How to Not Die in Silicon Valley

Lauren Goode: Zoë, you had vegan pizza the other night. You said it was pretty good.

Zoë Schiffer: I did. I did, and I read a really, really scary article written by Annie Lowrey in The Atlantic about dairy farming, and it radicalized me for at least 24 hours. I was on oat milk. Thank you. I don’t want a prize.

Lauren Goode: Mike, how long have you been vegan for now?

Michael Calore: I don’t know. 800 years.

Lauren Goode: Nice. Our resident long-living man on this show.

Michael Calore: I’ve been fully vegan for about five years, and I’ve been vegetarian ever since I was a teenager. But look, as a lifelong adherence to a plant-based lifestyle, I know it does not work for everybody. That was more of a joke. What I’m actually going to recommend for all of our listeners is my favorite television program about immortality. It’s called True Blood. It’s an HBO show about vampires in the South.

Zoë Schiffer: It’s a documentary about the original blood boys.

Michael Calore: It’s fantastic.

Lauren Goode: True story. True story. No, it’s scripted.

Michael Calore: It’s campy, which is the best thing about it because it takes itself seriously most of the time, and then it does not. It is full of sex and violence and humor. It’s a lot of fun. Fantastic acting from all of the principal actors, and there are like a dozen people on the show who are really, really great. I highly recommend you go back and you watch True Blood. It was originally on television, what, 15 years ago? Something like that. It feels like forever ago.

Lauren Goode: You know what I love the most about this recommendation is that it enables me to carry one of my favorite phrases from our last podcast, Gadget Lab, onto this one, which is, “Love a good Skarsgård.”

Michael Calore: “Love a good Skarsgård.”

Lauren Goode: Longtime listeners will appreciate.

Michael Calore: This is the tall and handsome Alexander Skarsgård.

Lauren Goode: As a vampire. As a sexy vampire.

Michael Calore: As a vampire named Eric. Yeah. That’s what I got.

Lauren Goode: Thanks for breaking the mold, Mike.

Michael Calore: You’re welcome. All right, that is our show for today. We will be back next week with an episode that looks at Silicon Valley’s long relationship with libertarianism. Thanks for listening to Uncanny Valley. If you liked what you heard today, make sure to follow our show and rate it on your podcast app of choice. If you’d like to get in touch with us with any questions, comments, or show suggestions you can write to us at uncannyvalley@WIRED.com. We cannot wait to hear from you. Today’s show is produced by Kyana Moghadam, Amar Lal at Macro Sound mixed this episode. Jordan Bell is our executive producer. Thanks also to executive producer, Stephanie Kariuki. Condé Nast’s head of global audio is Chris Bannon. We will be back next week forevermore.