Mike Judge, co-creator, executive producer, writer and director of HBO’s “Silicon Valley,” is also the mind behind such TV hits as “Beavis and Butthead” and “King of the Hill” as well as the beloved movie “Office Space.” Two of those started out as shorts, but his most recent project was directly inspired by his brief stint working as an engineer in the valley he now lovingly mocks.

At the Next TV Summit in Santa Monica, CA on Tuesday morning, he and Melissa Grego, editor-in-chief of “Broadcasting & Cable,” spoke about TV in the ‘90s vs. today, network notes and getting every piece of code, lingo and personality right in his new show.

Moderator Grego asked: “If you were starting out now, how would you go about doing it?”

“I’d still probably do it the same way,” said Judge. “It’s still the ‘Build it, they will come’ principle. When I finished the first ‘Office Space’ short, my way of marketing was calling 411 and I said ‘New York, MTV?’ I got numbers, occasionally I’d get someone give me an address where I could mail out a bunch of VHS tapes.”

“I think if I was starting out now I’d do the same thing, just make something, Google the numbers. Instead of getting a book of animation at the library, I’d YouTube it. Things go viral faster, but as far as just going out and making something, that’s what I would do.”

Judge, who worked as an engineer in Silicon Valley for about a little over a year, calls his TV job his “third career.” When HBO approached him about partnering on a new series, he knew where he could draw his inspiration from – not only the world of engineers and tech geniuses, but also the conflict of “Silicon Valley’s” lead character, who has to choose between accepting a big-money deal from possible investors or keeping control of his own idea.


“I had billionaires battling over ‘Beavis and Butthead,’ believe it or not,” said Judge. “I did have a major anxiety attack. I didn’t know what they were. I thought they were some shtick Woody Allen talked about in his movies – I didn’t know they were a real thing.”

Grego pointed out that his new series has been lauded by critics and fans as one of the most well-researched pieces of content for the area, accurately reflecting not only the personalities in Silicon Valley but everything down to what program should be onscreen when characters are working on code and knowing the right lingo for any situation. According to Judge, this is all about research, but also in bringing in the right people.

“I really wanted to get this right because I’ve seen it done wrong,” said Judge. “In Hollywood, they rarely get it right. We did a lot of research, we met with a lot of incubators, went up to Silicon Valley a few times. We just got back a few days ago, and I’ve met more billionaires than I can count. It’s like someone said ‘You’re doing a show about Hollywood? Here’s Spielberg, Tom Cruise, Harvey Weinstein…’”

Judge added that they also have someone on the team who’s worked in both Hollywood and the tech world, so he points out nuances of the startup office, while another person’s sole responsibility is to ensure that what is on each screen makes sense at any point in any scene. If nothing else, Judge says, it’s a way to keep the Internet hounds at bay. “It’s just a little half hour sitcom,” he said, “everyone settle down.”

On every showrunner’s favorite topic, network notes, Judge says that his worst notes always centered on sponsor restrictions. “They’d tell us we can’t say Jello, but Beavis and Butthead just would not say gelatin.”

HBO is a place without those restrictions, which is a showrunner’s haven to Judge, who says anything goes at HBO. “They really get behind their filmmakers and they’re successful at it too,” said Judge. “It’d be nice if other networks learned from them.”

And in the TV space right now, he sees more networks taking note from places like HBO, creating more opportunity for content creators to just be creative.

“There’s a lot more niche opportunity for niche comedies,” said Judge. “I think networks will take more chances now. It seems like there’s a lot more networks, more shows, opportunities to do stuff.”

When asked where else he could see himself working in the TV landscape as it stands, he pointed to Netflix as the most likely contender. “I don’t think I’d go back to a broadcast network, but the Netflix model seems good,” said Judge. “It seems like the way to go now. It’s about having flexibility. It’s just that those network notes that can be so annoying and make it not fun. I don’t think I’d want to go back to that anytime soon.”

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