Teambuilding Exercise
Silicon Valley | Season 4 | Episode 4

Teambuilding Exercise

TV-MA | 29 MIN

Written by Meghan Pleticha
Directed by Jamie Babbit

Richard arrives at Gavin Belson's estate in the middle of the night. The place is a mess, broken statues litter the floor. Richard presents Gavin with a license for his peer-to-peer communication pattern in exchange for his patent, but Gavin refuses to sign and tells Richard he's wasting his time. Determined to get him on board, Richard explains why his idea will work this time around.

Monica views the demo of the See Food app and it correctly identifies a hot dog. When they scan a piece of pizza, it yields: Not Hot Dog. Jian-Yang admits he did not want to scrape the internet to have the app identify more food items, but Monica insists he fix it.

Richard tells the guys he's going into business with Gavin Belson and has hired a recruiter to replace them. Jared, Dinesh and Gilfoyle watch as Richard interviews engineers for his new company, and Erlich informs the crew he is building a palapa with the See Food funding. As Gilfoyle scans the recruiter's list of candidates, he notices Jian-Yang's name. Erlich yells at Jian-Yang and angrily takes a dick pic with the app, which identifies his penis as a hot dog.

Later that afternoon, Erlich hears an engine revving and goes to the driveway where Jian-Yang is at the wheel of a brand new Corvette. He tells Erlich it's a "business expense" so the money will run out and he can stop working on the app.

Jared pitches his skills to Richard who agrees to hire him. They sit down with Gavin to review Richard's interview notes, and Jared suggests hiring Gilfoyle who is crying for help by insulting the other candidates.

Big Head, who has been teaching his Stanford class by showing them movies about the internet, changes his syllabus after Erlich compels him to use his class to scrape the internet for pictures of food. The next class, the students admit they're boycotting the assignment because they founded their own "Shazam for food" and are taking Coleman Blair's funding.

With no company, Erlich "releases" Jian-Yang and tells him he can pursue his own app. He trades in his 10 percent for the car and the palapa, and instructs Jian-Yang to tell Monica what happened.

Gilfoyle turns down Richard's job offer before conceding; he'll work for Pied Piper because the company will fail without him.

Laurie tells Monica Jian-Yang made a "nimble pivot"; his new app is "an amazing tool for the real-time detection and filtering of penile imagery." She tells Monica Jian-Yang interviewed for a job at Periscope and received a $4 million acquisition offer. Laurie credits Ed Chen for this major win.

Driving in his new car, Erlich hears from Monica about Jian-Yang's lucrative move. Dinesh describes his new job at Periscope to Gilfoyle -- looking at dick pics for Jian-Yang's acquired technology.

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