Silicon Valley (the place) has a long history of big exits: Steve Jobs being forced from Apple, Larry Ellison stepping down at Oracle, and, most recently, Travis Kalanick leaving Uber. Yesterday's episode of Silicon Valley (the show) treated us to another, when Erlich Bachman—Aviato founder, Bachmanity partner, and all-around palapa-immolating gasbag—left his incubator to take up (unwitting, long-term, possibly indentured) residence in a Tibetan opium den. Fans are already mourning the loss of Bachman, who in the hands of actor T. J. Miller had become a flaming spear of satire, piercing the illusions and pomposity of the tech world armed only with a bong and unassailable mediocrity.

And yet, Miller left us one more gift on his way out the door, in the form of a lengthy and blistering exit interview with The Hollywood Reporter. Sure, looked at from one perspective, Miller comes off as a mere jerk, dismissive of his collaborators and overly portentous about a future dedicated to making B-grade shlock like Yogi Bear in 3-D. But maybe, just maybe, this is one last piece of performance art—a way of sending up Silicon Valley even as he leaves Silicon Valley. Many of his statements, in fact, sound a lot like the kind of tech-industry blather and trend-following that Miller usually loves to satirize. For the first time, the man behind Erlich Bachman sounded like a real Silicon Valley CEO. Consider:

Sail-Related Sports

One of the first signs that Miller’s interview is about to get weird is when he talks about what’s up next for him: "I’d like to parasail into the Cannes Film Festival for The Emoji Movie because that’s the next new funny thing that will make people laugh." First off, it’s hard for us to see why Miller gently descending from the heavens to introduce a dumb-looking family movie to a bunch of sneering cineastes would make people laugh. (Wait, no, scratch that; that really does sound hilarious.) But second, parasailing sounds a lot like Sergey Brin’s favorite hobby, kiteboarding. Quitting a lucrative job to harness the wind? Totally a tech-industry move.

A Pledge to Make the World a Better Place

One of Silicon Valley’s first gags was about the reflexive urge to claim that even the most arcane tech advancement would “make the world a better place.” Yet Miller does something similar here, when he says that he isn’t motivated by money or fame, but merely by making people laugh. “That’s what we need right now in a post-religious, post-meaning society,” he says, not-at-all ridiculously. Then again, he also masters the Silicon Valley act of balancing altruism with mercenary capitalism when he admits that The Emoji Movie is primarily an effort to “get motherf—ing paid globally.” As Justin-Timberlake-as-Sean-Parker might put it, that’s cool.

Humblebragging

As part of the explanation for his departure, Miller states that his schedule became so hectic—and the demands on his time so great—that it was causing scheduling snafus for the show. "People joke about it but I’m the hardest-working man in show business,” he says. “Maybe." We understand that making 10 episodes of a half-hour show a year can be tough, to say nothing of shooting beer ads in which you swap insults with a surf-punk-orange-thing, but this is nothing if not a Valley-worthy humblebrag. Well-played, bro.

Embracing Creative Destruction

Miller’s core complaint seemed to be that the show was stuck in a familiar pattern. “The only thing that you can talk down about the show and about Alec Berg, the showrunner for the first couple years, is that it’s cyclical,” he said. “If they fail, then they succeed, and then if they succeed, they fail. It’s over and over. That’s an old type of sitcom.” Like a bloated incumbent grown too attached to its existing business model, Silicon Valley needed a shakeup, which would make Miller’s exit a textbook case of creative destruction.

A Renewed Appreciation For Sleep

Of late, Arianna Huffington has been urging overclocked CEOs to obey their circadian rhythms and get more sleep, a message that Miller at least seems to be heeding. "I want to have a schedule where I can have a fun, healthy relationship where we have lazy days," he says. Of course, those lazy days would come along with other pressing concerns: "I also want to be the voiceover of How to Train Your Dragon theme parks. I’m doing a lot as a public servant and jester to the American public." May we all sleep more soundly knowing that our Dreamworks Animation-affiliated location-based entertainment is in such capable, well-rested hands.