Why Silicon Valley ended with season 6? Everything we know so far

A still from Silicon Valley (Image via HBO)

Silicon Valley season 7, much to the dismay of the show’s fans, will never see the light of day. The sixth and final season of the show ran from October 27, 2019, to December 8, 2019. Before its premiere, the makers had clarified that there would be no season 7.

The official synopsis of the series reads:

“From HBO and the offbeat mind of Mike Judge (Office Space, Beavis and Butt-Head) comes this comedy series set in the outrageous world of Silicon Valley's tech start-ups.”

It continues:

“In each episode, the show follows introverted programmer Richard and his pals who are going nowhere fast — until his website's unique compression algorithm becomes the subject of an extreme bidding war.”

The series did not return with season 7, primarily because the makers felt that they had satisfactorily concluded the storyline with season 6. Additionally, the field of information technology, the subject of the series, has evolved significantly since the inception of the show. Thus, it could no longer portray the world of software and computer technologies in a light manner.

Why there won't be Silicon Valley season 7?

Ahead of the release of season 6, Alec Berg and co-showrunner/executive producer Mike Judge spoke to Variety on May 31, 2019, stating:

“Silicon Valley has been a career and life highlight for us. We’ll miss it desperately, but we’ve always let Pied Piper’s journey guide the way, and Season 6 seems to be the fitting conclusion.”

Several factors led the creators to conclude that the series reached its “fitting conclusion” with season 6.

Since its debut in 2014, Silicon Valley has portrayed the world of start-ups and IT corporations with an absurd and dark comedic style as a bunch of enthusiastic people tried to navigate their ways in the world of tech, all revolving around the company Pied Piper. However, as the years passed, maintaining the light-hearted tone became difficult as software companies started gaining more and more importance in society.

Pied Piper was initially conceived as a spoof of Facebook, but as the real-life company became a staple of modern society, it became difficult to sustain a skeptical parody, effectively ending hopes for Silicon Valley season 7.

Judge and Berg told The Hollywood Reporter on December 8, 2019:

“When we started out, it was absurd in more of a funny way … but it has gotten a little more serious now.”

They continued:

“You get to this place where people are making very sustainable arguments that Facebook and Twitter and these other companies have torn the fabric of society irreparably … and it ceases to just become a goofy, fun little show.”

Another reason why Silicon Valley season 7 never materialized was that the makers had other HBO projects to focus on. Season 6 was already delayed because Berg was quite busy overseeing the production of another HBO comedy series, Barry, which he co-created.

Silicon Valley season 6: Episodes and cast

Season 6 was the shortest of the series, with only 7 episodes in it. The following list shows the names and release dates of all the episodes:

Episode number	Episode name	Release date
1	Artificial Lack of Intelligence	October 27, 2019
2	Blood Money	November 3, 2019
3	Hooli Smokes!	November 10, 2019
4	Maximizing Alphaness	November 17, 2019
5	Tethics	November 24, 2019
6	RussFest	December 1, 2019
7	Exit Event	December 8, 2019