Why Mountainhead's ‘tech bro' satire rings eerily true

The Age

13-06-2025

Four obscenely wealthy men, standing on a white mountain top, faces lit with snow glare. One uncaps a bright red lipstick and begins to perform what is clearly a long-standing ritual: writing their net worth on their bare chests.
The wealthiest, Venis, is actually the richest man in the world, 'the king of cash, the marquis of Moolah, the North Star of net worth'. He seems to be a hybrid of Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg (though, at $US220 billion – 340 billion Australian dollars – he's not quite as wealthy as them) and is crowned with golden laurels.
The second, Randall, played by Steve Carell, 'the Grand Old Duke of dough', with $US63 billion, is given a captain's hat. The third, Jeff, on $US59 billion, a sailor's hat. The fourth, Hugo (Jason Schwartzman), hangs a ladle around his neck to symbolise his nickname, 'Soups' for 'Soup Kitchen', as he is the poorest of the group.
And when I say poor, I mean 521 million US dollars. Struggletown. Misery, and certainly, as his character showed, deep insecurity.
Mountainhead is satire, but director Jesse Armstrong, the creator of the brilliant Succession, knows how to write rich people. As Venis walks through snow-laden trees with Carell, he grins and yells: 'It's so beautiful you could f*** it.'
These men, Armstrong says, are notable for 'supreme confidence in their analytical abilities' and 'arrogance'. I kept thinking throughout about how tech analyst and podcaster Kara Swisher says the term tech bro is short for 'technically broken'.
Amoral, self-concerned and making decisions about things they have no expertise in – how often we fall prey to the false idea that because someone makes a lot of money, they know about all other things, like how to run the world without destroying it.
'Do you believe in other people?' Venis asks Randall, who replies: 'I think one needs to.'