Randi Zuckerberg Says Her Bravo Show Captures the 'Real Authentic Silicon Valley'
Randi Zuckerberg, sister of Mark and producer of the upcoming Bravo reality TV spectacle that everyone loves to hate, Silicon Valley, defended her show telling Forbes's Jeff Bercovici by saying it would capture the "real authentic Silicon Valley." Or more specifically, that was her job on the show, since as a producer, she will not appear on camera: "I really helped make sure that Bravo could capture the real authentic Silicon Valley." That's a funny formulation because the start-up world of Silicon Valley is cringing at the thought of being portrayed on Bravo, a network that's never been associated with the word authenticity. As Bravo president Frances Burwick once explained their creative strategy to The New York Times's David Streitfeld, "In the editing process, we try to get rid of everything that is going to be a snooze."
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It sounds like Zuckerberg had a really hard job, then. And she admits to Bercovici that she was not pushing for long scenes of people who have been coding at keyboards for eight hours straight. Rather, she wanted to show the "interpersonal dynamics ... the real drama and real challenges of creating start-ups." In other words: More parties, less work, a representation realized in the recently released trailer.
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Zuckerberg says her interest was all in pushing a good cause, she told Bercovici. "It's more important than ever to get girls excited about technology and entrepreneurship and the only way you're going to do that is by really making technology cool and pop culture."
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So, let's get this straight, creating a vapid reality television program is the only way to encourage young women to pursue science and technology-related fields? Not that women in Silicon Valley can't act as positive role models for young girls, but, we're pretty sure this isn't the ideal depiction. Zuckerberg herself insinuated that the people on this show make a "laughing stock" of themselves in a tweet a few months ago. "We're just capturing reality!" she continued. That reality, as you can see in the trailer above, involves a lot of bikinis and shots and not much actual technology making (remember: no coding!). While we don't doubt that depicts some real part of Silicon Valley culture, it's not the part that are going to most appeal to girls considering computer science and engineering fields. Sorry Zuck, we're not buying it.
