In this post, we discuss why we believe Ron LaFlamme, who’s a lawyer in Silicon Valley, is arguably the smartest and one of the best-written characters in the show. We believe that he puts on a facade of studied casualness in order to hide his formidable intelligence and an unusual ability to read the room.
One of the best and most easily missed scenes that reveals how good he is is the first scene, where he basically tells Richard his future: that Richard is going to get into a lot of trouble. He indirectly advises Richard that he mustn’t get stuck on technicalities, and then knowingly makes an error by saying “ying and yang” instead of “yin and yang.” Richard, habitually, points the error out, missing what Ron is actually saying, and gets stuck on technicalities. Ron tries to tell him the same thing again by interrupting him and playing the guitar while Richard is elaborating on the technicalities, but Richard misses it again. Richard’s habit of missing the forest for the trees provides a major theme in Silicon Valley:
Another interesting line was the one that describes the law and the job of lawyers. Richard thinks that Ron, a lawyer, is on his side, but actually, lawyers can only advise the client; they don’t suffer for their clients’ misdoings. So, they always defend the abstraction that represents their client’s team’s position, not actually the client’s team itself.
Richard has a rude awakening because he doesn’t understand the difference between being part of a team and being part of the side that a team is on:
There are many great scenes in the show, but these are some that we found quite outstanding and rich with deep philosophical meaning.