Brilliant: King of satire Armando Iannucci is turning his attention to Silicon Valley

Now this could be great; Armando Iannucci, the man behind TV satires like The Thick of It, Veep and The Day Today, is turning his attention to Silicon Valley.

Iannucci has won vast praise from critics and viewers alike for his biting takes on topics like news media and politics in both the UK and US. Now in a preview of an upcoming interview with the Observer, The Guardian has revealed that Iannucci plans to move on to look at the relationship between VCs and Internet entrepreneurs. He’s says that he’s in discussions with HBO to produce a pilot episode, and has already written a script.

“I’m thinking about the power of the internet,” Iannucci reportedly says. “Microsoft, Google, Facebook; you have these twentysomethings who have a way into billions of households. Where’s the power gone? The power is gravitating towards these companies… I’m interested in that personal thing of what it does to you when you’re 25 and you’re a multibillionaire and everyone in the world knows who you are.”

He also says that social media hasn’t received the scrutiny it deserves. While those of us with our heads stuck firmly in the tech blogosphere would disagree with that argument, there’s little doubt that the cutting, relentlessly funny approach that Iannucci takes in series like Veep and The Thick of It could make this a must-watch.

You can read the rest of The Guardian’s preview of the interview here. The full interview with the Guardian’s Sunday newspaper brand, The Observer, will most likely be online within a couple of hours.

For now, here’s some vintage Iannucci – the 1994 BBC TV series he produced, The Day Today, which poked fun at TV news shows by taking them to a ridiculous extreme. Sadly, today’s news producers seem to have treated it as an instruction manual, and it feels more like a documentary these days.

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons