List of Silicon Valley characters
Silicon Valley is an American comedy television series created by Mike Judge, John Altschuler and Dave Krinsky. The series stars Thomas Middleditch, T.J. Miller, Josh Brener, Martin Starr, Kumail Nanjiani, Christopher Evan Welch, Amanda Crew, Zach Woods, Matt Ross, Suzanne Cryer, Jimmy O. Yang, Stephen Tobolowsky, and Chris Diamantopoulos. The series premiered on HBO on April 6, 2014.
Overview
Main characters
Richard Hendricks
Richard Hendricks, portrayed by Thomas Middleditch, is a Stanford dropout and coder at tech company Hooli. Richard quits his job to pursue his compression application Pied Piper. The company initially starts out as a simple data compression platform, but when this, and a videochat that Dinesh created with the algorithm fails, Richard pivots toward creating a new, decentralized internet, called PiperNet. For the most part, Richard is shy and weak-willed, and does not have much of a temper, but when he finally reaches his limit, is prone to explosions of anger. Richard is constantly struggling with the demands of the business world, preferring instead to disappear into the coding of his application, but realizes that as CEO he must do more.Throughout most of the series, Richard is determined to make Pied Piper a company different from the dreary Hooli and the condescending, aloof Gavin Belson, but as the series progresses, it becomes clear that the many trials and tribulations of trying to get his business to succeed have made him cynical, narcissistic and unappeasable, in much the same vein as the man from whom he once sought to distinguish himself. This is exemplified in the season 5 premiere, wherein Richard uses Gavin's tactic of spending large amounts of company money and resources to bankrupt two weaker, recently merged companies, ostensibly to acquire their coders, but in reality to get petty vengeance on the two CEOs, who had tried to screw him over. Richard has also grown more aggressive and outspoken toward his friends, even insulting Gilfoyle without fear. However, Richard has also grown more competent and prideful in business by season 5, effectively using Gavin's ego to stall his 51% attack on Pied Piper and gain back 51% of the company, allowing Richard to finally release PiperNet the way he wants it without more interference.
In season 6, Richard once again struggles between executing business tactics and not compromising his own moral values. He proclaims in front of the United States Senate that Pied Piper will not collect user data and the implementation of a decentralized internet will prevent such actions from taking place, but soon finds that one of Pied Piper's developers, Collin, is actively mining user data. He attempts to blackmail Collin by using APIs to collect his phone calls, but the plan backfires when Collin shows off the technology to interested investors. Collin would later join Chilean billionaire Maximo Reyes's alliance with YaoNet, Pied Piper's main competitor after Richard turned down an offer from Reyes to purchase a $1 billion stake in Pied Piper because Richard refused to collect user data. Pied Piper is able to fend off YaoNet when they purchase the cash-strapped Hooli by going around Gavin Belson and convinces his board to sign on. Later, Belson, forced into retirement, publishes a code of conduct known as "Tethics" for all major companies to sign on. Richard refused initially out of anger at Belson's blatant hypocrisy, but soon discovers that Belson had plagiarized from the mission statements of companies such as Applebee's and Starbucks. Richard then attempts to close a deal with AT&T but was turned down initially. While running the internet service at Russ Hanneman's RussFest, Richard discovers YaoNet's presence at the festival. He and the team initially fend off YaoNet, but soon learns from Laurie Bream that YaoNet was only observing the performance of PiperNet and that it is not more advanced compared to YaoNet. Richard initially breaks down at the revelation, but later reverts the system with artificial intelligence, leading to success at RussFest and a $100 million deal with AT&T. However, days before PiperNet's launch, Richard discovers that the network's AI has become so advanced that it can bypass advanced encryptions, meaning that it can potentially end privacy if implemented on a large scale. Although initially reluctant, Richard agrees to intentionally sabotage PiperNet in order to prevent the AI from potentially ending internet privacy. After PiperNet's launch caused thousands of rats to emerge onto streets all over the country, Richard shuts down Pied Piper in shame. He would later travel the world and is revealed to have become a "Gavin Belson Professor of Technology Ethics" at Stanford University ten years after the initial PiperNet launch.
Erlich Bachman
Erlich Bachman, portrayed by T.J. Miller, is an arrogant entrepreneur who founded an innovation incubator in his home after the purchase of his airfare collator Aviato. Erlich still holds on to his glory days in the valley, wearing Aviato T-shirts and driving a Ford Escape adorned with Aviato logos. Under the incubator agreement, Erlich owns 10% of Pied Piper, and is later appointed to the company's board of directors after Richard realizes how important Erlich is to the business. Erlich is a frequent user of marijuana. It is revealed in the season 2 finale that Erlich no longer codes because of severe carpal tunnel syndrome. Despite being relatively unsuccessful in his own entrepreneurial ventures, he is a charismatic public speaker and negotiator, and is often seen as the "face" of Pied Piper. In season 3 he begins to have a less active role in Pied Piper. He begins to start his own VC firm with Big Head but then declares bankruptcy.After selling his Pied Piper shares to cover his debts, he gets rehired into the company as a PR representative. When Richard starts his new company using the Pied Piper trademark, Erlich then owns 10% of the new company while keeping his PR job at the old company which is eventually deleted. Erlich then decides to focus on Jian-Yang's product which also fails. After another failed deal with Kenan Feldspar and quitting his job at Bream-Hall, Erlich then decides that he and Richard will never be successful and moves away to Tibet to join Gavin Belson at a monastery at the end of season 4. When Gavin is informed that Jack Barker is being held hostage, he immediately proceeds to take Erlich with him to leave Tibet. However, Erlich then becomes intoxicated upon consuming opium at an inn, and Gavin pays the innkeeper enough money to take care of Erlich for five years.
Erlich is never heard from again afterward, although Richard reveals in "Exit Event" that he tried to look for Erlich in Tibet.
Nelson "Big Head" Bighetti
Nelson "Big Head" Bighetti, portrayed by Josh Brener, is a former tenant of Erlich's incubator and Richard's best friend who also works at Hooli. He is unintelligent and naïve, but still manages to acquire a significant role as a result of the struggle between Hooli and Pied Piper. After work on Pied Piper commences, Big Head is offered a huge raise and promotion by Gavin Belson to help Hooli develop its copycat software, Nucleus, out of spite and because Richard was forced to limit his staff. He is continually promoted so rapidly that buzz develops about him, and he ends up on the cover of Wired magazine.He is later removed from the Nucleus project due to his lack of technical knowledge, and has absolutely no responsibilities at Hooli. He was later promoted further to make it appear that he was the actual creator of Pied Piper while working at Hooli, but he is unaware of this. After a disastrous binding arbitration with Pied Piper, Gavin makes Big Head redundant and pays him $20 million in severance, which he blows through very quickly when Erlich tricks him into entering into a business arrangement with him, naming their firm, "Bachmanity". Big Head then buys a majority stake in PiperChat following the sale of a technology blog he and Erlich owned. Due to his poor business skills, his father takes over control of his share on his behalf.
In season 4, Big Head takes a position as a Computer Science instructor at Stanford University. In season 5, after discovering that he never formally severed his arrangement with Erlich, Big Head is legally Erlich's next-of-kin and gains ownership of Erlich's house and 10% ownership of Pied Piper from Jian-Yang. Big Head moves into Erlich's house but keeps in touch with Jian-Yang, allowing him to move back into the house after Jian-Yang loses everything in China.
In season 6, Big Head continues to run the Hacker Hostel with Jian-Yang but is aloof to his unethical activities. After Jian-Yang refused to give Pied Piper the backdoor key of his algorithm, Big Head reveals that he has recited it and gives it to Richard. In the series finale "Exit Event", it is revealed that Big Head's father's stake has been bought by Russ Hanneman, although Big Head himself is unaware of it. Ten years after PiperNet's launch, Big Head has become the President of Stanford University and has hired Richard to work as a "Gavin Belson Professor of Technology Ethics".
Bertram Gilfoyle
Bertram Gilfoyle, portrayed by Martin Starr, is a LaVeyan Satanist network engineer and system architect. Initially an undocumented immigrant from Canada, Gilfoyle successfully applied for a visa after being pressured by Dinesh. Gilfoyle credits himself as an online security expert, and as such is responsible for system administration and server configuration at Pied Piper. Gilfoyle has a girlfriend Tara who is also a LaVeyan Satanist, with the two having an open and long-standing relationship, though Tara still lies to Gilfoyle about sleeping with other men. Gilfoyle often plays mocking pranks on Dinesh, but the two do appear to be friends or at most, frenemies despite this, with the two often bonding over their shared moral ambiguity.While he is usually indifferent to Richard and lacks loyalty toward him, Gilfoyle highly respects Richard as a coder and admits that Pied Piper is nothing without Richard. Like Dinesh, Gilfoyle is quick-witted and merciless, but in contrast, highly apathetic, sardonic and brutally honest. He acts as the systems architect of Pied Piper.
Gilfoyle is very confident in his abilities and has proven his worth to the Pied Piper team on multiple occasions, such as building the server farm "Anton", to save the company the struggle of paying for generic, mediocre servers in an office space. Due to this, Gilfoyle takes great pride in his security tech, becoming very nervous and confused whenever his tech is compromised. In season 5, Gilfoyle is promoted to senior management along with Dinesh with the title of "Chief Systems Architect".
By Season 6, Gilfoyle is promoted to VP of Architecture at Pied Piper but refuses to take anyone under his management, preferring to work on the Systems Architecture by himself. This leads to continual conflict with Head of HR Tracy Robertson. After Pied Piper is shut down, Gilfoyle and Dinesh begin to run a large cybersecurity firm together.