"Erlich!" "Seeing you Thursday, right?" "Jian Yang's pitch?" "Yes, we can't wait to pitch you the idea" " that is gonna be pitched to you." " Great, I'll see you then." " You have no idea what it is, do you?" " Not a fucking clue." "I'm taking Piper Chat, all your users will be converted to Hooli Chat users." "You have five seconds to decide." " Five..." " Okay." "I don't know if this will be relevant, but he did say the word, "oculus," a whole bunch." " Oculus?" " Mm-hm." "Jian?" "I'm very excited for your VR play." " Who's doing VR?" " This has to do with the Oculus, right?" " Octopus." " Octopus?" " It's a water animal." " I..." "I..." "I know what an octopus is." "Gavin, I need to talk to you about this Piper Chat acquisition." "Now, Carl, you said the new sign-in page made you nervous..." "Are these my favorite nail beds I've ever seen?" "No, but they're fine." "Okay." "You know, I..." "I wasn't actually gonna come here." "But then, I thought, "You know what?" "I could..." "I could use a walk."" "And, um, well, I've just been working on this peer-to-peer Internet thing, and well, I..." "I think better when I walk." "Mm-hmm." "If I'm gonna be thinking and walking," "I might as well walk somewhere specific." "Hey, when was the last time you slept?" "Um..." "I don't know." "Well, I know I..." "I was gonna sleep last night, but, uh..." "I thought I had this solve for this computational trust issue I've been working on, but it turns out, I didn't have a solve." "But it was too late." "I had already drank the whole pot of coffee." "Okay." "Well, I'm busy." "I've got to see patients all the time." " Sorry." "I don't want to interrupt you." " What are you doing?" "Sorry, just... just one second." "I just had a quick thought." "Why are you writing it on there?" "Well, I mean, you change these between every patient, right?" "I guess I'm going to have to now." "You know, all the guys at the house, they think I'm nuts, but I'm not nuts." "Hey, you know, they say that after Alan Turing was chemically castrated, he got a lot less annoying." " What was that?" " Hmm?" "Nothing." "Just... that's just something to think about." "Okay." "Sure, yeah." "Pen, please." "Right, yeah." "Go ahead and pay the lady out front." "Cash is always appreciated." "Hmm." "How the hell does this thing work?" "Question for you." "What's better than octopus recipe?" "Answer for you." "Eight recipes for octopus." "My grandmother gave me a family recipe before she died in a horrible way." "Wait." "What?" "Sorry." "We knew Jian-Yang's app was in the food space, but we assumed that it was camera-based." "Like, you take a photo of food, the app returns nutritional information, or recipes, or how it was sourced." "Yeah, like Shazam for food." "Exactly." "But this, I mean, this is..." "Shazam... for food." "No, Shazam's not my vision." "Of course they know that you're not pitching Shazam." "That already exists." "This would be a Shazam... for food." " No." " Sorry." "Language barrier." "Do you speak Mandarin?" "Anybody?" "No?" " That's not Mandarin." " He's a stickler for the accent." "No, my app is seafood, like food..." " ... in the sea." " ..." "That you can see." "Oh, "see food."" " S-E-E food." " Oh." " SeeFood." " Now, that we like." "Seafood." "It's like food in the sea." "Fuck." "Oh, Gavin." "Gavin." "I heard about your PiperChat issue." "Those COPPA fines are no joke, could be billions." "I'm acutely aware, Jack." "Listen, after all you've done for me... bringing me into the Hooli sandbox, letting me play here... what if, hypothetically," "I had a way to delete the underage accounts and the chat data in question?" "Hypothetically, I could blame it on a malfunction of my Endframe/Box servers." "The board would have nothing to blame you for." "Jack, I'm speechless." "I'm embarrassed to say it, but I was beginning to question your loyalty." "Yeah." "Well, you should've." "I said it was hypothetical." "Didn't say I'd do it." "Why don't you go ahead and take a seat, Gavin?" "Uh, you guys?" "Gavin Belson just got fired!" " Richard." " Wait." "What?" "Shit, that's huge." ""There are unconfirmed reports that Belson violated Hooli protocol" ""in the acquisition of a company that contained toxic assets."" " Oh, that's us!" " Oh, my God." "Gavin's been fired?" "Did you fall in the pool?" "Oh, no." "No, I didn't." "I was, um..." "I was dangling my feet in, 'cause it was cool and refreshing and just helping me think, and then, since I was wet anyway," "I purposefully started to wade around in the pool." "Uh..." "But don't worry." "No, I didn't fall in." "I, uh..." "I am not a spaz." ""Belson will be succeeded by 'Action' Jack Barker." ""A veteran tech CEO, Barker commented," ""'We at Hooli pledge to work" ""with the Federal Trade Commission" ""to resolve this matter and commit ourselves" ""to earning back the public trust.'"" "Wow, Dinesh, you really stuck it to him." "Now they're pinning it all on Gavin." " Holy shit." " Dude, you're moist." "Oh, I'm sorry." "Yeah, I'll go and get a towel." "I mean, Dinesh, you're a... a giant slayer." "As long as he's the one taking the fall for these underage users." "I thought I'd have to, like, answer to Congress or something." "Yeah, that makes sense." "You were worried sick about the wrath of a bloated and inept bureaucracy, but feel totally comfortable having crossed a spiteful and vindictive megalomaniac with unlimited funds." "Shut up." "Gavin wouldn't come after me personally." "I think you might be the first Pakistani man to be killed by a drone inside the United States." "People don't have people killed in the Valley." "Not even Gavin Belson." "Okay?" "Right, Jared?" "I..." "I once saw him throw a sloth down a flight of stairs after a presentation, and he said it was an accident, but he had this look in his eyes." "I..." "I can't rule it out." ""A legacy lost." ""CEO and chief innovator Gavin Belson" ""exits Hooli."" "The end of the Gavin Belson era." "And if all goes well, it is the beginning of the era of Erlich Bachman and his funky Asian dude friend," "Jian..." "Jian?" "Jian-Yang!" "Coleman Blair and Associates just offered us a seed investment of $200,000 for the Shazam of food." "All we have to do is dazzle them with a demo on Monday, and, uh, the check will..." " What the fuck?" " Huh?" "Is that my vintage Corona Club beach towel?" "Yes." "I was in the pool, but I got out." "That's a beach towel, not a pool... and it..." "Where were you?" "I was referring to you as my funky Asian friend." "The passenger door's all fucked up!" "I told you, there's no demo." "I'm making my recipe app." "You're gonna walk away from $200,000?" "You know who walks away from that kind of money, Jian-Yang?" "Richard, a crazy person." "Crazy?" "No." "Opposite." "He walked away from $10 million." "Now look at him... wet pants, stealing towels, babbling about technical issues that he can't solve." "I am one computational trust issue away from solving this thing." "Is this how you wanna end up?" "No." "He's a cautionary tale." "Nope, not true." "Not a cautionary tale." "Got a lot of work to do." "I'll be in the pool." "Not crazy." " I mean, it's like, wow." " Richard..." "Hey, Erlich." "Just FYI." "I actually did some image recognition stuff on Nip Alert, so maybe you could hire me to help on the demo, 'cause my dad's been, like, kinda on me lately to, like, get a job or go to school 'cause... 'cause he's upset that I lost all that money on... on PiperChat." "And then also, you helped me lose that 20 million on Bachmanity." "Big Head, um..." "Jian-Yang's culture... he's..." "Chinese... won't allow him to accept outside help." "Oh, right, 'cause of Chinese." "Okay, well, that makes sense." "If either of you could aid in the construction of this image recognition software," "I can pay you handsomely." "Huh." "Five years at ASU, then you dropped out?" "No degree?" "Mm-hmm." "Pretty solid "C's" in all of your CS classes." "Right." "But really more incompletes than anything." "Yeah, a lot of those classes were at 11:00 a.m., so..." "I'm sorry, but I..." "I don't think you're Stanford CS material, Mr. Bighetti." "Yeah, that's totally fair." "Thanks so much." "Have a nice day." "Oh, hey, did you get this at a party on Alcatraz?" " Yes." " Oh, cool." "I got one there, too." "Or, I mean, I guess, technically, I bought one there." "I bought everything there." "Excuse me?" "Oh, Bachmanity was my VC fund." "What?" " It stands for Venture Capital." " I know." "Umm..." "Wh..." "Wait." "Nelson Bighetti." "Were you on the cover of WIRED magazine?" "Yeah, and actually inside, too." "Can I get you some coffee?" "The last 24 hours have been very painful." "But in the days to come, what I will be thinking of most is all of you, the good people of Hooli, and what we've built together." "And, yes, we built great products here." "Great products." "But I like to think we built an even greater connection." "So, in the spirit of that connection, if any of you would like to say something to me... positive or negative..." "this is the time." "I encourage you to be completely honest." "Don't be shy." "This is most likely the last chance we have to talk." "Anything at all." "Ah." "Here we go." "Todd, our senior systems engineer." "I'm sorry, but it's my official duty to... escort you off the property..." "I understand." " Thank you for your dedication..." " ... and relieve you of your badge." "Yes." "I guess this is it then." "Goodbye, Hoover." "Your parking hang tag." "I mean, do you think I'm crazy for chasing this thing?" "Don't ask me." "I'm hardly in a position to judge." "I mean, you do realize I'm literally the only person in this entire grocery store who's actually buying stuff for myself." "I don't know." "Maybe these people are right." "Maybe I just drop this one, move on, and become some pathetic fucking TaskRabbit, you know?" "Hey, I have a family, asshole." "Oh." "Sorry." "Not you, the other ones." "Look, if you can't crack this idea, there's no shame." "I mean, a lot of really smart people have gotten stuck on it." "Please." "Like who?" "Peter Gregory for one." "Peter was thinking about a fully decentralized Internet?" "Why wouldn't you mention this to me?" "Well, because he walked away from it, and you seemed so excited about it, I thought you had a new angle." "I didn't want to discourage you." "Oh, what, 'cause I'm some delicate little flower?" "I couldn't handle it?" "The thing is, Peter tended to cling to things, and he gave up on this." "I mean, he must've had a reason." "Wait." "Peter was a compulsive note-taker." "Right?" "What about his journals?" "I mean, do you guys still have them?" "Richard, I am on thin ice as it is at Raviga." "No." "Monica, listen to me, okay?" "I haven't slept in days." "I'm walking into pools fully clothed." "This is all I think about." "Please." "Fine, but just this once." "Yes." "Thank you." " Fuck." "It's Erlich." "He..." " What?" "He wants me to help spin up this demo for Jian-Yang's bullshit Shazam-for-food app." "Wait, the thing that Coleman Blair just bought?" "That was them?" "Yeah, but they haven't bought it yet." "I mean, they sign the deal on Monday, but it's all contingent on a working demo, which they do not and will not have." "Interesting." "You're doing great work by the way." " Fuck you." " Definitely." "Thank you." "I'll have those forms to you by 11." "Yeah, so it's called SeeFood, but it's S-E-E Food, get it?" "Yes, Erlich Bachman showed me a demo, and this thing is incredible." "Yeah, and Coleman Blair is gonna get the whole deal for only 200K." "But here's the thing, they don't close until Monday." "I mean, if I had Laurie's ear, I would tell her that we should pay them today and close the deal, and Bachman would jump on it in a second." "Go choke on that, broham." "Very funny." " What's funny?" " This message." ""Hey, I'm a big fan of what you did to Gavin Belson." ""I've seen your photo and think you're cute." ""Would love to meet up." "Mia."" " Fuck you." " I didn't send that." " Oh, you didn't?" " My hand to Satan." "But before you go ahead and get a little brown boner in your pants, you might wanna consider that it's not a woman." "I bet you're being catfished by Gavin himself." "Oh, fuck." " But..." " But what?" "On the off chance that this is an actual real woman, getting murdered seems like an acceptable risk." " Oh, hey." " Hey." "Let me ask you something." "Do you think wearing the name of the college you're going to to class is like the same thing as wearing the name of the band you're going to to a concert?" " What?" " Did you get into Stanford?" "Yeah, and this is totally going to get my dad off my back, and they said they liked my story, so I'm gonna take a CS class there." "And they're so nice." "I was asking if it was gonna be pass/fail, and they were like, "It's up to you."" "And then I said, "Is there gonna be homework?"" "And they were like, "Only if you want it."" "And so then, I guess I have to decide if I want it, which kinda already feels like homework, but do you think I..." "Holy shit." "It's like we just walked right into Peter Gregory's brain." "Actually, I think Peter's brain is in a cryo-locker in Menlo Park." "Oh, hey, I, uh..." "I remember this photo from Peter's office." "It's still so weird to me that he and Gavin Belson were ever friends." "Select destination." " No." "No, no." "No, thank you." " Optimizing route to Arallon." "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa." "Hold on." "Wait." "Are all these Peter Gregory's notebooks?" "Um..." " Are they?" "Are they in this box?" " Richard." "Remember, you promised you were gonna get some sleep tonight." "Yeah, I will." "All right, I'm, uh..." "I'm gonna leave you guys to it." "Oh, Erlich didn't get a call from Ed Chen today, did he?" "Yeah." "I heard them on speakerphone, 'cause Erlich was neti-potting." "I think, uh..." "I think they're meeting tonight." "Good to know." " What?" " Sesame seeds." " To SeeFood." " To SeeFood... and to a full-expensed meal on Raviga's tab, and to you, Ed Chen, who pulled the wool over Laurie Bream's eyes and got us two-hundo-thou sight unseen." "Well, she had some concerns about getting into business with you again, but I can pretty much talk that broad into anything." "Ha!" "Cheers to that." "You're a con man, like Erlich!" "What does that mean?" "It... it's a little term of endearment we have around the house." "Uh, a confident man." "He sees me as a confident man, and he looks up to me." "You know, you have to be patient with him," " 'cause he's a bit of a moron." " Moron?" "No, no, no." "I mean, he's..." "Not in tech." "And how about this palapa?" "Are we in the islands or what?" "Sorry." "I..." "This app isn't gonna suck, right?" "If it sucks, it's my ass." "You guys have a working demo... right?" "Uh, we're gonna slow down on the, uh... the-the... the servings for the little one." "So, he's from China, a small town, not used to our big city liquor, and..." "No, no, no, no, no." "Jian-Yang." "Boys, boys." "Let's speak in English." "It's the law." ""I'm a big fat fucking asshole."" "Okay, now." "That's... that's me." "Why would I call myself a big fat asshole?" "The liquor's gotten to the little fellow, and I wouldn't listen to a word he has to say." "Oh, hey, Gilfoyle." "This is Mia." "Are you gonna murder Dinesh?" " No." " Bummer." "Wait." "Gilfoyle?" "Are you the Gilfoyle from Bovine Dawn?" "Maybe." "I'm MI4." "No shit." "I always thought you were a fat, bald weirdo." "Well, she's not." "She's a thin, hairy regular." "You know, you were totally wrong about the dump of all the hacking team's best exploits." "No, if you look at what happened with the Equation Group, it was basically the same thing." "She's right, you're wrong." "Um, shall we head out?" "Don't wait up." "Oh, my God." " Oh, my fucking God!" " Richard, what is it?" "Jared, look." "It's all here." "Peter Gregory knew the value of a completely decentralized Internet." "I mean, Look, look. "The Internet we deserve."" "I mean, look, even back then," "Peter was worried that the Internet would become this shitty corporate-controlled thing that... that Hooli and all these other companies manipulate today." "But the idea is real." "It's just that Peter didn't think it was feasible unless compression surpassed the theoretical limit of a 2.9 Weissman Score." "We shattered that limit at TechCrunch Disrupt." " Yeah, baby." "Exactly." " Ha!" "I mean, goddammit." "I always knew there was a perfect application for my algorithm." "These notes, all this... this is going to save me months." "This is it." "I mean, I was right all along." "I was right!" "Can I just... can I try something?" "Yeah." "Woo!" " Okay." " I don't know." " Woo!" " Woo!" "Woo!" "Woo!" "Woo!" " Sorry." " That's okay." "So... do you like movies?" "Depends on the movie." "I'm the exact same way." "It being a movie doesn't mean I'm gonna like it." "Would you care for some wine or a cocktail tonight?" "Uh, just water, please." "Just water, please." "I love water." "I do." "Oceans, rivers... lakes." "When does a pond... become a lake?" "I wonder if it's depth." "Where are those waters?" "Felt like we ordered waters a while ago." "And..." "What?" "Fucking prick." " What?" " Oh, nothing." "It was just a text from Gilfoyle." "Gilfoyle isn't a prick." " Yeah, I'm sorry." " He's a motherfucking prick." " What?" " That guy sucks." "Everyone hates him on the message boards." "You know, putting a face to the name made so much sense." "Right, 'cause his face sucks, too." " Totally!" " Yeah." "I have to find this one post of his." "It was insane." "You know, he has no friends." "He pretends like he's all dry and witty, but he's just a monotone piece of shit." "And being a Satanist just means you're ugly, and you're leaning into it." "That's right." "You know what?" "Can I get a glass of Malbec?" "Unless..." "Do you want to get a bottle?" "Yeah." "Let's get a bottle of Malbec." " Fucking Gilfoyle." " Right?" "Mr. Bighetti." "When you're ready." "Uh, ready for what?" "I'm like the class clown already." "Why is my name on the board?" "_" "Oh, no." "Laurie, you wanted to see me?" "Oh." "Yes, Monica, sit." "Are you pregnant?" " Yes." " Congratulations." " On?" " On being pregnant." "Oh." "Yes." "Friday afternoon, Ed Chen convinced me to bid against Coleman Blair on an app entitled SeeFood." "It's run by Bachman and the one who smoked in the offices." "Well, I..." "Ed is very persuasive." "This morning, he made the case that since you have a long-standing relationship with Bachman, and since you are a talented VC who deserves a second chance... his words... you should take lead." "What?" "I mean, look at this drawing." "I drew the exact same thing on my doctor's butt paper." "I mean, Peter had the exact same idea." "He was just waiting for compression to catch up, which it did, thanks to me." "Cheer up, Richard." "Yes, but here's the best part, okay?" "Peter never foresaw the ubiquity of Internet connected computing devices." "Right?" "Camera, refrigerators, TVs, baby monitors, not to mention the billions-plus smartphones that are floating around the world." "I mean, who here has a smartphone, right?" "You, you, me, Jian-Yang, Dinesh, Monica..." "Richard, you don't have to name everyone you know." "Point is... you all thought I was crazy when I walked into the swimming pool with my clothes on, but it turns out I was fucking right." "Okay." "So, not crazy." "Opposite." "You poor idiots." "How was school, Timmy?" "Oh, not great." "They made me teach." " Teach what?" " Stanford." "You're a professor at Stanford now, Big Head?" "No, that would be crazy." "I'm a guest lecturer." "What are you doing?" "It was open, and you have the keys." "Huh." "Strange." "Did you change the locks?" "'Cause the keys were working last night when I went for my date." "'Cause I haven't come back to the house since my date, so..." "I did sex on her." " Good." " Cool." "Yeah, that's great." "Nice, man." "Who is she?" "Her name is Mia, and she is a-Mia-zing." "She hates Gilfoyle almost as much as I do, so..." "Huh!" "Jumping headlong into a sexual relationship with MI4." "Ballsy." "But I'm sure you've thought through the consequences." "Well, we weren't really doing a lot of thinking." "You know what I mean?" " Oh, wow." " Mia is a legit hacker." "People say that she's taken on the Chinese government, and here you are, after one meal, in an intimate relationship." "So?" "So what do you think she'll do if you try to break up with her?" "Or disagree with her?" "Or disappoint her in any way, like by confessing that your badass takedown of Gavin Belson was a total accident?" "Unless, you've already told her." "It didn't come up." "Well, I'm sure that when she finds out that your entire relationship is based on a lie of omission, she'll be very understanding." "So what?" "We just won't breakup." "Ever?" "Ever." "Erlich." "Do you know how badly Ed Chen just fucked me with Laurie?" "Let me tell you something." "A threesome is always awkward, especially the first one." "Laurie being a little bit older..." "I'm talking about SeeFood." "What do you and Jian-Yang have?" "Oh." "A whole lot of nothing." "Are you..." "No!" "No, no, no, no, no." "SeeFood has to be great." "My job depends on it." "Ed Chen bailed and dumped the whole thing on me." "Richard, can I speak with you in the kitchen for a moment?" "Yup." "Sure." "So, what's up?" "Well, here's the thing." "Remember that phone number you were curious about in here?" "Well, it's not a phone number." "It's a patent number." "A patent for exactly what you were planning to build." "So Peter patented it." "No, I, um..." " I spoke to Brian Fong." " Who?" " Brian Fong." " Oh." "And he told me that Peter was very excited about the idea, but there was some resentment that he wasn't focused more on what the team was working on, so one of them went out and got a patent on it." "Why didn't this guy pursue it?" "Well, the patent was just a roadblock to keep Peter focused on the company they were starting... a company that... went on to be known as Hooli." "Wait, wait." "Wait, wait, wait." "Sst!" "So you're telling me that the perfect application of my algorithm belongs to Gavin fucking Belson?" "I'm afraid so." "Richard, are... you okay?" "Uh, yes." "Just putting something away." "Yep." "Not crazy." "Opposite." "Richard, you gotta let me in." "I have your shoe." "All right, I'm..." "I'm sorry to barge in here, but you have to eat something or you'll..." "Hello?" "Uh, hi, it's Richard..." "Hendricks." "Richard Hendricks." "I'm here for Gavin Belson, and we really need to talk."