“We’re strangely similar to our characters, both as people and in a group dynamic,” said T.J. Miller, who plays the often-belligerent Erlich Bachman, a character he said “unfortunately fits like a glove. It’s easy for me to be caustic, abrasive, arrogant, blunt, straightforward, Falstaffian, Dionysian, all that stuff.”

Also read: ‘Silicon Valley’ EP on the Fun of Mining Comedy Out of the Tech Industry’s ‘Money and Social Dysfunction’

Unbeknownst to Mike Judge when he cast them, many members of the “Silicon Valley” cast had long histories together, dating back to the standup comedy and improv scene in Chicago more than a decade ago. “When we finished shooting the pilot, Mike said, ‘You guys have really bonded,'” said Kumail Nanjiani, who plays an opinionated, socially inept (sense a pattern here?) programmer. “I said, ‘Some of us have known each other for more than 10 years.'”

But that doesn’t mean there wasn’t some jockeying for position when they first got together on the show, said Woods. “It was a dog pile where we were all trying to establish physical dominance, and no one did,” he joked.

“It was like there was a bunch of hounds and one plate of food, and we were scrambling for it,” added Middleditch.

“T.J., I think, showed dominance,” said Martin Starr, who plays Pied Piper’s acerbic security specialist. “T.J. grabbed us all by the back of the neck, pulled us off the food and ate it very calmly.”