Mike Judge Helps Us Find The Easter Eggs In "Silicon Valley's" Opening Credits

A quick rundown of the blink-and-you-miss-them jokes in the opening credits of the HBO series.

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On Silicon Valley, HBO's send-up of the tech industry, the jokes begin long before any actors appear on screen. The show's opening sequence — a computer animated, flyover of an imagined Silicon Valley — features a bevy of snarky references to the real world companies that help inform so many of the show's jokes and storylines.

Now in its third season, Silicon Valley's opening credits are more jam packed than ever. "I like putting more and more eye candy," show creator Mike Judge told BuzzFeed News.

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09:23 PM - 25 Apr 2016

And in Silicon Valley itself, a mention in the HBO series' opening credits is considered something of an achievement. "I think it's becoming a point of pride," said Judge. "A couple times people have said, 'Hey, put us in the credits' and I forget to write down the names of the companies."

We asked Judge to talk a bit about some of the sequence's best Easter eggs.

Golden parachutes at Twitter headquarters

HBO

A snide reference to recent departures at Twitter, particularly executive ones eased by fat severance packages. Former-Twitter CEO Dick Costolo served as a consultant on Silicon Valley's third season, so this easter egg is especially apt. "I remember we did have a conversation [with Costolo] about it," said Judge. "I think he thought it was funny."

Obligatory Yahoo joke

HBO

An obvious, but timely joke. Yahoo is in such lousy shape these days that its stake in Chinese e-commerce group Alibaba is now far more valuable than Yahoo itself. Judge said Yahoo called HBO about the opening sequence, but not to complain. "They just asked us to update to the new logo," said Judge.

So many Soylent trucks

HBO

This year, the opening credits feature a lot of Soylent. Judge has tried the meal replacement. "To me, Soylent tastes OK," he said. "It’s how I imagine pancake batter would taste. It’s just sort of... decent. It’s such a great engineer thing, where the purpose of food is not to be enjoyed — it’s just to survive. It’s baby formula."

Oracle employees on ... unicycles?

HBO

Yes! According to Judge, the figures atop the Oracle building are indeed riding unicycles. Why? He doesn't know, either.

Amazon drones everywhere

HBO

Amazon's vision of a future in which drones deliver deodorant and bags of cat litter to your front door is ahead of schedule here. The company is currently testing its fleet of autonomous drones that it hopes will someday make deliveries from warehouse to door in 30 minutes or less.

Recode gets a shoutout

HBO

"I went to Recode's conference when we were first researching the show and that seems to be the one that brings in all the heavy hitters of the tech world," said Judge of the tech news site's annual conference. Recode co-founder Kara Swisher, who has appeared on the show, is at least partially responsible for Judge's decision to hire ex-Twitter CEO Dick Costolo as a consultant on the show.

"I was having lunch with Kara Swisher and Kara was like, 'What are you going to do? You're not really competent at a lot of things, you should go back to what you used to do in Chicago, but I can call Mike [Judge] and Alec [Berg]'s assistant and you can go meet them for lunch in LA," Costolo said at a premiere event for the show's third season. "[The HBO person] said, 'No you don't understand we just want someone to sit in the back of the room and say yeah, that would happen and that wouldn't happen' and [a UTA agent] said, 'No he'll do that,.' I think the HBO person was like wow, that's really—how the mighty have fallen."

Wait. Is that a Clinkle billboard?

HBO

One of the more obscure tech references in Silicon Valley's opening flyover is to Clinkle, a much-touted startup that crashed and burned spectacularly under the dubious leadership of a cash-obsessed twenty-something founder with $25 million in venture capital. According to Judge, Clinkle was the inspiration for an episode in season two.

Facebook engulfs Oculus and WhatsApp

HBO

Facebook acquired virtual reality outfit Oculus for $2 billion in 2014. It acquired messaging app WhatsApp, also in 2014, for $19 billion. Silicon Valley's opening credits pay tribute to Facebook's acquisitive nature by having the company's logo devour them both.

The Yahoo barf bus

HBO

"This was initially the protester that vomited on top of the Yahoo bus," said Judge, referencing an infamous protest in Oakland, CA. "They go get Soylent at the end."