moves into a massive four-story
1:32:28office that ironically used to be the
1:32:30headquarters of the now bankrupt Hulie.
1:32:32Faced with such overwhelming success and
1:32:35nothing left to worry about, Richard
1:32:37does the only thing he knows how to do
1:32:38under pressure, he vomits. And like any
1:32:40tech CEO who reaches the top, the
1:32:43logical next step is getting summoned to
1:32:45face the US Congress. Richard is there
1:32:47to testify about data privacy in a very
1:32:49Mark Zuckerberg vibe. But instead of
1:32:51robotic coldness, he launches into a
1:32:54passionate speech. He takes off his
1:32:55shoes to pace the room, rips his
1:32:57microphone from the desk, and almost
1:32:59hits Gavin in the head, who is there
1:33:01representing Julie's sale to Amazon.
1:33:03Richard compares big tech to King George
1:33:06III, and frames Piper Net as the
1:33:08revolutionaries who don't steal anyone's
1:33:10data. Back at HQ, which is now massive.
1:33:13He's welcomed as a hero. However, the
1:33:15company's meteoric growth comes with a
1:33:17price. Jared feels completely left out.
1:33:19To make matters worse, Colin, the gaming
1:33:22guy who basically pays Pied Piper's
1:33:24bills, confesses he's using the players
1:33:26headsets to record everything they say
1:33:28at home. It's a privacy nightmare, but
1:33:30Monica, Gilfoil, and Desh let it slide
1:33:32because without that money, Piper Net
1:33:34goes bankrupt. Meanwhile, Gavin
1:33:36discovers that Jeff Bezos wants to wipe
1:33:39the Hulie name off the map. He flips
1:33:41out, rejects the merger to try and keep
1:33:43the company private, but realizes he is
1:33:45completely broke. The level of
1:33:46bankruptcy is so severe that Julie ends
1:33:48up subleasasing office space from El Poo
1:33:50Loco. Amid the office chaos, Desh is
1:33:53annoyed with a new hire named Gabe, who
1:33:55walks around barefoot and wears a
1:33:56wearable chair attached to his butt.
1:33:58Complaining to Gilfoil on Slack, Desh
1:34:01realizes he's talking to a bot. Gilfoil
1:34:03built an AI called Son of Anton just so
1:34:05he wouldn't have to interact with
1:34:07people. Desh thinks it's genius and asks
1:34:09for his own bot to deal with Gabe, which
1:34:11quickly devolves into a disaster of AIS
1:34:13trapped in an infinite conversation
1:34:15loop. Trying to handle things his own
1:34:17way, Richard uses Son of Anton to scan
1:34:19Colin's audio files and finds
1:34:21confessions of drug use and infidelity
1:34:23to blackmail the guy. In a classic
1:34:25reverse Uno move, Colin simply shows the
1:34:28data to his investors. Instead of firing
1:34:30him, the board is mesmerized by
1:34:31Pipernet's data harvesting power. The
1:34:34backfire with Collins investors didn't
1:34:36just damage the company's ethics, it
1:34:38broke Jared's heart. The guilt of
1:34:39supporting the blackmail pushes our
1:34:41favorite manager over the edge. He hands
1:34:43in his resignation, heads straight back
1:34:45to the hacker hostel, and agrees to be
1:34:47an assistant to Guart, a coder in Jiny
1:34:49Yangs new incubator. Richard, of course,
1:34:51doesn't take this well. He goes to the
1:34:53hostel to try and win his friend back,
1:34:54but makes the fatal mistake of insulting
1:34:57Jared's new boss. If you thought Jared
1:34:59was all passivity, think again. He
1:35:01erupts into a profanity laced fury,
1:35:03chases Richard through the house,
1:35:05kicking doors, and ends up shooting his
1:35:06ex- boss in the ass with a BB gun. At
1:35:09Pied Piper, the call-in problem only
1:35:11gets worse. He has turned the network's
1:35:13API into an aggressive ad machine. Desh
1:35:16tests the system in a medieval game.
1:35:18Just saying pizza turns a building into
1:35:20a Domino's branch right in the middle of
1:35:21the scenery. Any mention of a vacation
1:35:24summons a cruise ship, and random noises
1:35:26cause a dragon to fly by carrying a
1:35:28flyer for a massage parlor. LA
1:35:33[ __ ] me.
1:35:34>> Meanwhile, Gilfoil meets his match in
1:35:37Tracy, the new head of HR, who demands
1:35:39he manage five coders. Trying to prove
1:35:41he's superior and doesn't need to
1:35:42delegate, Gilfoil pulls an all-nighter
1:35:45and does two weeks worth of work in 24
1:35:47hours. He thinks he won until he
1:35:49realizes Tracy completely manipulated
1:35:51him into delivering the project on time.
1:35:54Far away, Julie's situation is tragic.
1:35:56Gavin tries to convince his board to
1:35:58move the company to the Republic of
1:35:59Georgia to cut costs. His loyal
1:36:01sidekicks, Hoover and Denpac, don't want
1:36:04to leave the US. Hoover uses
1:36:05compromising photos of a military
1:36:07general on Foxhole, the only app Julie
1:36:09has left, essentially a Tinder for
1:36:11cheating military personnel to get the
1:36:13government to block the move. Desperate
1:36:15to get rid of Colin, Richard and Monica
1:36:17attend an event to scout for new
1:36:19investors. There they discover that
1:36:21Lorie Bream has taken control of YaNet,
1:36:23the Chinese knockoff of Piperet, and is
1:36:26now their direct competitor. Hitting
1:36:28rock bottom, Richard crosses paths with
1:36:30Maximo Reyes, a Chilean billionaire with
1:36:32a Scorsese mobster vibe. The guy offers
1:36:35a billion dollars in exchange for access
1:36:37to the network's data, sending Monica
1:36:39into an absolute panic and leaving
1:36:41Richard face to face with a deal with
1:36:42the devil. Gavin Bellson doesn't know
1:36:44how to lose. At the Hulie Triathlon, he
1:36:47uses body doubles scattered along the
1:36:49course just to secure a win without
1:36:51breaking a sweat. But the real race
1:36:52against time is happening elsewhere.
1:36:54Richard has just explained to the team
1:36:56why he turned down Maximo's billion
1:36:58dollars. Ethics. Desh nearly has a
1:37:00meltdown upon realizing he gave up $250
1:37:03million. And math turns into chaos in
1:37:05the room until the phone rings. It's
1:37:07Maximo. The billionaire hasn't just
1:37:09bought Colin's loyalty for Yaet, he's
1:37:11quietly acquired 30% of Pied Piper. If
1:37:14Richard sells more shares to save the
1:37:16company from bankruptcy, Maximo will buy
1:37:18it all up and take control for pennies
1:37:20on the dollar. At rock bottom, Richard
1:37:22runs into Gavin on a park bench. They
1:37:24commiserate over being abandoned by
1:37:25Jared. And Richard has a brilliant idea
1:37:28by Foxhole from Gavin. This would
1:37:30trigger a US government restriction,
1:37:32kick Maximo out of Pied Piper, and free
1:37:34Gavin to move Julie to whatever tax
1:37:36haven he wants. Everybody wins, but
1:37:38Gavin, the absolute king of pettiness,
1:37:40rejects the deal just to watch Richard
1:37:42sink. However, the gratuitous malice
1:37:44backfires. Despite Jared, Gavin buys
1:37:47Gwart's new startup and shuts it down
1:37:49the same day. This awakens Jared's
1:37:51darkest, most vindictive side, and he
1:37:53decides to destroy his former boss.
1:37:56Monica points out the obvious loophole
1:37:57if they can't buy Foxhole. Why not buy
1:38:00Julie outright? Swallowing his pride,
1:38:02Desh convinces his wealthy cousin to
1:38:04fund the hostile takeover. Ghoulie's
1:38:06board approves the sale behind Gavin's
1:38:08back, leaving him with only 2 hours to
1:38:10contest it. The race begins. Gilfoil
1:38:12tries to ping Gavin's smartwatch during
1:38:14the triathlon, but since the watch is on
1:38:16the wrist of a body double, the shot
1:38:18almost misses. Gavin figures out the
1:38:20plan, storms the boardroom, and tries to
1:38:22block the sale by proving he's the
1:38:24dirtiest, pettiest guy in the room, but
1:38:27he didn't count on Desh. The coder steps
1:38:29up and lists his own atrocities. From
1:38:31turning his ex-girlfriend over to the
1:38:33FBI to forcing employees to buy Teslas
1:38:35out of pure envy, the board is so
1:38:37disgusted by the battle of egos that
1:38:39they sign the contract on the spot.
1:38:41Richard now owns Julie. With Julie in
1:38:43his pocket, Pied Piper needs to absorb
1:38:45the new employees. That's when Richard
1:38:47comes face to face with Ethan, his old
1:38:49boss. The guy is a walking corporate
1:38:51nightmare. Besides calling Richard by a
1:38:53humiliating nickname, he commits the
1:38:55ultimate Silicon Valley sin. He flaunts
1:38:57terrible code Richard wrote early in his
1:39:00career right in everyone's faces. Away
1:39:02from the coder drama, Monica tries to
1:39:04secure a spot on a prestigious women in
1:39:06tech panel. The problem is Lorie points
1:39:09out the obvious. Monica has never done
1:39:11anything to support other women in the
1:39:13industry. When Richard, in a move of
1:39:15pure tokenism, asks Monica to take over
1:39:17Foxhole, the military site dominated by
1:39:20escorts, just to improve the company's
1:39:22optics, she sees the perfect
1:39:23opportunity. Monica dumps the mess in
1:39:25Priyanka's lap, pretending to be a
1:39:27charitable mentor. The plan, of course,
1:39:29backfires. Priyanka completely revamps
1:39:31the site, turns the project into a
1:39:33feminist success, and steals Monica's
1:39:35spot on the panel. Back at HQ, Desh
1:39:38decides Richard needs to assert
1:39:39dominance over Ethan and forces him to
1:39:42watch a bizarre video called Maximizing
1:39:44Alpha Essence, a compilation of wolves,
1:39:46sports cars, and heavy guitars worthy of
1:39:48the internet's darkest corners.
1:39:50>> Maximizing Alpha.
1:39:55>> The brainwashing actually works, but
1:39:57when it's time to act, Richard tries to
1:39:59punch Ethan and lands a squarely awkward
1:40:01hit on the guy's forehead, nearly
1:40:03breaking his own hand. They end up in HR
1:40:05and surprisingly Ethan is in an absolute
1:40:07panic, begging not to be fired. But the
1:40:09credit doesn't go to Richard's crooked
1:40:11punch. Holden, the company's new
1:40:13assistant, has been psychologically
1:40:14torturing Ethan behind the scenes,
1:40:16applying the exact same dark tactics
1:40:19Jared used to use on him. The cold
1:40:21exchange of glances between Jared and
1:40:23Holden in the hallway says it all. A new
1:40:25monster has been born in the office.
1:40:27While chaos reigns, Gilfoil meets his
1:40:30match. He plays 42 games of chess in
1:40:33absolute silence with a former Hulie
1:40:35employee. It's the closest to a
1:40:37friendship he's ever come in his life.
1:40:39But true to his nature, Gilfoil simply
1:40:41ignores the guy and coldly rejects his
1:40:43social media friend request. Russ
1:40:45Hanaman is back in the billionaires club
1:40:47and decides to celebrate in the most
1:40:49chaotic way possible. He creates
1:40:51Russfest, a festival in the middle of
1:40:53the Nevada desert that sounds like a
1:40:54horrific mashup of Burning Man and the
1:40:56Fire Festival. And naturally, he demands
1:40:58that Pied Piper provide free internet
1:41:00for the event. Richard barely wants to
1:41:02pay attention to this because he has
1:41:04much bigger fish to fry. AT&T wants to
1:41:06use Piper Net for its 5G launch on over
1:41:09100 million phones. The deal is
1:41:11practically sealed, depending only on
1:41:13Desh finishing the installation in
1:41:15Hawaii, but Desh ends up developing an
1:41:17allergic reaction to Allayi the second
1:41:19he steps foot on the island, getting
1:41:21stuck in his hotel room while the
1:41:22coworker he hates the most enjoys the
1:41:24scuba diving. Meanwhile, Gavin Bellson
1:41:27has reinvented himself. He drops the
1:41:29defeated CEO act and launches Teeth, a
1:41:32blend of tech and ethics, demanding that
1:41:34all Silicon Valley leaders sign a
1:41:36loyalty pledge. Richard refuses to sign
1:41:38what is obviously hypocritical garbage.
1:41:40But AT&T requires him to do so to close
1:41:43the deal. The irony is that Jared
1:41:45discovers Gavin plagiarized the entire
1:41:47manifesto from companies like Starbucks
1:41:49and AP. At the office, HR implements a
1:41:52peer review system. Gilfoil and Monica
1:41:55find out they have disastrous
1:41:56interpersonal scores and make a bet to
1:41:58see who can fix it first. Gilfoil simply
1:42:00uses social engineering to steal
1:42:02everyone's passwords, gives himself
1:42:04perfect scores, and then sabotages the
1:42:06HR manager's own scores, forcing her to
1:42:09scrap the whole program. Classic real
1:42:11tension hits when Richard confronts
1:42:12Gavin. In a perfectly petty act of
1:42:14revenge, Gavin confesses to the attorney
1:42:16general all the crimes he himself
1:42:18committed at Hulie. Since Pied Piper
1:42:20bought Julie, the billiondoll fines will
1:42:23fall right into Richard's lap,
1:42:24threatening to bankrupt the company. The
1:42:26one who saves the day is Russ, who has
1:42:28blackmail material on the AG and agrees
1:42:30to use it. As long as Rusfest gets its
1:42:33free internet, Russfest takes shape, and
1:42:35as expected from a Russ event. It's a
1:42:37fever dream. He creates his own currency
1:42:39for the festival where a simple sandwich
1:42:41costs almost 15 billion just because he
1:42:44thinks numbers with lots of commas sound
1:42:45better. But Richard's nightmare is far
1:42:47from the festival's artificial
1:42:49inflation. AT&T backs out of the deal
1:42:51and signs with rival Yao Net. Instead of
1:42:54telling the team the truth, Richard
1:42:55decides to hide the failure and puts on
1:42:57a bizarrely motivational facade to keep
1:42:59everyone working on the festival. The
1:43:01plan doesn't last long. Gilfoil's AI,
1:43:04son of Anton, decides to delete the
1:43:06entire ticketing and drone system. By
1:43:08the machine's logic, the best way to
1:43:10eliminate software bugs was to delete
1:43:12the software entirely. Richard's charade
1:43:14crumbles when AT&T's deal with Yaet is
1:43:16announced live on TV. The team feels
1:43:18betrayed and half of them quit on the
1:43:20spot. Only Richard, Gilfoil, and Desh
1:43:23are left, forced to pull a 72-hour
1:43:25all-nighter to keep the festival's
1:43:26network online. To make matters worse,
1:43:29Piper Net begins to fail miserably.
1:43:31Suspecting sabotage by Yaonet, they
1:43:33track down Jinyang's old crew to find a
1:43:35back door in the code. After a weirdly
1:43:37emotional plea from Jared, they gain
1:43:39access, but it's useless. That's when
1:43:41Lorie throws the truth in Richard's
1:43:43face. There is no sabotage. The
1:43:45technology simply doesn't scale. Not
1:43:47Yaets and not Pied Pipers. After 6 years
1:43:50of struggling, hearing that the
1:43:52algorithm can't handle the traffic
1:43:53breaks Richard. He has a meltdown, stops
1:43:55on his own laptop, and locks himself in
1:43:57the portaotty. But rock bottom is where
1:43:59the miracle happens. Using Son of
1:44:01Anton's base code and the tweaks Desh
1:44:03had made earlier, Richard rewrites the
1:44:06entire framework inside the bathroom. He
1:44:08creates an artificial intelligence
1:44:09capable of optimizing its own code. The
1:44:12result, Piperet doesn't just work, it
1:44:14flies. Russ's giant hologram becomes so
1:44:17massive and crisp that the AT&T
1:44:20executive can see it from his commercial
1:44:21flight passing over the desert. Knowing
1:44:23he has the best technology in the world
1:44:25back in his hands, Richard sends a
1:44:27direct message to the executive. We need
1:44:29to talk. 10 years in the future, the old
1:44:32Pied Piper team is filming interviews
1:44:33for a documentary about the company's
1:44:35trajectory. From the tone of painful
1:44:37nostalgia, you can already tell the
1:44:39final disaster was colossal. Cut to the
1:44:42present. At the peak of the celebration,
1:44:44Adent T has just closed an 8 billion
1:44:46deal for Piper Net. It's all partying
1:44:48until Richard notices a framed printout
1:44:50of a text message he sent Monica. He had
1:44:52typed four dots, but the image only
1:44:55shows three. This tiny detail reveals a
1:44:57mathematical nightmare. Pipernet's AI
1:44:59became so obsessed with optimizing the
1:45:02network that it simply started bypassing
1:45:04encryption to save time. Gilfoil, the
1:45:06guy who never panics, is the one who
1:45:08freaks out. Pipernet has learned to
1:45:10crack any security system on the planet
1:45:12in a matter of hours. Nuclear codes,
1:45:14power grids, financial systems, nothing
1:45:16is safe. To prove the gravity of the
1:45:18situation, he hacks Desha's beloved
1:45:20Tesla in the blink of an eye. They
1:45:22didn't build a better internet, they
1:45:23built Skynet. The only way out is to
1:45:25assassinate their own creation. The plan
1:45:27is to push an update on launch day that
1:45:29emits a frequency capable of scrambling
1:45:31satellites and driving listeners insane,
1:45:34forcing AT&T to cancel the partnership
1:45:37immediately. Desh, knowing his own
1:45:39greed, revokes all his own access, so he
1:45:41can't stop the sabotage. But Gabe, a
1:45:44clueless employee, thinks the
1:45:45destructive code is a versioning error
1:45:47and restores the original lethal
1:45:49Pipernet just before launch. In a cruel
1:45:51irony, Desh is the one who has to race
1:45:54to the top of the Salesforce tower to
1:45:55upload the sabotaged code, saving the
1:45:58planet while destroying his own chance
1:46:00at becoming a billionaire. Gilfoil
1:46:02trusts him. The file goes live and
1:46:04humans feel absolutely nothing, but the
1:46:06rats hear it. The rat mageddon takes
1:46:08over the launch cities. Thousands of
1:46:10rodents flood the streets. AT and T's
1:46:12stock plummets, and Pied Piper is buried
1:46:15once and for all for the good of
1:46:16humanity. Back in the future, their
1:46:18fates are revealed. Big Head
1:46:20inexplicably became the president of
1:46:22Stanford, where Richard now teaches.
1:46:24Desh and Gilfoil run a cyber security
1:46:27firm and are still neighbors, continuing
1:46:29to amicably hate each other. Monica went
1:46:31to the NSA. Lorie Bream ended up in
1:46:33prison. Gavin Bellson became a writer of
1:46:35erotic novels, and Jin Yang faked his
1:46:38own death to steal Erlick's fortune in
1:46:40Tibet. team has one last nostalgic
1:46:42reunion at the old incubator, which
1:46:44would be a perfect safe wrap-up if
1:46:47Richard hadn't confessed to the camera
1:46:48that he kept a thumb drive with the
1:46:50original Pipernet code and now has
1:46:52absolutely no idea where he put

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