To protect himself, Richard signs a “poison pill” clause in the new term sheet from Raviga: If any single founder leaves, sells, or transfers a significant share without board approval, the entire company becomes worthless.
Richard Hendricks, a shy, anxious programmer at the tech giant Hooli, spends his nights working on a side project: a music app called Pied Piper. The app isn't special, but its backend is revolutionary. While trying to impress a girl at a party hosted by his eccentric billionaire boss, Gavin Belson (Hooli’s CEO), Richard accidentally runs a demo. The app fails to play the music correctly—but it compresses the file to an impossibly small size. Gavin’s eyes go reptilian. He doesn’t want a music app. He wants the algorithm . index of silicon valley season 1
Hooli’s competing product (Nucleus) scores a 1.8. Pied Piper wins TechCrunch Disrupt. To protect himself, Richard signs a “poison pill”
On stage, Richard freezes. He fumbles his memorized lines. Then, he abandons the script. He explains the philosophy of his algorithm—not just compression, but a new way of thinking about data: “middle-out compression.” He accidentally reveals that Pied Piper can achieve a Weissman Score (a compression quality metric) that is off the charts — 2.89, a score so high it breaks the scale. The audience erupts. While trying to impress a girl at a
Peter Gregory, having solved his fear of college students by investing in a sesame seed farm in Bangladesh, receives a letter. He opens it. It’s a cease-and-desist from Hooli. He chuckles softly, then pulls out a flip phone and dials Richard.
As they sit in stunned silence, Richard looks at his laptop. He has nothing left but the algorithm—the perfect, world-changing piece of code. He smiles grimly and says:
Now, everyone wants in. But Richard has a problem: He’s been secretly giving 10% of his equity to Big Head (his best friend) for moral support. And Erlich has been promising pieces of the company to everyone who so much as brings him a latte.