Week 2 EOC: Silicon Valley Episode 2 Rights and Wrongs

First I will discuss what Pied Piper has done wrong, and then I'll talk about what they did right.

-          Erlich Bachman hired adult entertainment for a company event. Essentially setting the tone for a questionable working environment.  “Very generally, “sexual harassment” describes unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, or other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature.” (AAUW)

-          Not having a business plan when going to meet with Peter Gregory, then stumbling around and not being able to explain what the company does. “Hope for the best and plan for the worst.” (page 114) Richard hoped for everything and planned for nothing.

-          I considered Richard’s dilemma with keeping “Big Head” on the team or not was handled poorly. He was a member of the group, maybe not as important, but he has important information that could be dangerous if he was to be bought to work for the competition (which he later was).

-          -The biggest mistake in this episode happened at the end when Richard went to cash Peter Gregory’s check and didn’t realize he needed to have a corporate identity, licensing, or something to make Pied Piper an actual business.

What they did right:

-          Bringing Jared in to audit the assets and identify what it is that each member of the “team” does. Evaluating each other’s contribution instead of having extra people or redundancies when presenting the business plan to Peter Gregory.

-          Hiring Jared was a huge step in the right direction, because of his knowledge of how businesses need to work.

“Owners with limited liability may lose their investment in the company, but their other personal assets are protected.”(page 91) Richards biggest challenge was what to do with his company, how to handle it, present it to potential investors, and if he should keep his friend involved.  Big Head became a liability when he was hired by Hooli to work on their mock of Pied Piper’s programming.