Is success equivalent to happiness? How does someone successful looks like? What happens after you succeed?

Success is probably one of those concepts that have a personal meaning: what I think of it might differ from what you think because each person have different goals and aspirations. The perspective can also be influenced according to the context where someone is born and raised, and also from the ideas represented in the media. I am interested in these representations of success that we get to see in wherever we get information from these days: tv shows, books, movies, songs, or instagram.

For example, a contemporary mainstream represented story in the media is to succeed as an entrepreneur. Start your own company. Be your own boss. Create a product or service that makes the world a better place. Become the next Steve Jobs, or, because he is dead now, the new Elon Musk, or whoever Great White Innovator is trending.

These premises of the entrepreneur, the culture of startups, and the cult of innovation is what the show of Silicon Valley is about, and my reflection around success was triggered after its ending. The whole sixth and final season was refreshing in the sense that it presented more ethical situations and tough decisions for the protagonists, that next to their hilarious adventures.

The crew of Pied Piper trying to solve an issue with their company for the 8924624184 time.

I will leave out a lot of details, but the series is particularly fun because of its parody of Silicon Valley personalities and companies, startups culture, and just human behaviour in general. It revolves around a group of entrepreneurial friends creators of the company “Pied Piper”. Their product is an innovative compression software. The whole show we get to see the difficulties they have to deal with to keep the company alive. Turns out it’s more complicated than one might think, because well, people and human behaviour is complex, but entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, computer scientists and engineers are always another breed. I am sure interesting sociological studies have been published about this, and I also have first-hand experience dealing with such personalities, but for now I will stick my analysis to the series.

After many back and forths, disputes with other millionaires, being close to bankrupcy, and lots of other difficult situations, in the final season we see that after working in Pied Piper for six years, the guys finally made it. They manage to close a billion dollar deal, so they would be successful not only economically, but also ethically, because interestingly enough this whole season we got to know more about the morals of the characters, and for example Richard, the CEO, always made clear that he was not doing this for the money, he truly wanted to build something beautiful that will make the world a better place. In this season, he even demanded to other tech companies to assume the responsibility they have with society. That’s why also in the final episode we learn that he decides to shut down Pied Piper.

It turned out that there was an unfixable flaw in their technology, and the consequences it had meant the end of encryption, which eventually would mean the end of privacy. What it was interesting to see is how they sticked to their values, because even if in the eyes of many they were considered a failure, deep down they knew that they have succeed and decided to do what was best. Interestingly after they killed the project they worked on for six years, it was not the end of their lives. Richard became a professor. Gilfoyle and Dinesh co-founded another company. Jared works with the elderly. Monica is in a think tank. Life goes on. And I found that idea refreshing, the fact that we are so obsessed with succeeding that we forget about the journey, the community, and that sometimes is actually good if you fail.

There was a divided opinion between the fans of the series because they wanted a happy ending, I don’t know what would that be, them being billionaires? Pied Piper being Open Source? both are extreme scenarios. In a world where more diverse stories and representations are needed I prefer their happy failing as an “ending”, because it meant new beginnings.

The crew of Pied Piper after they succeeded and their lives continued