25 Business Lessons from HBO’s Silicon Valley

Thanasis Papadopoulos
13 min readApr 11, 2021
Image Credits: HBO

If you enjoy watching comedy series, or you’re a tech enthusiast, chances are that you have heard about HBO’s Silicon Valley. The story is about a startup in Silicon Valley, called Pied Piper, and the struggles they face to fulfill their goal, which is to change the way we browse the internet.

However, if you haven’t watched the series, you should know that apart from the fact that the show is a great parody of the real Silicon Valley, it also combines comedy with business, and gives a lot of useful information about how to run a tech startup in today’s world. So if you’re interested in running a startup, here are some tips that you can learn from Silicon Valley.

Minor spoilers ahead

1. Try to network

Pied Piper’s founder Richard Hendricks was offered a $10 million buyout for his startup by Hooli CEO Gavin Belson. Instead, he decided to take a smaller fund from Peter Gregory, a VC who would mentor him. One of the reasons he accepted Gregory’s offer, was because Richard pitched his idea to Gregory after a TED talk.

This proves to show that you shouldn’t be shy to ask for insights or to pitch an idea. You should always try to network because you never know when an opportunity might come. And as the saying goes, if you don’t ask, the answer is always no.

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Thanasis Papadopoulos
Thanasis Papadopoulos

Written by Thanasis Papadopoulos

MSc in Cultural Management, Communication, and Media. Real human bean, and a real hero.

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