Phobo

Ed McManus describes how his startup experience led to work as a technical adviser on HBO’s Silicon Valley. He explains how advisers helped writers keep technical details plausible while serving the story, including filling in dialogue and creating background materials and code. He discusses the show’s compression premise, startup culture, growth hacking, and the tradeoffs of portraying real technology accurately. He also shares how to find this kind of advisory work and reflects on returning to startups afterward.