Silicon Valley has a lack of diversity for good reason, says writer

'The world we're depicting is fucked up'

When faced with accusations of a lack of diversity, Silicon Valley decided that rather than shoehorn in new characters and extras, it would stick to its guns to reflect the realities of the tech world.

For season one, "We shot some crowd footage at [real tech conference] Disrupt," writer and producer Alec Berg told ArtsTechnica.

"I have a friend in tech who called me, and she said, 'Those crowd shots are absurd, you didn't put any women in there at all.' I had to tell her—those were real shots.

“The world we're depicting is fucked up,” he continued. “Do we have a responsibility to make the genders on our show more balanced, when this is the world we're depicting?"

A still from the scene in question (Picture: HBO)

Show creator Mike Judge explained that the industry gender imbalance became clear to him when he headed to Palo Alto bars for research.

“Yeah, that's where I realized that it was 87 percent dudes," he said.

"I've spent a bunch of time there. It's kind of the no-humor capital of the world. I watched the Naked Gun there and I was the only one laughing. But I shouldn't bag on it. There are very intelligent people there.”

While diversity on screen is something they feel is important not to have in their show, their approach is very different behind the camera.

"I think we've done a mildly decent job of hiring female writers, and writers of color," Berg said. "Fifty percent of the outside writers we hire are women. We're not there yet, but I swear, we are trying."