The Audacity: This clever takedown of a tech bro from the author of Succession is full of glorious one-liners

Jonathan Glatzer's black-and-white satire on Silicon Valley showcases tech CEO greed and billionaire egos—with the measured, engaging pace of Better Call Saul. Many of us yearn for the return of the analog world, but it never will. You can't buy potato waffles without a QR code. I had to set up an IRL bank appointment for my mom to check her balance and it took, I don't know, 100 days? One of my friends

Each of us yearns for the return of the analog world, but it never will. You can't buy potato waffles without a QR code. I had to set up an IRL bank appointment for my mom to check her balance and it took, I don't know, 100 days? A friend of mine has been banned from WhatsApp but I can't tell you how it's going because we haven't spoken in a year.

Watching The Audacity (out Thursday, HBO Max) this week, I was struck by how much of our dystopia can be traced back to so few men in Silicon Valley. Their products and platforms, which represent their shortcomings as much as their skills, have seismically changed our world more than any political party. Their brokering power has turned a small collection of towns and villages south of San Francisco into a modern-day Camelot.

The Audacity is interested in the deviant psychology of pioneers. Our hero is Duncan Park (Billy Magnussen), the founder of the data analysis company Hypergnosis (EG). They're on the verge of being bought by Cupertino, a corporate big dog code-named Apple, until a greedy Dank leaks the news to raise the price. When the deal falls through, he is desperate to regain his reputation as a power player and is so morally bankrupt that he will break any law to do so. His plan involves blackmailing his therapist, for reasons I won't spoil. His hobbies include using a privacy-hacking algorithm developed for him by an exploited employee to spy on his wife's boyfriend — a result of his free marriage, Duncan suggested. The title of this show is on the money.

In a valley, everyone is in the shade. Therapist JoAnne Felder spends her days massaging the puffy egos of her billionaire clients, but she has her own game. There are competing startup CEOs all vying for the top spot on the podium of boredom. From orthorexic diets to ayahuasca ceremonies, show spending and pool parties, the silly trappings of unattached wealth are satirised. Expensive apps are a bit like barbecue, mind you: by skewering these things, we enjoy them too.

So far, so succession. But there are more strange and sad subjects. An eccentric inventor who creates a digital "friend" for alien teenagers. A misfit teenager who begins living in a hole in the wall, his surveillance of others is a frightening mirror of the adult world that has left him. Reclusive CEO Carl Bardolph played by Zach Galifianakis. Retired in generational wealth, he shuns the limelight. Bardolph has a "law" named after him, a moral of infinite profit that he once wrote on a napkin while on a spree. "It was based on the logic of the cancer cell," he explains to Dr. Felder.

Audacity excels in one line. When Duncan's daughter expresses concern about her "admissions counselor" gaming the system to guarantee her a place at a top university, Duncan reassures her with a quote from Trump. "Cheats never lose. And losers never cheat." When the Veterans Association comes to Silicon Valley, looking for a partnership, a CEO fires them with gusto. The Cupertino's donation to charity "is like France helping your mother set up a printer. Only we have much, much more money than France."

Humor is a staple of The Audacity, but the show is interested in longevity. Creator Jonathan Glatzer has written about Succession and Better Call Saul. Like the latter, it's a bit of dramatic content that works slowly and builds intrigue into a complex plot. I can't say yet if it will drop all the pieces. However, I enjoy Magnussen's wild-eyed performance. In real life, the actor is freakishly handsome. Here, her beautiful curls are piled high on top of her head (probably inspired by the way Zuckerberg wears his hair?). This effect makes him look like a young Jerry Stiller or a fried doughnut.

An irony occurs to me - if these bros create apocalyptic technology, burn up the planet and wipe out most of humanity, those who survive will actually have a similar lifestyle. Sucking runoff from a storm drain by an abandoned mall. Something to look forward to. I might even have my mother's bank appointment by then!