PHOTO: the openly gay "Silicon Valley Start-ups" reality TV cast member David Murray (top left) shows off his painted body spray tan in a Speedo next to his boyfriend Dave. See "Start-Ups: Silicon Valley," Season 1 premiered Nov. 5, 2012 (I watched the show on Comcast Cable TV Bravo Channel 779 10:01-10-31PM PT) Show description: Get a glimpse inside the high-stakes worlds of tech makers in Silicon Valley.. The David Murray biography at bravotv.com says, "Age 29, Hometown, Albuquerque, NM, Profession, Entrepreneur and CEO, Goalsponsors, Inc. -- David Murray is one missed mortgage payment away from losing everything. Still, he's setting his sights on creating the next big app without funding. His positive attitude makes him everyone's best friend, but when those friends force him to pick sides, David is reluctantly stuck in the middle." Also see David Murray photos and articles by Boonsri Dickinson, "Meet The 7 Stars Of The New Silicon Valley Reality Show" businessinsider.com posted April 5, 2012 and Brock Keeling, "Meet The Cast Of Bravo's New Silicon Valley Reality Show," sfist.com posted April 5, 2012.
Perhaps it is because I am too blind to recognize faces anymore, but I found watching this show to be tedious despite the fact that I could reminisce about my years working in Silicon Valley. It was interesting to see that the city of Palo Alto, California now has an elegant Four Seasons Silicon Valley Hotel, which is light years from the rat trap I had to stay at when I first visited the valley. Of course, this is probably a sign of the end when things get that comfortable.
The executive producer of the "Startups" program is Randi Zuckerberg, who is the sister of FaceBook Founder Mark Zuckerberg. I can guess where some of the money came from to produce this show. I suspect she likes reality TV because, despite what many critics say, this show does have some interesting moments, but I still find it hard to watch young dot com snots that are arrogantly optimistic about their new and better mouse trap idea will take over the world. I can't criticize them, however, because I've been guilty of having this kind of arrogance of youth when I was younger and I bet this type of arrogance is required to get past the hurdles facing all new things. However, as the TV show admitted, very few individual actually achieve making anything of lasting value in Silicon Valley. It is hard to get excited about yet another Web site to help you live life.
The "Startups" show highlights the casual attire tradition in Silicon Valley, even showing a close-up of the thongs or flip-flops sandals being worn by a Silicon Valley venture capitalist. The granddaddy of Silicon Valley was the Hewlett-Packard company where co-founders Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard rejected the back east suit and tie tradition for a shirt sleeve attire, albeit dress shirts, as the dress code for their company. See my previous posts Bill & Dave by Michael S. Malone (5/22/07) and Obama and Facebook founder take off jackets in Silicon Valley fashion tradition (4/20/11).
Openly gay Silicon Valley company founders are not new. For example, Chris Hughes is mentioned in my previous post Openly gay Facebook founder in old HP building 17 Palo Alto (1/8/11). I don't know if it is a coincidence, but it seems to me that gay software engineers and computer scientists are more common than hardcore engineers, electrical, chemical or mechanical. Software writers always consider themselves to be creative like an artist or theater arts person, whereas most hardcore engineers view themselves as analytical nerds like the character Spock in Star Trek. Although there may be a difference, I believe gay hardcore engineers are just as numerous as the more expressive and creative software engineers.
