If you want to understand Silicon Valley, watch Silicon Valley

Re:If you want to understand Silicon Valley, watch Silicon V... by cknoxrun on Monday November 19, 2018 @04:59PM (#18490099)

I would highly suggest checking out Halt and Catch Fire. It's a period piece, but I think it captures the spirit of Northern California. The first 2 seasons are in Texas before they jump ship to San Francisco.

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Re:If you want to understand Silicon Valley, watch Silicon V... by bane on Tuesday November 20, 2018 @12:38AM (#18492007)

H&CF is a great series and switches gears every season. The final season has some of the most beautifully written and acted character moments I've ever seen on TV. I finished it almost aching for the characters on the show and I rarely ever have a strong reaction to TV.

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Re:If you want to understand Silicon Valley, watch Silicon V... by devmunchies on Monday November 19, 2018 @05:20PM (#18490240)

ditto. Its starts off with a young ex-IBM executive trying to build the first IBM compatible machine and everything that goes with launching the new product. Later seasons go into things like server farms, early gaming, and social networking.

really underrated show.

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Re:If you want to understand Silicon Valley, watch Silicon V... by ticmasta on Monday November 19, 2018 @07:14PM (#18490878)

I really like the historical/tech story lines but the soap-opera interpersonal relationships wrecked it for me. The whole "broken imperfection" thing often goes to far and really detracts from the story.

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Re:If you want to understand Silicon Valley, watch Silicon V... by marshray on Monday November 19, 2018 @09:23PM (#18491408)

You might like this documentary on the origins of National Semiconductor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCbRZGDV-ws

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Re:If you want to understand Silicon Valley, watch Silicon V... by jjeaff on Monday November 19, 2018 @10:06PM (#18491548)

I agree. It feels like it's trying to be a film festival movie about a tumultuous relationship and "complicated" hero/heroine that just has the beginning of the personal computer age as a backdrop.

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Re:If you want to understand Silicon Valley, watch Silicon V... by orarbel1 on Monday November 19, 2018 @09:21PM (#18491398)

Based on the founding of Compaq

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Re:If you want to understand Silicon Valley, watch Silicon V... by marshray on Monday November 19, 2018 @09:27PM (#18491425)

It also draws from the book 'Soul of a New Machine' about Data General's a few years before Compaq.

The 'adventure addiction' scene, for example.

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Re:If you want to understand Silicon Valley, watch Silicon V... by jackfoxy on Monday November 19, 2018 @11:19PM (#18491764)

I really enjoyed that series. Early in my career I spent 6 months in Dallas in the early 80s, same space-time as the first 2 seasons. They captured working in a "tech" company in Dallas perfectly.

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Re:If you want to understand Silicon Valley, watch Silicon V... by nkg on Monday November 19, 2018 @07:58PM (#18491071)

I love how H&CF talked about innovations of the 80s-90s that we think of as revolutions now that they have taken off: online games, social network, streaming, time-sharing/cloud computing.

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Re:If you want to understand Silicon Valley, watch Silicon V... by edoceo on Monday November 19, 2018 @07:33PM (#18490958)

I thought that show went off the rails when spoiler the dude set the van full of hardware on fire

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Re:If you want to understand Silicon Valley, watch Silicon V... by Apocryphon on Monday November 19, 2018 @08:32PM (#18491232)

That's at the end of the first season, which was weaker than the subsequent ones, really.

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Re:If you want to understand Silicon Valley, watch Silicon V... by lscotte on Monday November 19, 2018 @07:06PM (#18490847)

Likewise, it's a great series, very well written, sad to see it so unknown and underrated...

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