01x05 - Signaling Risk

Episode transcripts for the TV show "Silicon Valley". Aired: April 2014 to December 2019.*
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"Silicon Valley" revolves around six guys who found a startup company in Silicon Valley.
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01x05 - Signaling Risk

Post by bunniefuu »

It's a f*cking sketchy neighborhood, man.

You see that guy? That's Chuy Ramirez.

And he's gonna do our new logo.

That's the artist you were talking about?

You said he had paintings in galleries.

His works hang in the gallery of the streets.

I'll be back in a flash.

Whoa, no. What?

OK.

Man, we're just going to sit here like this?

Oh, sh*t. Look at this guy.

[softly] He's a scary individual.

Whoa. Um...

Hey, buddy. Do you have any dr*gs?

Please, let it up. Let it up.

If you don't let it go, I can't roll it up.

Just... please... Just, you...

f*cking prick! Ow!

I'm gonna b*at you in your face!

Chuy Ramirez? Erlich Bachman.

We spoke on the phone?

What's up, man?

Pleasure to meet you.

All right.

This is great. Look at this.

This is what we need, you know what I mean? Something raw.

We already have kind of a shitty name, Pied Piper, but the last thing we want is two lowercase P's in a square like those m*therf*ckers across the freeway would make.

This is what we want?

So you gonna give me stock options, or what?

What?

Yeah. You know Dave Cho?

He did the murals over at Facebook.

He got a stock option deal, ended up making like a hundred million dollars.

I want a deal like that.

You know, I don't really speak all that Wall Street bullshit.

You know what I'm saying?

We're just like five guys hanging out in a house, trying to make cool sh*t.

Well, you told me you own ten percent of it, so you must know something about it, right?

You could just give me some of your points.

Hey, I'm not an accountant, you know?

I don't even know what that means, a lot of those words.

You f*cking prick!

[grunting]

[grunts]

[doors lock]

Oh, you fucker.

Let me in. Please, please...

I'll break this. I don't care. I don't care.

I'll break this...

I can't hear you.

[car horn blaring]

Oh God.

I can't hear you.

[honks horn intermittently]

Yeah, but you don't want stock in our company.

If I could go back in time, I wouldn't have taken the stock.

I would've taken cash only. I'm telling you...

[horn continues]

Who's that dude?

Uh, nobody. He's a coder.

You got a Latino working for you?

That's cool, yo. Not a lot of Latinos working in tech.

Yeah. Yeah, he's Latino.

Yeah, and he's one of the best coders we have.

Kind of adds a Latin flair to the company.

I told you, we do things differently.

Yeah. You know what?

I could do a cash deal for a Latino company.

I think we should get out of here, though, because I just painted over some dude's sh*t and people get sh*t behind that.

So I'll catch you on the flip. Peace!

Uh, OK. Peace, Chuy.

Oh, God. This is...

This is very real!

Hey, Dinesh! Get in the f*cking car.

There may be a drive-by about to happen.

Dinesh: What?

[Latino hip-hop music plays]

You promised this guy ten thousand dollars without any approval?

Are you high?

A little bit, yeah.

But that's irrelevant.

A cool company needs a cool logo.

You think those guys over at Nucleus are hiring a convicted felon to paint a mural on their garage?

For ten thousand dollars? No.

Look, I took a run at a burn-down chart.

Jesus f*cking Christ.

It's not pretty.

The way things are going, we're not gonna finish for five months, and even with everyone on reduced salaries, we'll exhaust all our funding in four.

And that's without wasting ten thousand dollars on artwork.

"Wasting"? I got a great deal.

You know he wanted stock options until he saw Dinesh?

Hold on, what?

Don't be offended, but for some weird reason, Chuy took a look at you and thought you were... a Mexican.

[laughs]

Why would I be offended by that?

What?

Why would I be offended by him thinking I'm Mexican?

He's Mexican, right?

Yeah, he is, but you're not. You're Pakistani.

So? Actually, the very fact that you think this would be offensive to me is offensive.

You're the one being r*cist.

No. I'm not the one who called you a Mexican.

"Called me a Mexican"? You're doing it again.

I'm bending over backwards to not be r*cist right now.

All right. Well, what did he say when you told him I wasn't Mexican?

I didn't.

And why not?

Because I wanted him to paint our garage for cheap.

I... I genuinely don't know how to respond to that.

You know, I'm not gonna take the bait here.

I am not a r*cist, all right?

I watch a lot of black p*rn. I mean, a lot.

One question.

In this p*rn, is the man black, or the woman black, or are they both?

Is one of those r*cist, and the others aren't?

I'll hack his browser history. We'll get to the bottom of this.

Dinesh: Yep.

Hold on. That's unnecessary.

Hold on.

Richard?

Can you explain this to me?

[muffled music plays]

Hmm? What?

I just got a text from my friend at TechCrunch.

Pied Piper just got into this year's Start-Up b*ttlefield?

Oh, really? Oh, that's so cool.

No. No, it isn't. We're already seeded, Richard.

Why would we enter a start-up competition at a tech conference?

I sent in the application a few months ago and I totally forgot about it.

Relax, I will withdraw.

Relax? This house is chaos.

I gave up a great job and stock options at Hooli to come here because I thought Pied Piper could be viable, but it never will be unless we make some changes.

We need to operate like a business or we're not going to...

[muffled music plays over headphones]

Richard? Richard?

Thanks for coming in, Nelson.

Mr. Belson is very excited to meet with you.

I thought he was in Jackson Hole this week.

Yes, he is. We're going to call him up on the TeleHuman.

It's amazing. It's holographic 3D teleconferencing technology that we've acquired.

It's going to feel as if Gavin is right here in the room with you.

[computer chimes]

Oh, it's him!

It's him!

Hello, Nelson. Thanks for meeting with me.

Whoa. Hi. That's cool.

Am I a hologram over there too?

What? No, of course not.

Question: do you still talk to Richard Hendricks?


Uh, yeah. I mean, not about Nucleus or anything...

Why would he enter Pied Piper in TechCrunch Disrupt?

I know a lot of big players have come out of it, Dropbox, Yammer, what have you.

But Peter Gregory's already funding him.

Why would he let Richard do this? It makes no sense.


I don't know. I didn't even know Richard got in.

Is Peter Gregory toying with me?

Is he trying to make Richard seem folksy?

Like some aw-shucks boy-genius entering an everyman's competition? [voice skips]


Mr. Bel... Mr. Belson?

Can you hear me?

Hello?

Can you hear me?

Yeah, it's just...

It's sort of fading.

[voice skipping] Hel-l-l-lo?

Hello.

Hello-ooo. [skipping continues]

I'm hearing you, it's just the image is...

Nelson, shut up for a second.

If you can hear me, make a gesture.


Is that... do you... I hear you.

Is this...

I have no idea what you're saying, Nelson.

[voice skipping]...Nelson. Nelson.

Can you help me, please?


[beeping]

OK, I think what happened was when you set it up, you forgot to...

I didn't set it up.

I paid one of you people to set it up. Just fix it.

Man: Uh... OK.

Here's the thing, it's not working.

Um, the audio's still working. You could just use that.

Gavin: "The audio is working"? Excuse me?!

I paid twenty million f*cking dollars to acquire this company!

f*ck you, the audio is working!

Audio worked a hundred f*cking years ago!

You f*cking piece of sh*t-t-t-t... [voice skipping]


[computer beeps]

It appears we've lost him.

Yeah.

Why don't we just Hooli-Chat instead?

Yeah.

[clears throat]

Ah. That's better.

Sorry. The TeleHuman is a great piece of technology.

Unfortunately, the broadband isn't that great out here in rural Wyoming.

That presents a great business opportu...


[audio freezes]

[computer beeps]

[audio breaking up] Nelson, make a gesture......hear me.

Oh, for f*ck's sake.


[computer beeps]

Uh... I think you forgot to update your software.

God dammit. Fu...!

[computer beeps]

Nelson: Oh.

[cell phone rings]

Hello. Oh, hi, Gavin.

What's that? I'm sorry, you're kind of breaking up there.

He... Hello? Hello?

Jared: OK, let's start the meeting.

I think we need to define our corporate culture.

Our whole corporate culture is that we don't have a corporate culture.

That is totally ridiculous, Gilfoyle.

The main reason dogs are perceived to have a more keen sense of smell is because their noses are closer to the ground.

Therefore, with a little practice, I could easily have as keen a sense of smell as a dog's.

Guys? I guess you didn't see the sign.

We're actually having a meeting here.

Congratulations.

It's sort of for management only.

Are you f*cking serious right now?

Are you really kicking us out?

Well, I thought, maybe you guys could just take your food into the living room?

So you want to have a meeting in the room where all the food is, while we eat our food in the room where all of the computers are?

Guys, just five minutes. Please?

OK, you see? This... This is a case in point.

This is a company, and yet we have no boundaries and no protocol.

We need to establish a clear corporate culture or we're not gonna make it.

Take Dinesh and Gilfoyle.

They are wasting an enormous amount of time arguing.

What if we were to separate them, right?

Divide their existing work space into two areas.

We could put in some kind of portable barrier...

He's talking about cubicles!

Gilfoyle: We are not doing cubicles. No way!

No, no, no. Don't think of it as a cubicle.

Just think of it as a neutral-colored enclosure, about yay-high, around your workspace.

OK, fine. But do you know who uses cubicles?

Every single Fortune 500 company.

Why? Because they work.

He's trying to turn us into corporate rock, Richard.

Jared: No.

We are punk rock.

Actually, you know, I think a better analogy would be jazz.

Like we riff and improvise around a central theme to create one cohesive piece of music...

No, no. They teach f*cking jazz at Juilliard.

We're not jazz. We're f*cking punk rock.

You see? You see, you guys are arguing over what metaphor to use to agree with each other.

This is the inefficiency I'm trying to eliminate.

My suggestions could actually help you b*at me in this argument.

Do you see the irony there?

[blowing raspberry]

I... I can't argue with this.
[car horn honking]

Chuy: Yo, Erlich!

Uh, Chuy's here.

No. And this, this... This is the craziest one of all.

I mean, we're really about to spend ten thousand dollars on-on-on a logo we could generate in-house for free?

It's madness. You want a logo?

Here, just...

There. I just saved this company ten thousand dollars.

Are you f*cking serious? Lowercase letters?

Twitter: lowercase "t."

Google: lowercase "g."

Facebook: lowercase "f."

Every f*cking company in the Valley has lowercase letters.

Why? Because it's safe.

But we aren't going to do that.

We're gonna go with Chuy.

Unless any of you gringos wants to go out there and tell a guy with three as*ault convictions that we're not gonna give him the money we promised him.

Hm? That's what I thought.

I mean... God.

Are you still enjoying your asparagus, sir?

I was never enjoying it.

I only eat it for the nutrients.

You may take it.

Oh, sh*t.

Peter, I don't want to upset you, [whispers] but Gavin Belson just walked in.

[raspy choking sound]

Does he see us?

I don't know. He must know that you're here.

If I scurry to the restroom, do you imagine he would...

Peter!

I didn't know you came here.

Gavin. Hello.

Nice to see you.

And you, as well.

How are you?

Well.

And you?

Not bad.

I just got back from Jackson Hole.

Have you been?

I have not.

But I hear good things.

You look well. Are you exercising?

I have begun to do Pilates.

Well... I hear that's good.

I like it.

Yes.

Well, I didn't mean to interrupt.

Nice to see you, Peter.

Goodbye now.

OK.

[snaps fingers] You know, I almost forgot.

I saw that Pied Piper is in the Start-Up b*ttlefield at TechCrunch Disrupt.

It inspired me to call TechCrunch and offer to be their keynote speaker.

They were quite accommodating.

Especially when I said that I'd make the event the grand unveiling of Nucleus.

So, I will see you all at the conference.

[forced chuckle]

This is displeasing.

I have never seen him so incensed.

What the hell were you thinking, Richard?

How could you not tell us you entered TechCrunch Disrupt?

I applied before I even met you guys.

I wasn't gonna say anything because I was gonna withdraw.

No, you're not.

I'm not? Why not?

Because of you, Gavin Belson is debuting Nucleus at TCD.

If you pull out, it looks like Peter is running away from Gavin.

So like it or not, you are presenting a live demo in front of the world in eight weeks.

A live demo of what?

I entered TCD with an early build of Pied Piper, when it was still just a music app.

No. Sorry. Executive decision, we are not doing TechCrunch.

OK. So let me just tell you what's gonna happen.

Peter will pull all of his support and pass on any further funding, which, as you know, is the most flaming signaling risk on earth.

You'll burn through the rest of your runway, no one will step in, then you'll go bust.

[sighs] I don't get it.

Doesn't Peter Gregory want what's best for the company?

[sighs]

Look. I'm going to be straight with you.

Peter Gregory doesn't care.

About...?

You.

Wait. Just him or both of us?

Any of you. Pied Piper.

OK...

Uh, well, then why did he back us?

Does he just want to piss off Gavin Belson?

He spent two hundred thousand dollars just to...

Yeah, that's nothing!

Peter would spend millions just to mildly annoy Gavin.

These are billionaires, Richard.

Humiliating each other is worth more to them than we'll make in a lifetime.

[chuckles] I see.

And you conveniently forgot to mention any of this when you were convincing me to turn down ten million dollars?

And now I'm in the middle of some pissing contest between two billionaires.

In fairness, Gavin only offered you the ten million dollars because we started pursuing you...

But he offered it to me, Monica! He offered it to me.

Ten million dollars and I didn't take it.

Because you came to me when I was puking and freaking out and told me that Peter Gregory believed in me, when in reality, he didn't even give a flying f*ck!

Richard...

Oh, my God.

I didn't turn down ten million dollars because of Peter Gregory, Monica!

I turned it down because of you!

However angry he is, I am one-tenth as angry.

Because one of the ten million would've been mine.

Because I... I own ten percent.

I know.

Of Pied Piper...

I know!

[door rattling]

It's push.

[sighs] We didn't think we were going to get this thing done when we had five months to do it. Now we have two?

Granted, it's not ideal, but we're just gonna have to...

What the good f*ck?

Richard: What is happening? Is that Dinesh?

Erlich: Is that the Statue of Liberty?

And it's... There's penetration.

Oh! Hey, neighbor.

Ashley's getting big!

Aw.

She looks... What do we do?

I don't know. Paint over it.

No, no, no. You can't paint over it.

It's like the code of the streets.

People get sh*t behind that.

Oh, good.

Hey. So what do you guys think, man?

Uhh... I think Erlich had a few thoughts.

So, I gotta... I'll let you...

Uhh...

Here's the headline: there's a lot right with it.

A lot of good stuff in there.

But I just...

Do you think the piece is working?

I mean... Maybe it's a bit too graphic for the space?

No way. Look at it.

It comments on the Latino struggle for justice in America.

But even without all the symbolism, it's just aesthetically pleasing.

Yeah.

All right, here's the real sh*t, Chuy.

Uh, you know, our prize coder, he's actually not... Latino.

What?

Yeah. Point of fact is, he's Pakistani.

Homes, you lied to me.

No, no, no. You thought he was Latino, and I thought I would be r*cist telling you, you were wrong.

Come on, man. Why would you think that?

Thinking that, now that's r*cist.

God, I can't win... with that.

Look, Chuy, painting a guy named Dinesh Chugtai as an Aztec warrior just doesn't make sense.

Yeah. You know what?

I think you might be right, boss.

Great. That's...

So... Perfect. So change that and then don't have him be f*cking the literal symbol of freedom.

And then, whatever else you wanna do.

All right.

All right.

If I had known, we could have withdrawn your application before any of this happened.

This is exactly why we need to have clearer lines of communication.

I know, Jared, I know.

Listen, I'd like to institute an organizational system called "scrum."

Scrum is designed to...

Dinesh: All right, you have one hour! Go!

[sniffing] No.

No. Just musty.

Uhh, what's going on?

Gilfoyle bet me a hundred bucks that if I touched one object in this room, he could find it just by sniffing.

OK. Not now, please.

It has to be now. I just masturbated to heighten my focus.

I have a fifteen-minute refractory period.

Ow.

Uhh, well, we have a lot of work to get done So maybe we should do that instead, please.

Dude, relax, OK?

We each ripped through a full module this morning.

We're just taking a little break.

DRM is now a thing of beauty.

Wait. You did DRM?

Yeah.

I did DRM.

Why did you do DRM? I said I would do DRM, you would do error handling.

Anything to do with "error" sounds like your whole vibe.

Dinesh: Yeah, I handle errors like you every day.

Scrum?

Yes, scrum.

Scrum. [chuckles]

So from "rules based filtering" we got to "workflow," at which point that card is moved from the "icebox" into the "in progress" column and it stays there until it is ready for "testing."

OK. This increases visibility into our team's progress.

And that, gentlemen, is scrum.

Welcome to the next eight weeks of our lives.

This just became a job.

OK, so here are the cards I'm adding under this epic for the ingestion engine.

And there are three stories here.

How long do we think each one will take?

I don't know. Who cares? Four hours apiece?

Yeah. Maybe for you.

Each of those tasks would take me three max.

Not "tasks," "stories."

I've got a story, why don't you choke on my balls?

Well, how about this?

Why don't you each take one story, right... and we'll see who's right?

You see what he's doing, right?

He's trying to get us to compete so we work faster.

He thinks this wall of Psych 101, MBA mind-control bullshit is going to motivate us?

Fine. Don't compete. Do them at whatever speed you like.

Uh, Jared.

Uh... I know these guys.

I really don't think scrum is gonna work for them.

Whoa... Just trust in the system.

So we're just going to work at a nice, leisurely pace, right?

Gilfoyle: Sure.

[types faster]

Wait, why are you typing faster?

I'm not.

Maybe my leisurely pace is just a little faster than yours.

[whispers] Cock-sucker.

[chuckles]

Boo-yah.

[door opens]

Guys? Have you been out front yet?

'Cause you might wanna come see this.

I'm good.

f*ck off, we're working.

Wow. This took a lot of work.

Erlich: I mean, I'm already smiling.

Did he really have to paint me giving the thumbs-up?

It's gratuitous.

Really? That's the gratuitous part?

Well, and Dinesh's shaft...

[police siren chirps]

Oh, no.

Uh...

Erlich: Oh sh*t.

[sighs]

Are one of you the homeowner?

Yeah. I am.

We've had a number of complaints about your artwork here.

Look, what you do inside the house is your own business...

Oh, no. We don't... We don't do that.

Oh, no!

But that is you, is it not? The individual on the right?

Yeah.

You're gonna need to paint over this.

Oh, I don't think the artist would like that, he's Latino.

Was that r*cist?

Why are you asking me?

Oh. I mean, I could've asked anybody, but your... race...

Richard: It doesn't matter. I have a solution.

We put it up.

[garage door opens]

We don't put it down. Leave it up.

No, no, no. No, no, no! Close it!

No...

[sighs]

Look at this... left from the previous tenant.

Unbelievable. I can't believe I didn't enter the garage until this point.

I mean, is that marijuanas?

We're gonna need to take those.

Or, we leave them and wait to see if the criminal returns to the scene of the crime.

What do you say, please?

OK. So I keep the mural, and I keep the ten G's.

What do you get?

I just thought when I got a new garage door, maybe you could come and paint a new logo.

Something just as artistic, but maybe a little less challenging?

Hey! Don't look under there. Get away from there!

That's not me.

[laughing]

Um, just to be honest with you, like, I really, really, really need this.

So... I'm trying to be vulnerable in front of you.

I don't know. Is this a safe place?

Look, you can be vulnerable, esé, but this ain't a safe place.

A plumber got stabbed just last week, right where you're standing.

What?! Jesus Christ!

What... Why would you s*ab a plumber?

[sighs] All right. It was worth a try.

Thanks anyway, Chuy.

Wait. Just go ahead and leave the mural.

I like looking at it.

And plus, I think I know what kind of logo you white boys might like.

Uh, that's amazing. Thank you, Chuy!

Uh, yeah. Appreciate it.

All right, man.

Yes, one of those too.

All right.

Another one down.

Did you really?

You still working on that last one?

Take your time. There's no rush, Dinesh.

Feeling pretty happy about yourself?

I'm pretty happy with ourself.

[knocking on door]

Hello?

Hey, is... Is Richard here?

I don't know.

Hey.

Hey.

Come to check up on your investment?

Listen, you were right.

I played you a little.

Maybe a lot. I got caught up in making the deal.

All right? And I would like to say I was just doing my job, but that's the excuse that the Nazis used, so I'm not really sure how effective that one is.

Your point being?

I'm sorry.

But I'm also not sorry.

The reason I pushed Peter to seed you is, I think you have an unbelievably good platform.

Way better than the rest of his other compression plays, which I apologize for not telling you about.

Look, I know eight weeks isn't a lot of time to get this ready, but I get the feeling you're the kind of guy that does better when there's a fire lit under his ass.

It's a pretty big fire.

It is.

And by the way, you're the only one of Peter's companies that I've invested ten percent of my annual salary in.

So I really hope that you can do this.

Uh, well, you know, I guess we'll find out.

I saw the logo out front.

I didn't know it was...

Cool. Guys, the new logo!

Can we please both go?

You go first.

[continues typing]

I love it.

Erlich: Well, it's lowercase, but at least it isn't r*cist.

Is it?

It's Chuy Ramirez? I'm impressed.

He sold a mural today for a half-million bucks.

It wasn't on a garage door, was it?

[sighs]

You don't think it's too incendiary for the offices?

Kevin, you got where you are by challenging sensibilities.

You know me well.

It is pretty raunchy, though.

[Latino hip-hop music plays]
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