Richard invented and built the startup Pied Piper, a program designed to find music matches. While Richard’s compression algorithm triggered a bidding war and ultimately garnered funding for his company, he and Pied Piper are in the spotlight more than ever.

Erlich administers the Hacker Hostel, a tech incubator where Richard, Big Head, Dinesh, and Gilfoyle live in exchange for 10 percent of their potential businesses.

Big Head is Richard’s best friend, and once lived and worked with at the Hacker Hostel alongside Gilfoyle and Dinesh. Richard made the tough decision not to hire Big Head after he admitted to not being great at any particular aspect of building or coding. Nevertheless, Big Head manages to land on his feet, falling blindly into one financially lucrative venture after another.

Gilfoyle is pompous and purports to be good at system architecture, networking, and security. He often finds himself sparring with fellow tech wiz Dinesh.

Dinesh is a coder who possesses a dry wit and a particular knack for javascript. He often finds himself sparring with fellow tech wiz Gilfoyle.

An excellent coder and the newest addition to Pied Piper, Carla delights herself by keeping the Hacker Hostel nerds on their toes.

Gavin Belson is the Chief Innovation Officer of Hooli, a huge tech company in Silicon Valley that seemingly has its hands in everything but specifically does “targeted search and cross-platform verticals.” For Gavin, bigger is better — and money's no object.

A former Hooli executive, Jared traded in his corporate position to serve as head of business development at Pied Piper. His organizational skills and professionalism don’t always mesh with Pied Piper's loose culture, but he's proven himself a valuable asset to the team.

Jian-Yang is wild-card app developer living in Erlich’s Hacker Hostel.

Jack Barker is known around the Valley as “Action Jack,” respected for his get-things-done managerial style.

The managing partner at a capital management firm, Laurie is not a people person. She’s committed to keeping her competitive edge — at all costs.

One of Silicon Valley’s biggest investors, Peter Gregory is the main rival to Hooli’s Gavin Belson. He’s known for advocating that adolescents skip college – in fact, he offered to give students $100,000 to drop out of school and pursue their dreams. When Peter gets wind of Richard’s algorithm, he fights to acquire stake in Pied Piper.

Russ Hanneman became a billionaire two decades ago when he put radio on the internet. Over the years, Russ has developed a reputation acquired along with flashy sports cars, calf implants and a gratuitous lifestyle. He has plenty of unconventional business advice to offer.

An attorney, Ron lends his legal expertise to Richard and Pied Piper.

Handling the day-to-day duties of tech investment business, often fielding pitches and working directly with tech folks, Monica takes a particular interest in Richard and Pied Piper from the very beginning.

Cast & Characters

See the full list of cast and characters

Cast and Character

Richard Hendricks

Erlich

Big Head

Bertram Gilfoyle

Dinesh Chugtai

Carla Walton

Gavin Belson

Jared Dunn

Jian-Yang

Jack Barker

Laurie Bream

Peter Gregory

Russ Hanneman

Ron LaFlamme

Monica

Thomas Middleditch

T J Miller

Josh Brener

Martin Starr

Kumail Nanjiani

Alice Wetterlund

Matt Ross

Zach Woods

Jimmy O Yang

Stephen Tobolowsky

Suzanne Cryer

Christopher Evan Welch

Chris Diamantopoulos

Ben Feldman

Amanda Crew

About the Series

Silicon Valley