Early last year, T.J. Miller stood in front of a San Francisco crowd and managed to piss off all the major Silicon Valley players in just a few minutes. He ripped apart the industry, some of its most powerful CEOs, and some of their less-than-glamorous legal problems while hosting the eighth annual Crunchies (an industry award ceremony from TechCrunch). Silicon Valley wasn't happy. They called him sexist, racist, and highlighted his contentious relationship with the industry he's satirized on Silicon Valley, the HBO comedy series that kicked off its third season on Sunday. Where Miller sees an industry filled with both geniuses and idiots like any other, Silicon Valley sees itself as creating the human utopia through the next iPhone app.

"This is the reason we're making fun of you: because you don't get it. You don't have a sense of humor about yourselves," Miller said of his tech world critics during an interview with Esquire last week. "You're all these pretentious rich assholes who do this fake hero-worship of the guy who thought of the idea for Uber."

As any startup pitch would say, Silicon Valley is disrupting Silicon Valley. The show is pioneering comedy set in the insanely wealthy and powerful world of technology. And that isn't always easy when you're on the receiving end of the joke. But Miller wasn't too caught up on the tech world's dark side. Here, he talks about Silicon Valley's return to HBO, weed, technology, and how comedians can poke fun at one of the most powerful industries on the planet.

What'd you do on 4/20 this week?

You know what? I did the thing I always do, and that is not smoke weed on 4/20. I actually enjoyed a 4/20 beer from this brewery Sweetwater here in Georgia. So I drank. That's what I did for 4/20. And I worked. I worked and then I drank, specifically in that order.

That's like the most hipster 4/20 you could possibly have.

Yeah, no shit. I wore a fedora and I had black rimmed glasses, so I did the whole thing.

I saw you were tweeting at Elon Musk for the last couple of days. Did he ever get back to you?

You know, I haven't even checked. That's how hard I'm working. I had this morning where I was doing this, doing this, doing this. And I had this moment where I was like, "I'm trying to do all of this stuff to make people happy when life is so tragic, why have I taken on this weird job that is so hard?" And I was like, "I bet Elon Musk feels like this sometimes." But I think he probably gets a lot of questions.

You and him go way back because he critiqued the first episode of Silicon Valley.

He was searching for a way to make it better, because that's how he is in real life, you know what I mean? Yeah, that was really funny. I was really fascinated by his assessment of it, because he was like, "I'd like to think that, in Silicon Valley with an idea like that, they'd get the funding immediately." That's how optimistic he is. He believes that the world is not perfect, but it could be.

I mean, just communicating with Elon Musk, do you feel like you're part of the tech industry in a weird way now?

I feel like I've forcefully been thrust into the tech world and I've enjoyed every minute of it. Unfortunately, all of us are similar to our characters on our show, so I'm a better salesmen than I am a coder. I have one foot in, one foot out, I guess.

Running in these peripheral circles, do you have any ideas for a tech startup?

If you want a truthful answer, I want an app that daily gives you a piece of content from me, and every day you can open that app as you're checking everything else and be like, "Well, what's the weird thing I'm going to see today?" The big idea [my wife, Kate Gorney] and I have is for this thing called Infinite Eight Ball. You can ask it any question and it responds, but instead of stock answers there are millions [of possible responses]. It would be like if Siri was funny.

That's a great idea.

Well, don't fucking print it because then people will steal it, you maniac.

I'm already in production, dude. It's getting made as we speak.

I know you've been chatting with guys online right now.

HBO

Obviously the people in these tech companies are fabulously wealthy and powerful. What do you think we benefit from satirizing them?

I don't know. I don't know how effective satire is. It definitely brings stuff up as a reflective funhouse mirror that you should be paying attention to. I don't know how much the economy has changed since Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal."

So, these guys just can't take a joke about themselves?

Some. Elon Musk certainly gets the joke. There are others who not only don't get the joke, but they're calling me out for saying the word bitch on stage and they have pending sexual harassment and assault cases—the hypocrisy is lost on most of those people. I'd say most of them don't get the joke, and that's why they like the show.

What's it like for you when you walk around Silicon Valley?

Oh, god. There's no place I'm more famous than in San Francisco. I had a guy come up to me and say, "I'm you. I'm you from the show." Or "I work at this place that's the exact same thing as Pied Piper." What's funny is when they say that, I'm like, "I feel bad for you," because they don't get it. I feel like 60-70 percent of the people who watch the show in tech are like, "This is awesome. There's nothing wrong with us. We're cool."

I worked in Silicon Valley for a little bit, and there's so much material for comedy there—rich nerds driving Ferraris.

Yeah, what did you do out there?

I worked for a paper out there for a brief period of time.

Were you in San Francisco or were you in Silicon Valley?

I was in Silicon Valley, and I hated it, personally.

Yeah, it's awful. And I'm glad you said that because it's terrible. And I hate San Francisco, because they can't take a joke. You make fun of San Francisco, and San Francisco audiences are like, "What are you talking about, we live in the best place in the world, what is wrong with you?" Like, no, you live in a really expensive, foggy place that's good for walking with artisan meats and breads.

It's so accurate, and that's one of the best parts of the show. Why don't you think there are more shows out there making fun of the tech industry in general? It's such a huge industry.

It is weird that we're the first people. Here's the thing: Anytime you have as much money as any of these companies are valued at, it's not a good thing, because the yes men are everywhere. At the Crunchies everyone was like, "That's Travis Kalanick's girlfriend." I was like, "Who is that?" And they were like, "What!? The guy from Uber!" They're all kind of walking around with too much money, but [they have] great ideas sometimes. But Uber is a horrible company. They're horrible to their drivers. And because it's a new frontier, they can play by their own rules. They just squeeze the drivers for everything. They're just increasing the IPO so Travis Kalanick can jack off to it at night, I guess? I can't expect a TV show to change those things. And as things go, Silicon Valley will be known as the first show on this subject. This world is growing. And I get a little frustrated, because I feel like Hollywood and Silicon Valley are distant cousins, and Silicon Valley is going to always want to be Hollywood. And Hollywood is going to more and more not be able to exist without Silicon Valley.

I realized when the sequel came out this year that you're the guy holding the camera in Cloverfield. Now after the success of Deadpool, you're legitimately a movie star. What was it like back then when you were in your first film but no one could see your face?

My father always said I have a face for radio, and Cloverfield was one of my finest pieces of work. The main thing was, I'm a weird looking guy who's very physical with his comedy, how am I supposed to be funny in this movie? And because I had to figure it out, that's why I do so much voiceover now. That and because I sound like a drag queen who chain smokes and sings at the local bar. I think I'm just a comedian who's a pretty good con man, and I don't see that changing any time soon.

Matt Miller Culture Editor Matt is the Culture Editor at Esquire where he covers music, movies, books, and TV—with an emphasis on all things Star Wars, Marvel, and Game of Thrones.

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