Silicon Valley is the perfect material for a TV show

To the younger crowd, Silicon Valley is mostly known for hosting the headquarters of Apple, Facebook and Google, but we all know it’s called Silicon Valley because of the many leading semiconductor companies that started their business there. Since I work for a semiconductor company, I travel to the San Francisco Bay area about once a month to visit customers, partners and conferences.

This time my Silicon Valley experience already started on the plane. My routine is usually the same: after working for a few hours on my laptop, I watch some TV. Looking through the options on the entertainment system, I noticed there were a couple of episodes from a series called Silicon Valley available. Seemed like something I should watch – and I was not disappointed. The show is about a startup working on video compression, which I’ve coincidentally been working on for the past decade and a half. In addition, the series makes good-natured fun of everything that Silicon Valley is.

Parody aside, there’s no denying the region is extremely successful. Company valuations, salaries and real estate are all sky-high there. But why? Are its people smarter? Not at all. Do they work harder? I don’t think so. Are the educational system and the universities there so much better than in the rest of the world? Not really. So what’s the secret recipe? Back home, I re-watch some of Silicon Valley’s funniest moments – and I find some answers.