Jump to content

Type keyword(s) to search

S03.E08: Bachman's Earning's Over-Ride


  • Reply
  • Start Topic

Recommended Posts

Quote

Erlich struggles to come clean to Richard, who is forced to make a choice between their friendship and the company's future. Jared's new Pied Piper apparel makes a splash, and divides Dinesh and Gilfoyle. As Gavin faces major life changes, the guys celebrate a rare victory.

Promo:

Link to comment
(edited)

Ugh, again Richard is making a poor, emotionally-motivated, business decision by hiring "the stupidest man in the Valley" as head of PR. What gave him the idea that Erlich would be good at it, the way he hijacked the Bloomberg interview to clarify the spelling of his name?

I'm glad at least Laurie is looking out for Pied Piper's interests.

The only funny part of the episode was Gavin and Jack taking separate private jets to the same destination and making plans to play chess in the air once they have wifi.

Gavin being fired again - is that going to be forgotten by next season also? Is that going to be a recurring joke?

Edited by chocolatine
  • Love 3
Link to comment
40 minutes ago, chocolatine said:

Ugh, again Richard is making a poor, emotionally-motivated, business decision by hiring "the stupidest man in the Valley" as head of PR. What gave him the idea that Erlich would be good at it, the way he hijacked the Bloomberg interview to clarify the spelling of his name?

 

Lol. I think he knows he'll be terrible at it. He just wants to help his friend out.

I love this show.

  • Love 3
Link to comment

So, definitely more amusing snippets than normal, but ~100,000 downloads in ten days isn't newsworthy.  More evidence that- in spite of the poorly researched and written articles passed around in the last week trying desperately to convince us this show hasn't become a steaming pile of shit- that Mike Judge has his head so thoroughly stuck up his own ass that he can literally see the future the distant past of the late 90's tech scene.  

Also, that whole Bachman plot is dumb.  

  • First, did he actually sell his shares yet, or will we find out in the next episode that new board member Jared will veto the sale?  He, Monica, Richard have enough to prevent the sale from occurring since Raviga/Laurie only have two votes outside of that, right?  Oh, who fucking cares when the writers are this sloppy and dumb?  It seems odd that he lost out on all the money from PP just like that, and we're apparently expected to not care as an audience any more than we did with Bighead.  I suppose next episode, Richard will lose all his shares, and then they'll cancel the show without even airing the final episode of the season.  A man can dream...
  • Second, we covered it well last week, but to find out the actual bill is $713,000... that's fucking it?!?  Jesus, why would he not just sell his house? Normally that's stupid, but in rare cases- like sitting on 10% of a company conservatively valued at $250M minimum- it's the right move.  The money left over from the sale of his house on top of that $713K would still leave him a millionaire, and he'd have his shares.  Seriously, how stupid, how profoundly stupid are the writers of this show that not one person in that room over weeks of effort said "Wait... why would he not just sell his house, like we literally wrote him doing at the end of last season?"?!?
  • Third, it's stupendously dumb to imagine that a bill to a mere catering company would somehow, in the span of what in show time appears to be a few days, legally require a person to literally sell all of their non-liquid assets at an unjustifiable, arbitrary price; Laurie's obscene offer should have been flatly refused if not outright laughed at, and I refuse to believe that such a situation would ever, ever arise.  That'd be like finding out that when your credit card is declined at a restaurant, you have to give them the deed to your home on the spot, because hey: a debt is a debt.  That's how the world works in the pea-brains of this show's writers.

God, Mike Judge is such a fucking idiot toolbag. Does literally no writer in television understand that there are these people called "lawyers" who can do a perfectly fine job of helping you navigate this situation- including delaying tactics etc- such that Erlich would not be forced to lose all his shares?!?  That bitch of a DA can blather all she wants, but I think even the lawyer who's in prison could have churned up enough paper work to shunt the blame and debt onto the grossly law-breaking business manager who still has the $6M, or at least delay things in terms of his and Bighead's own debt long enough that he wasn't "forced" to do this.  I'm hate-watching till the end of the season, but if for some crazy reason I'm back here for season 4, please remind me how much I hate this show and everyone involved with it.

Lastly, it's bizarre that Laurie went from "nice but odd" to "probably the most evil character in three seasons of this show, including Russ and Gavin" in literally one sentence.  I'm not sure what you meant, chocolatine, by "looking out for Pied Piper's interest"; if anything, the sale of stock should have been prevented for the very reasons the show itself outlined explicitly.  What she did was basically a glorified mugging, and she smirked hideously the entire time.

  • Love 7
Link to comment
Just now, chocolatine said:

I meant she kept Russ from buying into Pied Piper again.

Oh!!!  Yeah, that's true.  Hell, he should have sold them to Gavin; he's got a hard-on for PP like you wouldn't believe, and he is still a billionaire.  

It still makes no sense that Erlich would accept that sale.  That's not how the world works, that's not how the law works, that's not how debt and obligations work.  For Hollywood to get accounting and debt wrong in a plot point is insane; it's a town built on various forms of wholesale fraud and "creative" bookkeeping, they'd know better than anyone that Erlich could dance around his debt obligation indefinitely.

  • Love 3
Link to comment

Did anyone else let out a squeal of delight when they saw Russ again?! I have been doing his stupid dance ("who likes swag? I like this swag. This guy, this guy I like swag!") since we met the character. Possibly my fave character arc ever to occur on a show. 

Guilfoyle is as bitterly sardonic as I wish I sometimes could be. Yet somehow he still remains almost heartwarming. 

  • Love 3
Link to comment
Quote

It still makes no sense that Erlich would accept that sale.

None whatsoever.  The notion that he'd accept less than a penny on the dollar (if the billion dollar valuation is correct) is simply ludicrous, not given that we viewers have some experience with how debt actually works.  Truly Erlich is the stupidest man around, followed closely by the writer who thought this plot device sounded reasonable.  

It's questionable that Laurie would even make such an offer, if (as we're led to believe) the mere rumor that such stock quantities were shifting hands might jeopardize PP as a whole.  Which in itself sounds pretty silly - one rumor against a super-duper app that everyone loves and is clamoring for?  I'm not in that business so I'll accept that some shit in the tech biz makes no sense, but still.

It also made no sense to me that Erlich would keep his monetary woes to himself, particularly in that his attempts to rectify them will become known shortly.  It's just a matter of when, not if, so his trying to spare himself embarrassment for mere days (at vast expense to himself and possibly vast expense to his friends) seemed bizarre.  He had no endgame here and every reason to be upfront with his predicament, and failing to do so guaranteed he'd lose everything and gain pretty much nothing.  But he did it anyway.  

And hincandenza's right - why didn't Erlich just sell his house?  It's worth way more than 700k, he wouldn't endanger his own or anyone else's future, and PP has got tons of buzz going and enough money to move out anyway.  What about Bighead's house - it's worth even more than Erlich's.  Glaring, ridiculous inconsistency given that this is the main plot device at this point, although the previews hint that an even sillier one is coming next week.  Sigh.  

  • Love 1
Link to comment

You know what really grinds my gears?  Why didn't Bachmann get a short term loan with his shares as collateral?  He could have waited to pay his suppliers until after the app went public.  Never mind that the district attorney has absolutely nothing to do with a civil/contracts case......but he could have put his creditors off a few more days.  And then either used the shares as collateral for a short term loan, or obtained a loan based on the strength of the shares.  If his debt was crazy, I could see that not being an option, but his debts were under a million dollars and he owned 10% of a 50 million dollar company.  How could he not get that financed in the short term instead of having to sell off his shares.  I understand that Laurie had power to block an unsuitable buyer as a contractual term, but she would have to give a reason.  I don't see how you can call a bank an unsuitable shareholder.  And that would be even if it got to the point of having to foreclose on the shares....which would have been unlikely.

Again -- I'm tired of Dinesh being the butt of every joke.

Egads was that jacket ugly, but Jared is just so cute in it I can't hate it.  

Speaking of which, why doesn't Jared do interviews.  I guess that Bachmann "gets it" in terms of the SV culture.

I hate that they went for the easy joke with the planes.  I love that Gavin used more animal props.

I didn't understand Richards outrage.  Bachmann sold his shares because he was broke, how was he supposed to know some random dude would see a piece of paper on Laurie's desk.

  • Love 4
Link to comment
1 hour ago, Cthulhudrew said:

Yeah- I didn't like how Laurie basically screwed Erlich over by only covering his debts with the sale, and not allowing him some profit. That seemed to come from left field.

I know, right?  I was thinking about it, and I think that might be the worst thing anyone's done on this show.  I mean, at least (to my admittedly poor memory) all the other crummy things were sort of on the "playing field" of business and software and the free market, but wouldn't leave anyone broke or broken- just not rich, or as rich. Even Gavin's machinations can charitably be thought of as like a hard foul in basketball: just part of the competition really.

Weirder still, she seemed to take pleasure in it, judging by her little smirk.  Her character had always been sort of robotically precise and emotionless, so it felt really out of character for her to seem... sadistic.  The Laurie we've seen seems like the type to tell Bachmann in a clipped monotone that he'd be a fool to sell his shares, but his personal finances are not Raviga's concern.  Plus, practically speaking she's opened herself up to lawsuits: the wording suggests the sale was not to Raviga, but to her personally.  Why would anyone on the board who isn't her vote for that, including Richard, Monica, or Bachmann himself- not just for personal reasons, but because it devalues their own shares and that of all other shareholders.  As henripootel notes, the secrecy made no sense- the sale won't be finalized until the board votes on it, at which point Richard learns about it, and presumably would try to talk him out of selling.  So what the heck was the point of all that- especially since, other than Bachmann losing his shares, he's back into the fold by episode's end?

 

48 minutes ago, RCharter said:

Egads was that jacket ugly, but Jared is just so cute in it I can't hate it.  

Speaking of which, why doesn't Jared do interviews.  I guess that Bachmann "gets it" in terms of the SV culture.

I hate that they went for the easy joke with the planes.  I love that Gavin used more animal props.

I didn't understand Richards outrage.  Bachmann sold his shares because he was broke, how was he supposed to know some random dude would see a piece of paper on Laurie's desk.

Yeah, Jared is still great; he's basically the only redeeming part of this show, excepting those times when Dinesh/Gilfoyle deliver a good scene.  And yeah, he really should be used more, since I have no idea what he actually does for PP at this point (I see they have a bunch of new hires in the background; great thinking on their part to ditch their professional office space to save money for the few days between Jack leaving and them unlocking the next $3M in funding).  I don't think Bachmann "gets it" about Silicon Valley, since he's usually the unaware blowhard and butt of the joke to the characters, not just the audience.

I actually liked the plane joke, especially because it didn't "hit me" until like half a minute into the next scene.  And the Gavin recurring joke of cheesy animal metaphors has been pretty solid.  I did like that the board was as exasperated as they were, but it's their own fault for taking 8 episodes to actually fire him.  It also underscores how pointless his story arc has been, that PP didn't even notice Gavin was gone from their chief competitor.  Nothing about Hooli/EndFrame have felt connected to Pied Piper this season.  Part of that might be the lack of interaction: season 1 and season 2 had the protagonists/antagonists regularly cross paths to good comic results- but this year, other than the phone call about EndFrame being acquired, they don't even seem to be in the same show.

Huh; it just hit me that at this point, Hooli is really the funnier storyline, and I'd rather watch a sitcom about Gavin and the laughably dysfunctional and bumbling corporation trying to fend off upstart competitors.  For the last two seasons, despite all the manufactured drama, PP hasn't really done anything up until this episode when they finally launched the site.  Meanwhile, over at Hooli, a whole bunch of stuff is always happening, and it's usually got the better gags to boot.  It makes me wish that the lawsuit story of season 2 had resolved quicker, with Hooli then offering an impossible-to-refuse huge amount for a minority stake that on paper makes PP a "tres comma" company.  We'd have been watching a season and a half of skewering both startup culture and SV corporate culture, as well as where they clash, and the humor of all these guys- especially Bachmann- poorly adjusting to being nouveau riche. Which is another thing: whether PP is valued at $50M, $250M, or more, I don't think even one time we've seen the characters celebrate or in any way acknowledge "Hey, guys... we're all millionaires".  

I also don't understand Richard's outrage; of course, by now it's a given that he somehow still doesn't, as Russ put it, "know how your own company works".  But his reaction should have been more of mystified and worried; his friend and colleague is apparently in such serious financial trouble (ugh).  Richard is such an asshole, though, so it doesn't even occur to him to be anything other than narcissistic.

  • Love 2
Link to comment

I loved the brief return of Russ. His douchiness is always a sight to behold. 

I wonder if Gavin has a special employee at Hooli whose sole responsibility is acquiring the animals he wants for board meetings. 

Heh and everyone clamoring for Erlich's special pesca-pescatarian dish at the party was perfect. Everyone wants to be a special snowflake!

  • Love 5
Link to comment
10 hours ago, IvyDancer said:

Did anyone else let out a squeal of delight when they saw Russ again?! I have been doing his stupid dance ("who likes swag? I like this swag. This guy, this guy I like swag!") since we met the character. Possibly my fave character arc ever to occur on a show. 

Guilfoyle is as bitterly sardonic as I wish I sometimes could be. Yet somehow he still remains almost heartwarming. 

Chris Diamantopoulos did a Low Budget Canadian Movie (that would be most Canadian Movies) last year called "Man Vs." where he plays a Bear Grylls type person surviving in the woods for a Guerrilla shot TV show. I stumbled across it on my movie channels, and he's actually pretty fantastic in it. The low budget means the third act caves on itself, but it sets up pretty well in my opinion. Anyway, glad to have him back.

The Erlich storyline was a convoluted path to force him back into having something to do with the core characters and not become another BigHead. I absolutely buy Lorrie's aggressive re-purchase tactics. Russ and Erlich have been shown to be two people she cannot stand doing business with. She basically gag's each time she has to say either of their names. This transaction meant she got to keep both of them out of the ownership group.

Holy shit, that jacket. I was expecting it to be a one off gag, but then Guilfoyle's abuse of Dinesh with it was incredible. I love this recurring bit on how Dinesh can't get a win. He's become the Jared of this season. It should pay off big at some point.

Link to comment
12 hours ago, hincandenza said:

 

 

12 hours ago, hincandenza said:

Also, that whole Bachman plot is dumb.  

  • First, did he actually sell his shares yet, or will we find out in the next episode that new board member Jared will veto the sale?  He, Monica, Richard have enough to prevent the sale from occurring since Raviga/Laurie only have two votes outside of that, right?  Oh, who fucking cares when the writers are this sloppy and dumb?  It seems odd that he lost out on all the money from PP just like that, and we're apparently expected to not care as an audience any more than we did with Bighead.  I suppose next episode, Richard will lose all his shares, and then they'll cancel the show without even airing the final episode of the season.  A man can dream...
  • Second, we covered it well last week, but to find out the actual bill is $713,000... that's fucking it?!?  Jesus, why would he not just sell his house? Normally that's stupid, but in rare cases- like sitting on 10% of a company conservatively valued at $250M minimum- it's the right move.  The money left over from the sale of his house on top of that $713K would still leave him a millionaire, and he'd have his shares.  Seriously, how stupid, how profoundly stupid are the writers of this show that not one person in that room over weeks of effort said "Wait... why would he not just sell his house, like we literally wrote him doing at the end of last season?"?!?
  • Third, it's stupendously dumb to imagine that a bill to a mere catering company would somehow, in the span of what in show time appears to be a few days, legally require a person to literally sell all of their non-liquid assets at an unjustifiable, arbitrary price; Laurie's obscene offer should have been flatly refused if not outright laughed at, and I refuse to believe that such a situation would ever, ever arise.  That'd be like finding out that when your credit card is declined at a restaurant, you have to give them the deed to your home on the spot, because hey: a debt is a debt.  That's how the world works in the pea-brains of this show's writers.

 

 

This gets to the very heart of why this was such a wasted episode. Bachman could easily have sold his Palo Alto house for  a minimum of $2 million all cash (where older and unremodeled 1300 sq. foot homes in PA are currently selling for that amount and more) with a nice 2 day escrow. But no, that would have deprived Judge and company of their long played-out drama of Richard finding exactly out why Bachman sold all his PP shares and how little he actually made in the process. Soft-hearted Richard takes pity and all is forgiven. That's the problem with this show's scripts: generating easy laughs and silly drama always trump any evidence of  rational and smart decision-making by the PP crowd. It should be retitled Rainmen.

  • Love 4
Link to comment
18 hours ago, hincandenza said:

What she did was basically a glorified mugging, and she smirked hideously the entire time.

I thought that was pretty typical Laurie; she makes what she knows to be a good decision and isn't capable of nuancing it in consideration of other people's opinions or feelings.

I have been enjoying this season a lot more than last year, which seemed to tread water in terms of plot development.

I mentioned it last week I think, but Dinesh totally brings it all on himself so I have no qualms about laughing at him. He always thinks he's the 'good guy' but is usually being condescending about others. The pedestal he puts himself on makes him such an easy target for Gilfoyle.

  • Love 2
Link to comment
22 hours ago, chocolatine said:

Ugh, again Richard is making a poor, emotionally-motivated, business decision by hiring "the stupidest man in the Valley" as head of PR. What gave him the idea that Erlich would be good at it, the way he hijacked the Bloomberg interview to clarify the spelling of his name?

21 hours ago, woodscommaelle said:

Lol. I think he knows he'll be terrible at it. He just wants to help his friend out.

Funny, I read it differently. When Richard was at the dinner, and the waiter came with Erlich's special plate for his requested diet, and everyone else wanted the same, I think he realized that Erlich knows how to make an entrance, how to make and statement and how to make people want what he is selling. Plus, considering it was indeed orchestrated that way, since Erlich said he ordered a special meal to seem pretentious and different, he does seem like he would do good PR. 

  • Love 7
Link to comment
7 hours ago, nameless slob said:

Funny, I read it differently. When Richard was at the dinner, and the waiter came with Erlich's special plate for his requested diet, and everyone else wanted the same, I think he realized that Erlich knows how to make an entrance, how to make and statement and how to make people want what he is selling. Plus, considering it was indeed orchestrated that way, since Erlich said he ordered a special meal to seem pretentious and different, he does seem like he would do good PR. 

Thats what I saw too, Erlich somehow has this understanding of the SV culture.  The sort of thing that would make me roll my eyes "pesca-pecatarian," but that would make everyone else think that this guy is somehow more special than they are...and no one can have that, so get me one of whatever he is having!  

And Erlich eats all of this stuff up, he loves being front and center and in front of the camera, he seems to be able to think on his feet

10 hours ago, LCanterbury said:

I thought that was pretty typical Laurie; she makes what she knows to be a good decision and isn't capable of nuancing it in consideration of other people's opinions or feelings.

I have been enjoying this season a lot more than last year, which seemed to tread water in terms of plot development.

I mentioned it last week I think, but Dinesh totally brings it all on himself so I have no qualms about laughing at him. He always thinks he's the 'good guy' but is usually being condescending about others. The pedestal he puts himself on makes him such an easy target for Gilfoyle.

IMO, they all bring shit on themselves (except Jared) but the only one who ever GETS shit is Dinesh.  And not even a little shit, but ALL the shit, ALL the time.

To me, Guilfoyle is just as condescending and judgmental but he almost always wins.  I don't mind that they all get shit on in turns and win in turns.  Richard  got his GF (win) and lost his GF over his missteps.  Jared is too sweet, and so when he lost his apartment to a squatter, I just felt bad.  Erlich got to have his million dollar party and take advantage of Big Head (wins) but then he lost his shares due to his hubris (loss).  Guilfoyle never loses, and I don't think he is any great heroic figure, I think he is an asshole too.  Dinesh may suffer from delusions of kindness, but he isn't a bad person and he always gets shit on....let him at least have a win or two already.

In the real world, I probably wouldn't have even read the jacket because its an absolute eyesore and they ALL thought the jacket looked dumb.  Dinesh is the only one who actually racked up another loss for daring to verbalize what everyone else was thinking.

  • Love 3
Link to comment

I am still thinking about how when I first saw Jared in the horrible jacket I actually thought that the sleeves were actually from a sweater that he was wearing underneath of it and somehow the jacket was actually a horrible vest?

And then I saw the writing on the back .......

  • Love 1
Link to comment
9 hours ago, sjankis630 said:

I am still thinking about how when I first saw Jared in the horrible jacket I actually thought that the sleeves were actually from a sweater that he was wearing underneath of it and somehow the jacket was actually a horrible vest?

And then I saw the writing on the back .......

The multicolored writing on the back really sealed the deal.....oh no.....I think it was the chain of mice on the sleeves.

  • Love 2
Link to comment
11 hours ago, RCharter said:

The multicolored writing on the back really sealed the deal.....oh no.....I think it was the chain of mice on the sleeves.

Jared really seems consumed by the fable and especially the rats of Pied Piper more than anyone else. Who would have thought to include the rats on the jacket. Only Jared.

  • Love 2
Link to comment
1 hour ago, Traveller519 said:

Jared really seems consumed by the fable and especially the rats of Pied Piper more than anyone else. Who would have thought to include the rats on the jacket. Only Jared.

My husband's reaction: " What are those animals on the slee...oh!"

On 14/06/2016 at 7:15 PM, RCharter said:

Guilfoyle never loses, and I don't think he is any great heroic figure, I think he is an asshole too.  Dinesh may suffer from delusions of kindness, but he isn't a bad person and he always gets shit on....let him at least have a win or two already.

I think I'm nonplussed about it because Gilfoyle is self-aware enough to know he is an arsehole whereas Dinesh seems utterly unable to realise that his attitude may sometimes be the cause of his woes.

  • Love 3
Link to comment
(edited)

Correct me if I am wrong, but was not Jared the one who advised Erlich that selling his home would not even begin to cover his debts?  How does this even compute if all he owed was 700K?  Heck, why did he even sell all of his shares?  Does this mean that Jared is bad at business and Pied Piper is doomed, because they listen to his advise?

At the beginning Dinesh seemed to be the most normal one.  Yes, he was nerdy, but overall a regular person.  I think most of the jokes had to do with crap he had to put up with, because he was Pakistani (people assuming he was the illegal alien in the company, etc.).

I think it was his former room mate/friend who invited him to that awful party in the pilot episode (the one with Kid Rock).

Now, he is a total loser who has no friends and no chance at a love life.  As soon as the jacket was receiving favorable attention you knew Dinesh was going to make a fool of himself in some way.

17 hours ago, LCanterbury said:
On 6/14/2016 at 5:15 AM, RCharter said:

Guilfoyle never loses, and I don't think he is any great heroic figure, I think he is an asshole too.  Dinesh may suffer from delusions of kindness, but he isn't a bad person and he always gets shit on....let him at least have a win or two already.

I think I'm nonplussed about it because Gilfoyle is self-aware enough to know he is an arsehole whereas Dinesh seems utterly unable to realise that his attitude may sometimes be the cause of his woes.

I like Gilfoyle as well, but it always seems like stuff works out for him.  I think we are supposed to realize that he knows how to navigate the world better then Dinesh, but I really have no idea why.

Edited by qtpye
  • Love 3
Link to comment
On 6/13/2016 at 3:00 AM, RCharter said:

You know what really grinds my gears?  Why didn't Bachmann get a short term loan with his shares as collateral?  He could have waited to pay his suppliers until after the app went public.  Never mind that the district attorney has absolutely nothing to do with a civil/contracts case......but he could have put his creditors off a few more days.  And then either used the shares as collateral for a short term loan, or obtained a loan based on the strength of the shares.  If his debt was crazy, I could see that not being an option, but his debts were under a million dollars and he owned 10% of a 50 million dollar company.  How could he not get that financed in the short term instead of having to sell off his shares.

That's what I was thinking. It takes me out of the rest of the episode. Basically I'm only on board because it gave Jared a seat on the board, which makes sense to me.

  • Love 2
Link to comment

Okay, I may have spent more time thinking about Erlich's financial situation that was really necessary this week.

 

I doubt he would be able to get a short term loan using the shares as collateral. Any bank would need to see the share documentation before using the shares as collateral. And based on Laurie's description, that she basically has exclusive rights to the shares due to Russ's loan, which she acquired. Basically, she can set the price of any sale, so she can price them below market. Erlich's shares are essentially worthless collateral in the current round of financing. Thus his assets are his personal effects, including the house.

The house should have a value above the mortgage plus debts, but Erlich hasn't exactly been shown to be that sharp when it comes to money, and does have the attachment to his house, displayed in Season 2. It's also his sole source of income these days. He may be able to cover his debts with his house, but he would need to stay viably afloat while waiting for the next round of financing on Pied Piper in order to get rid of the Russ loan.

It's clunky, but it works.

  • Love 1
Link to comment
4 hours ago, Traveller519 said:

Okay, I may have spent more time thinking about Erlich's financial situation that was really necessary this week.

 

I doubt he would be able to get a short term loan using the shares as collateral. Any bank would need to see the share documentation before using the shares as collateral. And based on Laurie's description, that she basically has exclusive rights to the shares due to Russ's loan, which she acquired. Basically, she can set the price of any sale, so she can price them below market. Erlich's shares are essentially worthless collateral in the current round of financing. Thus his assets are his personal effects, including the house.

The house should have a value above the mortgage plus debts, but Erlich hasn't exactly been shown to be that sharp when it comes to money, and does have the attachment to his house, displayed in Season 2. It's also his sole source of income these days. He may be able to cover his debts with his house, but he would need to stay viably afloat while waiting for the next round of financing on Pied Piper in order to get rid of the Russ loan.

It's clunky, but it works.

I appreciate your trying to make Judge & Co. not seem like utter hacks; it speaks well of your charitable nature.  :)  Nevertheless, I just don't think this plotline can be redeemed, nor the imbecile writers who conceived it.  Here I go, beating myself up again by spending any time thinking about this terrible, terrible show: 

For starters, regardless of what the mentally ill DA might claim, the $713K of debt doesn't have to be paid that day.  It's not like running out on a restaurant tab; that's not how debt works, especially not for the rich of which Bachmann now is a member, at least on paper. They even made a plot point on how Jared trying to evict a squatter living in his own condo was somehow legally impossible for a year (which is its own bullshit)- yet Bachmann is required to pay off his debt that week?

Second, the whole $6M fraud from the business manager has been completely forgotten, which is slap-in-the-face insulting.  There is no earthly reason Bachmann and Bighead wouldn't be fighting that in court, which I (not being a lawyer) believe would also provide a valid delay against any civil suit compulsion to pay off the comparatively tiny debt before the fraud issue was resolved.  If anyone would be selling their house/liquidating their assets, it would be that business manager!

Third, his home is easily worth at least 2x/3x the size of the debt, as countless real-life stories about the crazy real estate market of the Bay Area have demonstrated.  In season 2, he had a same-day offer on his house as soon as he listed it.  If he owns the house outright, he could sell it, pay off the entire debt, and still have hundreds of thousands of dollars- or more- in his pocket.  If he doesn't, then the appreciation on when he bought is still likely well more than the debt.

Fourth, while Bachmann has been portrayed as a clown, a buffoon, a self-important blowhard... he is also apparently a good coder, fairly bright, and very hip to how SV and finance works: remember, he was the first to realize that EndFrame being acquired was a huge win for PP.  It's impossible for me to believe he wouldn't do everything in the world to avoid literally giving away his 10% stake in a company valued right now at anywhere from $50M-$250M.  He was even aware of and name-dropped poor old Ronald Wayne.

Fifth, as people have mentioned here and at the far-too-forgiving Reddit, plenty of well-heeled investors would happily set up a private loan in exchange for the right to buy shares at a fixed price on a later date.  If I was a Gavin Belson, I'd have gladly paid Bachmann $20M+ out of pocket at high interest, with an option to claim his shares in full if the loan is not paid in full in say, 3 years.  Laurie can't block that, it's a future option not a sale.

Sixth, even if all that were disregarded and he still had to somehow pay the debt in full immediately, you misstated something above.  Laurie doesn't have exclusive rights to the shares; if she did, why wouldn't she just force Richard to sell his majority stake for a dollar?  She has rights to deny a sale.  There is no way in the world Laurie could force him to accept a shit offer, or set a price that he had to accept.  In addition, I believe there would be a number of avenues for a civil suit from the other shareholders over this action- including Raviga shareholders who might want to know why a company they are paying $15M to build has just been devalued to $7M- but the cokehead incompetents writing this show can't grasp even the simplest concepts of the adult world.

Seventh, Bachmann presumably never signed a piece of paper obligating him to host all those coders indefinitely, who had perfectly fine office space until one of Richard's countless freakouts.  Laurie wants to lowball you?  Fine, well while I ponder going through with that sale until the next board meeting, I'm going to change the locks on my house and present a bill for $100K a day in rent to Pied Piper, as you are preventing me from hosting other startups in my incubator.  That's as arbitrary as $713K, and good luck building your platform when your team can't enter the building or access their computers!  Oh shoot, now Laurie has a crazed Richard and team in her office, demanding to know why a 10% shareholder is keeping them from doing work, oh and now the truth comes out and you did what, Laurie?!?

Eight, we could do this all day, because the number of possibilities are virtually endless before you ever have to sell your pre-IPO shares, and this plot line is as absurd as someone selling both their kidneys on the black market just to buy a candy bar at 7-11.  Bachmann is many things, but he's not stupid,  Why, why, why, a thousand times why, would he ever agree to a bullshit sale price like that?  Ask yourself one thing: would you agree to the sale?  If Visa was sending you angry emails clamoring for you to pay your monthly statement, would you sell your house for 1/100 the market value just to cover your CC debt?  Neither would Erlich, who knows that his greatest dream- being one of the ultra-rich movers and shakers of Silicon Valley- is literally a few months away.

And yeah, I'm well aware that it's supremely not healthy how much I hate, and rant about, this show. :)  It was so promising in season 1, and has fallen so far, that I just get riled at how badly thought out all these plotlines are.  It's like that scene in Howard Stern's "Private Parts", where the first ratings at WNBC (double-you EENNN bee cee!) come in, and the managers realize that the people who hate him actually listen for longer than the fans.

  • Love 6
Link to comment
(edited)
Quote

Fourth, while Bachmann has been portrayed as a clown, a buffoon, a self-important blowhard... he is also apparently a good coder, fairly bright, and very hip to how SV and finance works:

That's the other bit of massive stupid in this episode - that Erlich of all people would so bungle the PR aspects of all this.  He's a blowhard who thrives in SV, you really think he'd first overlook the possible implications of selling his shares, then so miscall what actually happened (i.e. nobody actually knew anything) that he'd explode an atomic bomb of negative press just so he could lightning-rod it into himself?  Why draw so much attention to it in the first place - you're turning a 'maybe nobody will notice or if they do, not care' into an EVERYONE WILL NOTICE, and hopefully blame it on just one guy.  Sounds pretty fucking unlikely, and it only draws attention to how stupid PP must be to team with Erlich in the first place, and double-stupid to hire him again after.  Of all people on this show, I'd think Erlich would be the one to tell you that stirring up a maelstrom of shit means you don't get to control it.

But of course, all this is predicated on more stupidity anyway.  Ask yourself this: why does anyone care about Erlich and his stupid stock dealing?  Because he's part of a company so hot that just their proof-of-concept gave everyone in at TechCrunch Disrupt a huge boner, and now they have a hot product everyone raves about.  If Erlich dumped his shares of Coca Cola nobody would care but this might signal trouble at fledgling PP, right?  You know what allays such concerns?  Having a hot product that everyone raves about.  If it works, can't imagine that anyone fucking cares about the idiocy of any of the people working there.  You might be able to make them care but that'd take something monumentally stupid, like making a huge story about a truly stupid member of PP's board, but I'd bet anything that even that wouldn't be enough.  And it's exactly the kind of thing that season 1 Erlich Bachman would never, ever do.  

Not for nothing but I'd think that the real story that'd interest investors: how the hand-picked CEO at PP once tried to turn a revolutionary tech development into a product that might sell a few tens of thousands of units, instead of one that'd soon be integral to every single web and mobile device in the world.  Jack's brief tenure should give investors pause about whether Laurie has lost her fucking mind.  But despite inciting a mutiny and getting one of the best-known CEOs fired prematurely, nobody in the tech press ever got a so much as a whiff.  

Edited by henripootel
  • Love 1
Link to comment

I know it's a *M*I*K*E*F*U*C*K*I*N*G*J*U*D*G*E* production, but did they replace all the writers?  I depend on people here to fight the tech world inaccuracies, but this former liberal arts major objects to the inconsistent characterizations.  The change in Jared from sad sack to lothario is nice, but why is Season Three Richard's first impulse to be such a dick? 

Remember last season when they were all worried that some guy who was mad at Guilfoyle might hack the system?  That happened because Richard met with him (TWICE!) and broke confidentiality so the guy wouldn't blame himself and feel bad. (And the guy went nuts and vowed revenge on both occasions, which was hysterical.)

Now Richard hears a rumor from a stranger and immediately flies into a rage that Monica has betrayed him.  Then it's Erlich who betrayed him--bye forever, fucker.

 

Also, I miss Team Guilfoyle & Dinesh who sat around spitballing the pros and cons of some dude wiping out his car due to a math error.  The Guilfloyle who asked his awkward friend if he'd ever spoken to a women before (at the convention) would now be more likely to humiliate Dinesh somehow, right in front of her.

 

Monica's incapable of expressing herself, but Laurie finally throws a spark--because she screwed Erlich, yay.

 

It's a puzzlement.

  • Love 5
Link to comment

I think it's like watching British actors perform with American accents. Some of them can do it fluently. But some become so focused on getting the accent and the language right that the rest of their performance becomes extremely stiff - I've seen this often on stage in Britain, where the demands of live performance make it obvious. So, these writers: they're so focused on getting the technical details right (and the approval for same) that they've lost sight of some other things, like getting the financial stuff to make sense.

Inconsistencies in characterization, however, I think must as usual be put down to the usual cause: writing team changes.

  • Love 2
Link to comment

The discrepancy seems too glaring to ignore.  I think a human interest B-story would be appropriate--a "Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?" angle.  They could send Richard back to that physician who's so dismissive for a compare & contrast.

But maybe all that's coming up in the finale.  The previews show. . . 

Spoiler

. . .Richard being confronted by various colleagues.  Maybe he's getting an attitude talk.  (That's what my father called it.)

  • Love 1
Link to comment

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Unfortunately, your content contains terms that we do not allow. Please edit your content to remove the highlighted words below.
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...