HBO’s Silicon Valley has won critical acclaim for its realistic portrayal of startup universe. Entrepreneurs have marveled at how well the show captures the zeitgeist of the valley, and how closely it mirrors what an early stage startup goes through. And now into its fourth season, Silicon Valley also seems to be keeping up with the times.
Pied Piper, the bumbling startup at the center of the show, will likely be pivoting this season – and it’ll be moving into a hot new technology. Based on the trailer that HBO has just released, it looks like Pied Piper will be moving from its compression roots into virtual reality.
The hints are far too obvious to miss – “I want to build a new internet,” Richard Hendricks tells a new character, who tells him that he can end up changing the world. Richard is also seen wearing what looks like a VR headset, and Gilfoyle even says, “It works, I mean the VR is rad now.”
There had been indications at the end of the last season that Pied Piper would be pivoting – their new program had been gaining impressive traction, but it was later revealed that it was through fake users from a click farm in Bangladesh. The new season promises lots of madcap action, and it looks like Pied Piper won’t be treading the straight and narrow like before. “If we have to break a few rules, it’s all for the greater good, right?,” Richard says in the trailer, and Jared describes them as being “essentially a criminal operation.” It also features egomaniacal Hooli CEO Gavin Belson telling Richard that he’s “a bad guy,” – which can only mean that Pied Piper has been up to something extraordinarily naughty.
The first episode of the new season is called Success Failure, and premiers on HBO on 23rd April.