Valley of the Boom

I lived and worked through this era in the DC area with one of the first nationwide commercial ISPs. It's why I made a point of watching Valley of the Boom and why I really enjoyed it.

I understand some people's confusion or disappointment with aspects of the series but not the number of low stars or the depth of the nasty reviews. It was much better than that, especially as the episodes progressed.

I admit I was a little put off at first by the "breaking-the-fourth-wall" moments and musical numbers, but I grew to appreciate their function. The little math whiz explaining IPOs and the developer explaining open source with the chicken salad sandwich were spot-on and a much better way to explain them to viewers who don't know about those concepts than through standard exposition.

And the interviews with the actual people involved -- especially the secondary players, whom you would otherwise rarely hear from in a documentary -- were worth watching the entire series for. The acting, too, brought their moments to life in a really credible way. (The actor's characterization of Marc Andreessen was so much like a CTO colleague from that time that it triggered some pretty uncomfortable feelings and memories.)

I haven't thought about those moments from my career or, more accurately, felt like that about them in a very long time. For me personally, that's a good measure by which to judge the success of the series.

Most of the reviews are a riot over the confusion of documentary or drama. I believe the fact here is, the stories they were able to portray. If you want to learn about the..boom, this is your best bet. It's also the most accurate of portrayals for Silicon Valley. All I ask, leave your mind open to other ways cinema, story telling can be shot.

Subject pretty much sums it up. Great story of the early days of the internet told from varying points and perspectives using a dynamic mixing documentary, interviews and drama to really capture the events that took place, that when done well, which I believe it was, is simply incredible and quite enjoyable.

Had to write a review. This series deserves better. Anyone dismissing it due to the unusual manner in which it is told is missing the entire point. If you were a part of this time, or if you work in tech it is a must see. Original, informative and well acted. Fun for all is too be had as long as you approach it with an often mind.

It took me about 2 episodes to get use to the format of the show and even then it's pretty disruptive. They are trying too hard to spice up the boring topic of browser wars but as someone who worked for SGI (Clark's first company) and now at Microsoft... how can I say no to this. Andreesen has always fascinated me as I grew up using Gopher, Mosaic and then of course Netscape.

Funny to think now the Edge browser is overnight going to become a Chromium based browser and the browser wars are far dead. Now Azure vs. AWS...

What a long way we've come. If you like tech stories.. watch it, you'll put up with the poorly done format.