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Key Takeaways
- It’s lonely at the top, and the show gets that right in every storyline. Each major character is isolated, and none of them says so out loud.
- Some leaders I work with run from that conversation with themselves. The ones I’ve watched make progress bring it to someone else instead, whether that’s a coach, mentor or therapist, and speak honestly about their feelings.
“More than physical pain, I fear humiliation.” That’s the first line of The Audacity, spoken by tech CEO Duncan Park (Billy Magnussen) to his therapist. I’ve coached tech leaders for more than a decade, including people who reported directly to Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk and Steve Huffman, and I can’t recall a client ever saying the word “humiliation” to me. They say “insecure” and “imposter syndrome” instead. The show names a real fear in its opening seconds, using a word I rarely hear.
The series aired on AMC this spring and landed on Netflix in August, where it’s finding a second audience.
Most of the reviews came from TV critics, but I watched it as the person executives say these things to. They tell me things they keep from their boards, their teams and their partners.
With that in mind, I wanted to share what the show gets right about the people leading the tech industry and what was stretched to make good TV.
The lies tech executives tell themselves
In episode seven, Duncan says the fear of humiliation is behind every little lie. His therapist, Dr. JoAnne Felder (Sarah Goldberg), puts it another way: Everyone spins, even to themselves. That’s the most accurate line in the series.
Executives spin to me, too. It usually sounds like catastrophizing what a boss might say or fixating on the worst-case scenario of an important meeting or presentation. When I hear it, I ask them to pause and take a breath. Then we get clear on what they value and what they want. Then they pick one small step forward. It’s simple, and that’s why it works.
The pause does most of the work. Once a leader slows down, the spin falls apart on its own.
Yelling in the tech C-suite is real
In the first episode, Duncan screams at his housekeeper for failing to catch a tungsten cube he throws to her. One recap called his outbursts one of the funniest elements of the premiere. I call it reality. I’ve coached executives whose CEOs screamed at them and berated people in executive meetings — at companies that have been voted “best place to work.”
The show also gets right the fact that founders and boards tolerate this behavior. When it’s the CEO yelling, the people in the room have few options. A senior executive I coached reported directly to a CEO like this. Our work focused on how to manage themselves long enough to get out and find a healthier environment, which they did. Sometimes the only fix is a new employer.
Success stops feeling like enough for tech leaders
Carl Bardolph (Zach Galifianakis) is the billionaire Duncan wants to become. A teenager in the show describes him as worth a bazillion dollars and the saddest man you’ve ever seen. Everyone in the series has money and wants more of something else, whether it’s legacy, power, impact or control.
I hear this constantly. A client of mine had led teams through back-to-back acquisitions and an exit, and he told me it still didn’t feel like enough. I didn’t tell him he had a problem or suggest he look for happiness outside work. He brought the questions to me, and my job was to help him unpack them. He wanted to know:
- How would he know when he had enough?
- Who did he want to be beyond his title?
- What was he neglecting at home because of work?
- How did he want to be remembered?
He chose his career goal, C-suite roles and added conditions that had never been on the list, such as remote or hybrid work, time with his school-aged children and partner, real work-life balance and room to travel. Eventually, he landed a role on those terms.
Where The Audacity stretches, and where it nails Silicon Valley
Duncan blackmails his therapist. I’ve never been blackmailed by a client, and I’m confident that’s the norm. The jargon also runs heavier than real life. Silicon Valley loves shorthand, but “quant ben” for quantifiable benefits was new to me.
The biggest stretch comes from Ethan Stern (Patrick Gilmore), Orson’s biological father, who is back in Baltimore while his son gets shipped off to Palo Alto. He tells Orson the world there is not the real world, but Silicon Valley is the world for a lot of people. Meta alone reports 3.6 billion people using its apps on an average day. Carl also claims that every billionaire eventually decides whether to save the world or control it, and that “most of us go Dr. Evil.” In my experience, most of the leaders I work with are focused on making a positive difference. The bad ones just get more publicity.
One line made me laugh out loud, and it turned out to be accurate. In the first episode, Anushka Bhattachera-Phister (Meaghan Rath) refers to Xander, the AI her husband Martin (Simon Helberg) is building, as “a digital child.” I’ve heard a tech executive use that exact phrase. The realtor telling Dr. Felder “$2.5 mil is a steal around here” got me too, as did their portrayal of office space costing $175 an hour. That’s why I coach from my home office over Zoom.
Final thoughts on The Audacity and tech executives
It’s lonely at the top, and the show gets that right in every storyline. Each major character is isolated, and none of them says so out loud. Some leaders I work with run from that conversation with themselves. The ones I’ve watched make progress bring it to someone else instead, whether that’s a coach, mentor or therapist, and speak honestly about their feelings.
The Audacity packs stock fraud, blackmail, ayahuasca, a tungsten cube and a wildfire into eight hour-long episodes, and AMC renewed it for a second season before the first one even aired. I’d give it a thumbs up as a composite portrait of working in tech, two thumbs up for entertainment and a thumbs down for anyone hoping to feel better about the industry afterward. Nobody was watching it for that anyway. Remember, you’ve got this!
Key Takeaways
- It’s lonely at the top, and the show gets that right in every storyline. Each major character is isolated, and none of them says so out loud.
- Some leaders I work with run from that conversation with themselves. The ones I’ve watched make progress bring it to someone else instead, whether that’s a coach, mentor or therapist, and speak honestly about their feelings.
“More than physical pain, I fear humiliation.” That’s the first line of The Audacity, spoken by tech CEO Duncan Park (Billy Magnussen) to his therapist. I’ve coached tech leaders for more than a decade, including people who reported directly to Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk and Steve Huffman, and I can’t recall a client ever saying the word “humiliation” to me. They say “insecure” and “imposter syndrome” instead. The show names a real fear in its opening seconds, using a word I rarely hear.
The series aired on AMC this spring and landed on Netflix in August, where it’s finding a second audience.
Most of the reviews came from TV critics, but I watched it as the person executives say these things to. They tell me things they keep from their boards, their teams and their partners.
