'Silicon Valley'

“Silicon Valley,” a new show that premiered April 6 on HBO, has worked its claws into raunchy humor and technological reign.

We’re introduced to the main character Richard Hendrix (Thomas Middleditch) at a “ragger” with his friends, where a performing Kid Rock is said to be the poorest rich man at the party. While working for a tech company Hooli and living out of an “incubator,” Richard develops a compression algorithm for his website Pied Piper. The idea of the site, an application that allows musicians to check if their work infringes on any copyrights, seems inferior, but the algorithm is something everyone wants.

Each of Richard’s friends struggles with a level of anti-socialism outside the realm of code that’s tough to beat. Richard becomes laughable in his awkward wardrobe of skinny khakis and hoodies over collared shirts. His inability to combat his timidity stands as the focal point of the character who needs to step up in order to start his company.

Commander of the incubator Erlich Bachman (T.J. Miller) provides the party humor of “Silicon Valley.” His stoner-attitude familiarity creates the hallmark of all the dilemmas of being young: to work or to party? Elrich’s smugness despite achieving particularly nothing provides him with a king of the nerds position.

The rest of the men of Elrich’s incubator consist of Big Head, your run-of-the-mill coder, Dinesh, almost a carbon copy of “The Big Bang Theory’s” Raj, and Gilfoyle, a Satanic programmer. This band of misfits works to help Richard start Pied Piper from the ground up.

While the humor remains upbeat, some holes in the system remain. The lack of named women in the show — despite a entrepreneur’s assistant and a stripper — can potentially harm the possibility of a female audience and, to say the least, is horrifying.

Though the show would make you think there are fewer women per square foot in Silicon Valley than men, the real region’s population is split in half.

As expected, the men of the tech world assume there’s simply no place for noteworthy women in these stories. Hopefully as the series pans out, more females will be added to the cast, but chances are slim.