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' first season premiered on HBO on April 6, 2014.^[1]

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 (seasons 1–4), 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

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

Dinesh Chugtai

Dinesh Chugtai, portrayed by Kumail Nanjiani, is a talented programmer specializing in Java originally from Karachi, Pakistan who is typically the victim of Gilfoyle's embarrassing games and pranks. Dinesh exhibits a quick-witted and merciless temperament toward everyone on the team, and often behaves in a deceitful and unhelpful manner, such as when he plots the death of a man who was dating the girl that he liked. Dinesh is also shown to be especially materialistic and uncomfortable with women. Dinesh always seems to run into bad luck, which Gilfoyle credits as karma for Dinesh being a bad person.

Like Gilfoyle, Dinesh usually lacks loyalty to Richard, exemplified in season 4, when Dinesh was briefly CEO of PiperChat, he refused to give Richard algorithm usage data in exchange for use of the algorithm as promised. Dinesh has proven that when given the opportunity or a small stream of good luck, he is more than willing to ditch his friends. However, Richard keeps Dinesh on account that despite his disloyal acts, Dinesh is still very good at what he does. In season 5, Dinesh is promoted to senior management along with Gilfoyle and gains an obsession with being the "top Tesla driver" in the company. In Season 6, Dinesh is promoted to VP of Engineering but is usually disrespected by his employees. In the series finale "Exit Event", Dinesh initially recuses himself from participating in the Pied Piper team's attempt to sabotage the launch of PiperNet, believing that his pride and greed will be in the way. However, when he is notified that the faulty code meant to disrupt PiperNet was reverted, Dinesh personally walked to the top of the Salesforce Tower to install the faulty code, successfully crashing PiperNet. After Pied Piper closed, Dinesh and Gilfoyle began to run a large cybersecurity firm together.

Peter Gregory

Peter Gregory, portrayed by Christopher Evan Welch (season 1), is the billionaire founder and CEO of Raviga Capital as well a 5% equity owner of Pied Piper after his $200,000 investment. Gregory is extremely intelligent, but socially awkward, eccentric and fastidious. Historically, Gregory and Gavin Belson were friends, however their relationship soured as each went to run their own competing tech companies, making interactions between them awkward. Welch died after the fifth episode of season 1 was completed, but the character remained present off-screen for the remainder of the season. Gregory later died in the season 2 premiere. Monica is saddened by Gregory's death and still highly reveres him, becoming very disappointed whenever the values Gregory believed in and instilled in the Valley are dishonored, notably by Laurie Bream's profit-motivated approach to business.

In season 4 it is revealed that Peter Gregory theorized decentralized internet years before Richard Hendricks did, but he was limited by the technology of his time.

Monica Hall

Monica Hall, portrayed by Amanda Crew, is an employee of Raviga Capital and associate partner under both Peter Gregory and later Laurie Bream. Monica is often charged with engaging with clients on a more personable and approachable way than either Gregory or Bream are, and as such forms a close friendship with Richard after she convinces him to launch Pied Piper on his own. In season 4, Monica was demoted by Laurie after she voted against selling Pied Piper to the highest bidder, which turns out to be Erlich's company Bachmanity rather than Hooli. Later, Monica realizes that Ed Chen, an up-and-coming colleague at Raviga, is attempting to remove Laurie, she notifies her, earning Laurie's trust in the process. They soon both depart Raviga to form a new VC firm, Bream/Hall and proceeds to fund Pied Piper. In season 5, upon realizing that Laurie plans to take advantage of Pied Piper once they get their Series B funding, Monica finally severs all business ties with her and moves to Pied Piper as its new chief financial officer. In season 6, Monica continues to assist and advise Richard on business affairs and helped in Pied Piper's successful acquisition of Hooli. In "Exit Event", ten years after PiperNet's launch, Monica has moved to Washington, D.C. and is working for a "think tank", although it is later indicated that she is in fact working for the NSA.

Donald "Jared" Dunn

Donald "Jared" Dunn, portrayed by Zach Woods, is an ex-VP of Hooli who quits the company in order to join the Pied Piper team as its COO and business advisor. Like Richard, Jared is anxious and vulnerable, but gains confidence as the series progresses and the company's success necessitates it. Jared is a graduate of Vassar College and provides the business skills that the largely engineering-oriented team lacks, which Gilfoyle admits is very helpful due to their disdain for the business side of startups, providing business strategies to the team such as scrum and SWOT analysis. He is also exceedingly optimistic, kind-hearted and staunchly loyal to Richard, sacrificing his high-paying and financially secure job at Hooli to lend his business expertise to Pied Piper.

His birth name is Donald, but his former boss, Gavin, once referred to him as Jared, and the nickname stuck, despite the Pied Piper team knowing it's not his real name. He is frequently

Gavin Belson

Gavin Belson, portrayed by Matt Ross (recurring season 1, starring season 2–6), is the CEO and founder of tech giant Hooli and the series' main antagonist, who embodies the soulless corporate culture that Richard is desperate to avoid with Pied Piper. Belson constantly spews forth pseudo-philosophical rants to his employees, who remain enamored with his work, but at the same time demonstrates complete ignorance and a mean spirit. Belson later goes on to publish a code of ethics in technology business. After the ending, it is revealed Belson has become an author and released best selling novels.

Jian-Yang

Jian-Yang, portrayed by Jimmy O. Yang (recurring season 1, starring season 2–6), is another tenant of Erlich's incubator, and the only person who lives there that is not involved with Pied Piper in any capacity. He speaks English with a mixed Cantonese-Mandarin accent. Jian-Yang and Erlich have frequent disagreements, given Erlich's racist bullying from the start. In general, Jian-Yang appears to play naive, but then takes advantage of Erlich's naïveté or stupidity. For example, after Erlich complains how difficult it is for a landowner to evict a tenant, Jian-Yang decides to take advantage of this fact and lives rent-free in Erlich's house for a year. As payback for Erlich's racist abuse, Jian-Yang often insults and makes prank calls to Erlich, and takes a sadistic enjoyment in tormenting him. At the end of the show, Jian-Yang has assumed Erlich's identity.

Laurie Bream

Laurie Bream, portrayed by Suzanne Cryer (season 2–6), is the replacement for Peter Gregory as CEO of Raviga Capital, and later co-founder of Bream Hall Capital with Monica. Like her predecessor, Laurie is highly intelligent and socially inept, but appears to rely more on tangible metrics than Peter. Further, unlike him, she is completely devoid of empathy, emotion or any kind of idealism, concerning herself only with making a profit. Little is known about Laurie's personal life, except that she's recently had her fourth child, and is taking low dose MDMA for severe post-partum depression.

In season 2, Laurie initially offers Pied Piper $20 million in Series A funding at a $100 million valuation, but Richard instead takes half of Laurie's offer upon advice from Monica. After Hooli files a lawsuit against Richard, Laurie drops Pied Piper from Raviga's portfolio. After Richard won against Hooli in binding arbitration, Laurie buys Russ Hanneman's stake and three board seats in Pied Piper, and immediately removes Richard as CEO in an emergency board meeting.

In season 3, Laurie offers Richard to stay on as CTO and reserve his board seat, which Richard initially refuses until he met with Jack Barker, Laurie's choice for CEO. After a disagreement between the Pied Piper team and Jack on what platform to develop, Laurie sides with Pied Piper upon realizing the value of their platform and fires Barker, later reinstalling Richard as CEO. After it was discovered that Jared had been using click farms to increase Pied Piper's Daily Active Users (DAU), Laurie proceeds to sell Pied Piper to the highest bidder. Initially thought to be Hooli, Laurie later sells Pied Piper to Bachmanity, owned by Erlich and Big Head, after they outbid Hooli by one dollar. However, Monica is demoted as a result for voting against Laurie.

In season 4, Laurie becomes pregnant with her fourth child and faces a hostile takeover from Ed Chen. She proceeds to partner with Monica upon learning her loyalty and forms a new VC called Bream-Hall together, later agreeing to fund Pied Piper once again after its concept of a decentralized internet was successfully proven. In season 5, Laurie initially offers Pied Piper $30 million in series B funding, but later reveals that she plans to leverage them into collecting user data and other actions, leading to Pied Piper pulling out and fund itself through its ICO, PiperCoin. Laurie later partners up with Yao, a Chinese businessman who owns YaoNet, the version of Pied Piper developed by Jian-Yang, and attempts a failed hostile takeover of Pied Piper's network.

In season 6, Laurie is revealed to have split from Yao and has moved YaoNet's operations to the U.S. She later partners with Maximo Reyes, the Chilean businessman who attempted to buy a $1 billion stake in Pied Piper. The Pied Piper team later found her at RussFest, where she revealed that she was spying on PiperNet's abilities. In the series finale "Exit Event", Laurie is revealed to be in prison ten years after the initial PiperNet launch, although the reason for her imprisonment was never told.

Russ Hanneman

Russ Hanneman, portrayed by

Jack Barker

"Action" Jack Barker, portrayed by Stephen Tobolowsky (recurring season 3, starring season 4), is briefly the CEO of Pied Piper and later Hooli. He has a self-designed business model called the "Conjoined Triangle of Success", and often applies it in his career. In season 3, Jack is picked by Laurie Bream as the new CEO of Pied Piper, which Richard initially opposes until Barker tells him that he will turn down Laurie's offer if Richard leaves as well. The Pied Piper team, however, soon becomes disillusioned with his business approach, including his excessive spending on a new office and sales team. Barker later demands the Pied Piper team to make a data storage box, which the team initially tries to sabotage until it was inadvertently discovered by him. After discovering his attempts to undermine her, Laurie fires Jack as CEO. After running into Gavin Belson at an airport, Jack is hired as Hooli's head of development and immediately begins to work on the box he had planned to produce with Pied Piper with Endframe.

In season 4, Jack and Gavin secure a deal with Chinese producers to make the Hooli-Endframe boxes. But on their way back, Jack requested the pilot to drop him off first at

• Aly Mawji as Aly Dutta/Naveen Dutt (seasons 1–3), a Hooli coder who bullies Richard and Big Head. He is charged with working on Nucleus as a lead engineer.
• Brian Tiechnell as Jason Winter (seasons 1–3), a Hooli programmer who bullies Richard and Big Head. He is also charged with working on Nucleus as a lead engineer. He along with Aly quits Hooli after being fed up with Gavin's antics.
• Jill E. Alexander as Patrice (seasons 1–3, 5), a Hooli employee. She is fired by Gavin after showing distaste toward his animal abuse.
• Andy Daly as Dr. Crawford, a Silicon Valley doctor whom Richard regularly sees.
• Ben Feldman
  as Ron LaFlamme, Pied Piper's young, laid-back but competent outside counsel.
• Gabriel Tigerman as Gary Irving (seasons 1–3), the human resources manager at Hooli.
• Bernard White as Denpok, Gavin's sycophantic spiritual advisor.
• Kara Swisher as herself, a tech journalist who often interviews some of the show's characters.
• binding arbitration
  of the Hooli lawsuit.
• Jake Broder as Dan Melcher (seasons 1, 4), a former TechCrunch Judge who is kicked out after he beats up Bachman for sleeping with his wife. He later returns in season four as the CTO of an insurance company.
• Alice Wetterlund as Carla Walton (seasons 2–3), a programmer and friend of Gilfoyle and Dinesh's who joins the Pied Piper team. She later quits along with the other new hires after the failures with Homicide and Intersite. She later blackmails Pied Piper to pay her in exchange for non-disclosure of Pied Piper's "Skunkworks" plan but refusing to return to the team.
• security officer
  . He admires Gavin and is determined to make each of his requests, though Gavin often disregards him. He is a veteran.
• Annie Sertich as C.J. Cantwell (season 3), a tech blogger. Erlich buys her blog after she is coerced into revealing Big Head was her source. Later the blog is bought out by Gavin himself after she hears about Gavin's illegal dumping of an elephant in the San Francisco Bay.
• Ken Lerner as Arthur, Big Head's business manager when he creates an incubator. He is later found to have embezzled money from Bachmanity.
• Henry Phillips as John Stafford, the downtrodden datacenter employee who shows other characters to their new underground offices, and offers to show the main cast individual racks where their "box" might be located once it is created.
• Haley Joel Osment as Keenan Feldspar (season 4), the developer of a VR headset who tries to buy out Pied Piper. When Richard rejects the deal, he signs with Hooli.
• Tim Chiou as Ed Chen (season 4), a venture capitalist that works at Raviga who currently serves as the firm's Managing Director.
• Emily Chang as herself (seasons 3–6), a journalist who interviews various characters.
• Tzi Ma as Yao (season 5), a Chinese businessman and manufacturing plant owner who works with Belson and Laurie.
• Aaron Sanders (seasons 5–6) as Holden, the much-abused protege of Jared.
• Aristotle Athari (seasons 5–6) as Gabe, a Pied Piper employee who works in quality assurance and annoys Dinesh. He has an Archelis wearable chair.
• Helen Hong as Tracy (season 6), the head of Human resources at Pied Piper.
• Arturo Castro as Maximo Reyes (season 6), a Chilean billionaire who purchased a stake in Pied Piper in season 6. He is later found to have a dark past.
• Avi Nash as Wajeed (seasons 2 and 6), Dinesh's cousin and founder of Bro.
• Nandini Bapat as Gwart (season 6), an eccentric, mute programmer initially living in the Hacker Hostel who ends up working for Pied Piper and later YaoNet.

References