In honor of the return of HBO’s Silicon Valley, we decided to take a look at the salaries and job roles of each Pied Piper employee to find out who would be bringing in the most cash. Startup life isn’t glamorous, but characters like Erlich, Richard, Gilfoyle, and Dinesh without a doubt make it look entertaining, to say the least. Here are the top earners of Pied Piper LLC.
(Photo Credit: Silicon Valley at Facebook)
Richard Hendricks, Programmer/CEO – $59,000/year
You might expect that, as CEO and founder of Pied Piper’s highly sought-after compression algorithm, Richard would be the highest-earner at Pied Piper. However, in real-life startups, many CEOs will defer the high-end salary in favor of putting more money into the company, and paying employees more. For example, Elon Musk was entitled to a salary of $37,000 last year but as usual, he didn’t take it. When resources are thin, CEOs have to the first to take cuts. That’s why we think Richard probably earned himself a standard programmer salary. Although it’s safe to assume he was earning a little bit more during his pre-Pied Piper time at Hooli.
Jared Dunn, CFO/Business Advisor – $68,000/year
When he’s not stuck inside a shipping container and hopped up on too much Adderall, Jared manages the business end of Pied Piper. We have to assume though that Jared took a pretty big pay cut when he stepped down from his job at Hooli as an advisor to Peter Gregory. As Pied Piper’s lead business advisor, Jared’s job is to solve problems and help organize the company. As I’m sure you’re well aware, this is no easy task with a team like Pied Piper.
Erlich Bachman, Entrepreneur/Board of Directors – $71,000/year
Erlich claims that once upon a time, he was a devout developer but has had to move on to more entrepreneurial activities due to his severe carpel tunnel, which makes him unable to code. Whatever the truth may be, Erlich’s time and energy is focused on getting more money to back Pied Piper. When he’s not hard at work for Pied Piper, you can find Erlich smoking weed or taking mushrooms for the purpose of finding Steve Jobs-like inspiration. All in the name of Pied Piper.
Dinesh Chugtai, Programmer/Co-CTO – $92,000/year
Alongside Gilfoyle, Dinesh is the Co-CTO of Pied Piper, but his main focus is programming. Between working on Pied Piper projects, Dinesh can usually be found making sarcastic comments to his team members. He also tried to plot a murder once. That skill was not taken into consideration when determining his potential salary. Dinesh is one of the more talented programmers on the Pied Piper team, so there is a chance he may be taking in more salary than programmers like Richard.
Bertram Gilfoyle – Satanist Programmer/CTO/Systems Architect – $106,000/year
Gilfoyle, a Canadian immigrant and devout Satanist, prides himself on being Pied Piper’s security expert. Gilfoyle is one of the greatest characters on the show due to his dry personality. In addition to being a security expert for Pied Piper, he’s also an expert at making fun of his co-worker, Dinesh. Even though the two are constantly bickering, they work hand-in-hand to make Pied Piper a success.
Tell Us What You Think!
Which Pied Piper employee do you think deserves the biggest salary? We want to hear from you! Comment below or join the discussion on Twitter!
I totally agree with Brett. The salaries are extremely low for these job positions anywhere, but in Silicon Valley in California, they are ridiculously low. These numbers make me wonder if Payscale actually knows anything about high-tech salaries … anywhere across the US.
Love the creativeness, but no WAY. These are WAY too low.