We’ve known for a while that Mike Judge’s new series Silicon Valley was going to be just as popular in Canadian cities as it is in the US. We even covered one Canadian startup earlier this year that will appear as extras in one of the show’s later episodes in its first season.
Luckily for those of us who missed last night’s premier, HBO today released the first episode of the popular new show on YouTube, and you can check it out here:
The Globe and Mail interviewed several Canadian founders today, including Joelle Parenteau of Edge to Epic, Hongwei Liu of MappedIn and LP Maurice, of Busbud.
Here’s what the three entrepreneurs told the Canadian newspaper
Joelle Parenteau: “Sillicon Valley was ridiculously entertaining. Firstly, there were many hilariously awkward comments that had me unexpectedly burst out into fits of laughter. Secondly, there were more than a few scenarios that, though perhaps somewhat exaggerated, were still plausible enough to be disturbingly thought provoking.”
Hongwei Liu: “Many characters do remind me of people I’ve met in startup, but they are people that I try to avoid – because they don’t matter. So I guess it’s a letdown that the show takes on such a tedious view. Any industry with high variability in returns will attract pettiness and greed. But as a whole, the people in tech are more like the group of kids living in that house – smart,hardworking, and human.”
LP Maurice: “Having worked in the Valley, I do think the show gets a lot of details right and feels authentic. Set in a land of big dreams and high rents filled with deluxe campus shuttles, eccentric moguls and exploding investor term sheets, it also does a good job at portraying the current hype in the Valley. That said, the show stretches the satire elastic a bit far at times, making us forget that engineers are first and foremost thoughtful and helpful problem solvers.”