Pando has a strange relationship with the HBO show “Silicon Valley.”

Before the show aired, I couldn’t possibly believe it would be good. And worse: I couldn’t possibly believe it’d be remotely accurate. I mean, movies based off of “true stories” like “The Social Network” were 95% bullshit in the name of making the mundane world of startups “entertaining.” So-called “reality TV” based on building companies was equally staged, phony or simply not representative.

At, least, I thought, this was calling itself fiction rather than trying to be real.

But as we’ve written time and time again: Somehow the utterly fictional representation of Silicon Valley is the only mainstream pop culture show that’s come eerily close to reality...