silicon valley

Last night saw some history in "Start-Ups: Silicon Valley."

Yes, given its rather tawdry ratings -- 20 percent of those of "Real Housewives," so rumor has it -- this could be the last episode ever. So the excitement was more palpable than that for the discovery of the tomb of a hitherto unknown ancient Egyptian king.

We began with grunting. Yes, Sarah (blonde lifecaster, recently recovering from not having breast cancer) and David (gay, vaguely sane) are working out.

Sarah has found a wonderful sponsor for the launch party of David's app. It's called … Read more

As "Start-Ups: Silicon Valley" staggers toward an uncertain future, it's easy to wonder that the protagonists are in a similar position.

This evening's penultimate episode began with lots of dynamic speak from these partying entrepreneurs. There was talk of the coding/entrepreneurship axis, which sounds like a very dangerous alliance indeed.

But, within seconds, we had David (gay, relatively sane) visit Sarah (blonde lifecaster) in order to find out what had happened in the last episode.

No, he clearly hadn't watched it. So here he learned that Sarah had a fight with Hermione (Brit, blonde, … Read more

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that he let go of nearly $500 million today by donating it to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation.

This nonprofit foundation focuses on grant giving to serve the community in the San Francisco peninsula. Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post today that he, his wife, Priscilla Chan, and the Silicon Valley Community Foundation will work together to "look for areas in education and health to focus on."

The hefty sum of cash comes as a gift of 18 million Facebook shares, which is valued at more than $498 million, based on the social … Read more

It's been a hellish year.

I have experienced more disappointments than Kate Middleton in a Motel 6. I have even been told by a gnome that everything in the garden wasn't rosy.

But I never thought it would come to this: I heard a rumor that Bravo TV was going to cancel "Start-Ups: Silicon Valley."

Should your obsession with gazelle documentaries have kept you away from this opus, it involves six supposed tech entrepreneurs who go to a lot of parties and occasionally kiss each other and dance around with strap-ons.

Yes, all while trying to … Read more

Last week, we left our protagonists on "Start-Ups: Silicon Valley" hanging on the end of a strap-on.

No, wait. It was Hermione (blonde, British, boozer) who was hanging on to a strap-on at the end.

Her brother Ben (short, pretty, pretty short) was livid with her, even though it was her birthday party. One doesn't play with sex toys in front of VCs.

Not unless those sex toys are social and can entice 100 million users within a week.

Ben reveals to Hermione something more important than whether they lost $500,000 to her dildo dancing: he … Read more

The other night I met someone who is utterly riveted by "Start-Ups: Silicon Valley."

It was Windsor, the stellar barperson at my local restaurant, Sushi Ran.

"Why do you like it?" I asked.

"Because it's great," was her excited reply. I probed. She insisted it was great "because it is."

I wonder how great she would have found last night's episode 5. It began with Hermione (British, blonde) embarrassed at her drunken psychotic behavior last week.

It's just the stress of getting funding, explains her brother Ben (short, pretty, … Read more

From the outside, it looks like a typical California suburban home: garage, driveway, tidy yard. But walk down the path leading to the front door and you'll find your first clue that a traditional family of four does not live inside. On the front porch are dozens and dozens of pairs of men's shoes, all removed before entering in order to keep the house as tidy as possible.

When we knocked, Carlos De La Lama Noriega, the manager of the house, greeted us and welcomed us inside for a tour. The main living space was clean and airy … Read more

Those watching "Start-Ups: Silicon Valley" will have learned many things over its first three weeks.

They'll have learned that you can't get money from VCs just by knowing their phone numbers and fluttering your acronyms. They'll have learned that doing a start-up is so hard that you need to party a lot. And they'll have learned that date-cheating just isn't on if you're a lifecaster.

Last night's Episode 4 began with Sarah (fake blonde lifecaster) kissing her dog. This was presumably to make up for the fact that last week she didn't get to kiss Jay, … Read more

Superstar angel investor Ron Conway will no longer be part of the team of investors giving money to the dozens of startups taking part each year in Y Combinator, one of the world's most prestigious incubators.

Y Combinator said today that it is sharply reducing the amount of venture funding each startup coming through the program is given. For the last two years, each team was seeded with $150,000 in funding from Conway, of SV Angel, Yuri Milner, and Andreessen Horowitz. Starting today, that amount has been slashed to $80,000 per team, the incubator said, as it … Read more