Ventor Consulting

Imagine you run a ski-jump school. You are at the top of the mountain and watch skier one cross the threshold and make a beautiful jump. Then skier two jumps--also beautiful. Then a guy in shorts and sandals runs by you and rolls down the hill. "You idiot," you cry. "You are a disgrace!" But is it true? Is the guy in flip-flops really trying to do a bad job? After all, it's your school...Have you taught him the value of the proper equipment, of physical training? Does he know how to launch or land?

Nobody can mistake HBO's comic farce "Silicon Valley" for real life. At least, I hope not. The premise is that some marvelously vapid coders have an idea that will make them instant millionaires. The characters may have tech skills. But their lack of life skills--like, say, finding a place to sleep--threatens to derail them before market competition does. So they crash in a Brady-bunch California ranch in exchange for granting their blowhard of a landlord a share of the business.