Silicon Valley Wary of Reality Series

The following is an excerpt from an article in 

The New York Times
Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Silicon Valley Wary of Reality Series 

By DAVID STREITFELD

SAN FRANCISCO — Silicon Valley is finally getting the treatment once reserved for rowdy housewives and excitable chefs: its own Bravo reality series. But the tech world is not quite ready for its close-up.

When details about the show, tentatively titled “Silicon Valley,” first seeped out, many here were offended, saying it would trivialize the difficult and important work being done in the valley. “Yuck, please stay in LA,” Kevin Rose, an entrepreneur and venture capitalist, messaged his million-plus Twitter followers.

The valley may be even more upset when it sees how well the final product captures the raucous reality of the tech industry in 2012.

The series, which is now being filmed and is scheduled to be broadcast this winter, shows hard-partying youngsters vying to start companies in a frenzy reminiscent of the dot-com peak of 2000. It is a world where everyone seems to think that a good idea can lead to instant success and untold riches, because, after all, it has so many times before. It is a place where you feel like a failure if only one investor offers to finance you, instead of many begging to get in.

“Silicon Valley” the show was in part inspired by “The Social Network,” the 2010 film about the founding of Facebook. Silicon Valley the place did not like “The Social Network” because the film said Mark Zuckerberg started Facebook as a way to impress girls instead of changing the world.

The fact that Mr. Zuckerberg’s sister Randi is an executive producer of the series has therefore rankled. Ms. Zuckerberg, an executive at Facebook until last summer, declined to be interviewed, but defended her show on Facebook. “Inspiring more people to pursue an entrepreneurial American dream can only be a good thing,” she wrote.

Not everyone agrees. One former Facebook colleague of Ms. Zuckerberg’s took to Twitter to say she was “terrified” that the series would turn Silicon Valley “into a laughingstock of an industry.”

“Trust me, enough people in this industry make laughingstocks of themselves,” Ms. Zuckerberg replied. “We’re just capturing reality!”