Greetings!
For those unfamiliar with Silicon Valley, it was an HBO comedy series (2014-2019) that satirized the tech industry through the misadventures of a startup called Pied Piper and its rival, the fictional tech giant Hooli. The show became beloved for its uncanny ability to parody real Silicon Valley excess, hubris, and absurdity—often having episodes feel prophetic months after they aired.
This fictional episode, however, isn't prophetic. It's documentary
“The Power Problem”
A Silicon Valley Story
INT. PIED PIPER - CONFERENCE ROOM - DAY
RICHARD stands at the whiteboard, marker in hand, looking unusually confident. The team sits around the table: DINESH, GILFOYLE, JARED, and MONICA.
RICHARD: Okay, so I’ve been thinking about our AI strategy—
GILFOYLE: Oh no.
RICHARD: No, no, hear me out. Everyone’s talking about how we need to be lean and efficient, right? We need to focus our resources.
JARED: (brightening) Are we getting pizza for lunch?
RICHARD: What? No, Jared. I’m talking about our headcount. We have twelve people working on infrastructure. That’s a lot of overhead.
DINESH: You want to fire people?
RICHARD: I prefer “strategic workforce optimization.”
GILFOYLE: You want to fire people.
RICHARD: Look, if we trim the infrastructure team down to, say, three people, we free up enough capital to buy fifty H100 GPUs. That puts us in the AI game. That’s transformational.
MONICA: Richard, the infrastructure team manages all our data center operations. Power, cooling, networking—
RICHARD: Right, but how hard can that be? We’ll keep the essential people.
GILFOYLE: Define “essential.”
RICHARD: The ones who… know how to keep the lights on?
GILFOYLE: That’s literally all of them.
JARED: (writing on his notepad) Should I start drafting the severance letters? I’ve been practicing my compassionate termination language. (reading) “While your contributions have been valued, we’re reallocating our human capital toward—”
RICHARD: Jared, stop. Nobody’s getting fired yet. This is just… exploratory.
INT. HOOLI - GAVIN BELSON’S OFFICE - SAME TIME
GAVIN BELSON stands at his panoramic window, looking out over Silicon Valley. His COO enters with a tablet.
COO: Gavin, good news. We’ve secured allocation for 200,000 H100 GPUs from Nvidia.
GAVIN: Excellent. When do they arrive?
COO: They started shipping last week. We have about 40,000 in Warehouse 7 already.
GAVIN: Good. Get them deployed immediately. I want Hooli to have the largest AI compute capacity in Silicon Valley by end of quarter.
COO: About that… we’re running into some complications with the deployment.
GAVIN: What kind of complications?
COO: Power complications.
GAVIN: I don’t understand. We have power. I can see the lights. (gestures at office lights) They’re on.
COO: Yes, but each of these GPU servers draws about 10 kilowatts. To run all 200,000 GPUs, we’d need about 2.5 gigawatts of continuous power.
GAVIN: So get 2.5 gigawatts.
COO: That’s… that’s roughly the output of two large power plants, Gavin.
GAVIN: Then build two large power plants!
COO: That takes five to seven years and requires federal approval—
GAVIN: (waving dismissively) Excuses. This is Hooli. We don’t accept limitations. We transcend them. What about our existing data centers?
COO: Our data centers can handle about 15% of the GPUs. The rest are sitting in warehouses.
GAVIN: How long have you known about this?
COO: (long pause) Since before we ordered them.
GAVIN: And you’re telling me NOW?
COO: I sent you seventeen emails about electrical capacity constraints. You replied “sounds good” to all of them.
GAVIN: I thought you were talking about network capacity!
COO: The subject line was “WE DON’T HAVE ENOUGH ELECTRICITY FOR THE GPUS.”
GAVIN: I don’t read subject lines. They’re for people without vision.
INT. PIED PIPER - BULLPEN - TWO WEEKS LATER
The team is gathered around Dinesh’s computer, looking at news articles.
DINESH: Holy shit. Did you guys see this? Microsoft just admitted they have billions of dollars worth of GPUs sitting in warehouses because they don’t have enough power to run them.
GILFOYLE: (not looking up from his laptop) Of course they don’t.
RICHARD: What do you mean “of course”?
GILFOYLE: Richard, do you know how much power a DGX H100 server draws?
RICHARD: Like… a lot?
GILFOYLE: 10,200 watts. That’s per server. Now multiply that by hundreds of thousands of servers. Then factor in cooling, which roughly doubles the power requirement. You’re talking gigawatts of continuous power draw.
DINESH: Wait, so when Microsoft bought all those GPUs—
GILFOYLE: They didn’t check if they could actually plug them in. Yes.
JARED: (reading from his phone) It says here that Meta has the same problem. And Amazon. And Google. They all bought massive amounts of GPUs and now they’re sitting in warehouses because the power infrastructure doesn’t exist.
MONICA: But surely they knew about the power requirements before they bought them?
GILFOYLE: Of course they knew. They just didn’t care. The market rewards GPU purchases. The stock goes up when you announce you’ve secured allocation. The fact that you can’t actually use them is a “future problem.”
RICHARD: (slowly realizing) Oh my god.
DINESH: What?
RICHARD: We almost did the same thing! If we’d fired the infrastructure team and bought those GPUs—
GILFOYLE: We would have had fifty very expensive paperweights and no one who knew how to assess our electrical capacity.
JARED: (cheerfully) So it’s a good thing Richard’s indecisiveness prevented us from making any actual decisions!
RICHARD: I’m not indecisive, I’m… thorough.
GILFOYLE: You’re indecisive.
INT. HOOLI - WAREHOUSE 7 - DAY
Gavin walks through the massive warehouse with his COO. Row upon row of sealed boxes stretch into the distance.
GAVIN: This is what four billion dollars looks like.
COO: Technically it’s sitting in Warehouses 7, 8, 9, and the overflow facility in Ohio.
GAVIN: And none of them can be used.
COO: Not until we build out the power infrastructure. We’ve started the process but it’ll take 18-24 months minimum.
GAVIN: So we fired 8,000 people to free up budget to buy hardware that we now can’t use for two years.
COO: That’s… one way to phrase it, yes.
GAVIN: And this is happening to everyone? Microsoft, Meta, Amazon?
COO: Everyone who bought aggressively, yes. The entire industry basically rushed to secure GPU supply without adequately planning for power infrastructure.
GAVIN: (pause) This is beautiful.
COO: How is this beautiful?
GAVIN: Because everyone failed together. It’s not a Hooli failure. It’s an industry-wide coordination failure. We can’t be blamed for something everyone did. (pause) Get me PR. I want to be out in front of this. “Hooli leads industry in confronting critical infrastructure challenges.”
COO: Gavin, we still need to actually solve the problem.
GAVIN: Do we though? Or do we just need to be the last ones to admit we can’t solve it? How much would it cost to build our own power plant?
COO: Several billion dollars and five to seven years with permits—
GAVIN: What about solar? Wind?
COO: Still years of buildout, and you’d need thousands of acres—
GAVIN: Nuclear?
COO: (sighs) Gavin, the fastest solution is to wait for the utility companies to upgrade their infrastructure, which they’re doing, but it takes time.
GAVIN: Time. The one thing we can’t disrupt.
INT. PIED PIPER - CONFERENCE ROOM - CONTINUOUS
The team is still discussing the revelation.
MONICA: What I don’t understand is how this happened at every major company simultaneously.
GILFOYLE: Because they all optimized for the same signals. The market rewarded GPU purchases, so everyone bought GPUs. The market rewarded efficiency, so everyone laid off people. Nobody was thinking about the whole system.
DINESH: It’s like a prisoner’s dilemma. If you’re the only company that doesn’t buy GPUs, you look weak. So everyone buys GPUs even if they can’t use them.
RICHARD: Except now they’re all stuck with hardware they can’t deploy.
JARED: Do you think they’ll give the fired workers their jobs back? Since they’ll need infrastructure people to build out the power systems?
GILFOYLE: (laughs) Oh Jared. That’s adorable.
JARED: What?
GILFOYLE: They’ll hire new people. Can’t let anyone think the layoffs were a mistake.
MONICA: The worst part is, the people who made these decisions will face no consequences. They’ll pivot the narrative to “infrastructure challenges” and move on.
RICHARD: Meanwhile thousands of people lost their jobs for… what? So their companies could participate in a hype cycle?
DINESH: I mean, to be fair, they didn’t know it was a hype cycle at the time.
GILFOYLE: Yes they did. The power requirements were public. The infrastructure limitations were known. They just chose to ignore them because acknowledging them would have slowed down the press releases.
JARED: (thoughtfully) It’s like when I bought all those beanie babies in the 90s because everyone said they’d be worth a fortune someday.
EVERYONE: (stares at Jared)
JARED: What? I still have them! They’re going to be valuable eventually!
INT. HOOLI - GAVIN’S OFFICE - DAY
Gavin is on the phone, pacing.
GAVIN: No, I understand that building a substation takes time… Yes, I’m aware of the permitting process… Listen, what if I told you Hooli could fund an entire infrastructure upgrade for the region?
(pause)
GAVIN: Money is no object. We need power capacity and we need it faster than “three to five years.”
(pause)
GAVIN: Fine. Send me the proposal. But I want a timeline that starts with months, not years.
(hangs up)
COO: Any luck?
GAVIN: They’re going to send a proposal. It’ll probably still take years. (sits down) How did we get here? We’re Hooli. We’re supposed to be good at this.
COO: We are good at the technology. We’re just bad at… physics.
GAVIN: I don’t like physics.
COO: Nobody does, Gavin.
GAVIN: When ChatGPT came out, everyone was talking about AGI and consciousness and the singularity. Now we’re talking about electrical substations. How did the conversation shift this dramatically?
COO: Reality has a way of intruding on narratives.
GAVIN: Well I don’t like reality either.
COO: That’s the Hooli spirit.
INT. PIED PIPER - BULLPEN - EVENING
The team is winding down. Richard sits at his desk, staring at his laptop.
MONICA: You okay?
RICHARD: Yeah, I’m just… processing. We came really close to making the same mistake every major company made.
MONICA: But you didn’t.
RICHARD: Only because I couldn’t make a decision fast enough. That’s not exactly strategic brilliance.
GILFOYLE: (from across the room) Take the win, Richard.
RICHARD: But it makes you think, right? Everyone treats these CEOs like geniuses. Like they’re playing 4D chess. And they just… bought billions of dollars worth of hardware without checking if they could plug it in.
DINESH: To be fair, they probably had people who told them about the power constraints.
GILFOYLE: They definitely did. They fired most of them.
JARED: (walking over with coffee) I made a fresh pot if anyone wants some. It’s that special blend from Trader Joe’s that I know you all secretly enjoy even though you make fun of me for buying it.
DINESH: We’re not making fun of you, Jared.
JARED: Then why do you call it “Jared’s sadness juice”?
DINESH: That’s… affectionate mockery. It’s different.
MONICA: Richard, the point is you asked the right questions before making a decision. That’s actually good leadership.
RICHARD: I didn’t ask questions. I just… hesitated long enough for everyone else to make the mistake first.
GILFOYLE: Again, take the win.
TITLE CARD: “SIX MONTHS LATER”
INT. TECH CONFERENCE - MAIN STAGE
Gavin Belson is giving a keynote presentation. Behind him, a slide reads: “HOOLI: LEADING THE INFRASTRUCTURE REVOLUTION”
GAVIN: …and that’s why Hooli is investing five billion dollars in next-generation power infrastructure for AI compute. We recognized early that the bottleneck wasn’t chips—it was power. While others were focused on GPU acquisition, we were thinking holistically about the entire stack.
(The audience applauds)
INT. CONFERENCE - HALLWAY - CONTINUOUS
Richard, Monica, Dinesh, and Gilfoyle watch the keynote on a monitor.
DINESH: Is he seriously taking credit for solving a problem he created?
GILFOYLE: That’s called leadership, Dinesh.
RICHARD: He fired thousands of people to buy GPUs he couldn’t use, and now he’s giving keynotes about infrastructure planning.
MONICA: Welcome to Silicon Valley.
JARED: (walking up with conference swag bag) Did you guys try the artisanal coffee at the Nvidia booth? It’s actually quite good! Though I still prefer my Trader Joe’s blend.
RICHARD: Jared, how are you so cheerful all the time?
JARED: I choose to see the positive, Richard! Yes, major companies made expensive mistakes that hurt thousands of workers. But think of all the valuable lessons they’ve learned!
GILFOYLE: The lesson being “don’t fire your infrastructure team before checking your electrical capacity.”
JARED: Exactly! Growth through adversity!
DINESH: The workers who got laid off didn’t grow. They just got laid off.
JARED: (pause) That’s… that’s fair. I’ll be honest, that part makes me sad.
INT. HOOLI WAREHOUSE 7 - DAY
The same warehouse from before. The COO walks through with a FACILITIES MANAGER, checking inventory.
FACILITIES MANAGER: So we finally have power capacity to deploy about 30% of the GPUs.
COO: Only 30%?
FACILITIES MANAGER: The new substation won’t be online until next year. And that’s assuming no permitting delays.
COO: What about the rest of the inventory?
FACILITIES MANAGER: Still in boxes. Probably will be for another 18 months.
COO: By which time Nvidia will have released two new generations of GPUs.
FACILITIES MANAGER: Probably.
COO: So we fired people to buy hardware we couldn’t use, which will be obsolete by the time we can use it.
FACILITIES MANAGER: That’s… one way to put it.
COO: Does Gavin know?
FACILITIES MANAGER: I sent him an email.
COO: Did he respond?
FACILITIES MANAGER: He said “sounds good.”
COO: (sighs) Of course he did.
INT. PIED PIPER - ROOFTOP - SUNSET
Richard and Gilfoyle stand at the railing, looking out over Silicon Valley.
RICHARD: You ever feel like we’re all just making it up as we go along?
GILFOYLE: That’s because we are.
RICHARD: But we’re not supposed to be. We’re supposed to be the smart people. The ones with the vision.
GILFOYLE: Richard, you know what the difference is between us and companies like Hooli?
RICHARD: They have billions of dollars and we don’t?
GILFOYLE: Besides that. They’re big enough that their mistakes become narratives. “Infrastructure challenges.” “Strategic pivots.” “Market adjustments.” When we make mistakes, we just fail.
RICHARD: That’s… incredibly depressing.
GILFOYLE: Welcome to the real world.
(They stand in silence for a moment)
RICHARD: Do you think they’ll learn from this?
GILFOYLE: Learn what? How to check electrical capacity before spending billions? Maybe. But there’ll be a new hype cycle soon enough. Quantum computing, or brain-computer interfaces, or whatever. And they’ll do the same thing all over again.
RICHARD: Because the market rewards the narrative more than the execution.
GILFOYLE: Now you’re getting it.
RICHARD: That’s really, really depressing.
GILFOYLE: (pause) You want to get drunk and make fun of Jared’s coffee choices?
RICHARD: Yeah, okay.
FADE TO BLACK
END CREDITS
POST-CREDITS SCENE:
INT. TECH NEWS WEBSITE - VIDEO FRAME
A TECH REPORTER sits at a desk.
REPORTER: In a surprising development today, major tech companies including Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon announced record profits despite ongoing challenges with AI infrastructure deployment. When asked about the billions of dollars worth of unused GPUs sitting in warehouses, a Microsoft spokesperson stated quote “we remain confident in our long-term AI strategy” unquote. In related news, the same companies announced plans to purchase next-generation GPUs from Nvidia, which will require even more power infrastructure that doesn’t currently exist. Back to you in the studio.
FADE OUT
[THE END]
The story you just read is inspired by actual events from 2024-2025. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella really did admit in November 2025 that the company has GPUs "sitting in inventory" because they lack the power infrastructure to deploy them. Major tech companies really did spend hundreds of billions on AI hardware while conducting mass layoffs throughout 2024-2025. The power infrastructure constraints really are causing companies to leave expensive hardware unused in warehouses. The only fictional elements are the characters and dialogue—the underlying situation is entirely real.
When reality writes better satire than satirists can invent, perhaps it's time to ask some harder questions.
