I love the show and rewatch it often, but if you lived in that world during the show's timeframe you can see it's changed draamtically. It still holds up as the "vision" of what we thought a SW startup looks like, but the reality is these scrappy little altruistic startups are not lead by hands-on tech founders, they're all taking the money today - often from PE - and are already the people from the show we laughed at. Show a member of a YC25 class SV today and they'll think Gavin Belson is a "how-to" tutorial.
I agree, it's gotten much much worse, especially with all the MAGA/Trump/Musk/Thiel boot licking.
It's prime time for Silicon Valley: AI Bubble. Instead of hiring the original actors or artists or writers, it could be ironically AI animated in the style of South Park, with a storyline about infringing on copyright and intellectual property, and putting actors and artists and programmers out of work.
I wonder what kind of company names would Erlich Bachman come up with on ketamine instead of shrooms?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXqkkpnZDgU
I suspect Erlich might have died of an opium overdose at this point.