“August” (2008)
An Allegory of Silicon Valley’s Hubris
a Review by Edwin L. Young, PhD

August seems to be a film about the boom and bust of Silicon Valley.  It seems to be about the family relations with two brothers and their parents. 

One brother was representative of the quiet, brilliant, creative software developers without whom the meteoric rise of the many dot coms would not have occurred.  The other brother was representative of the exuberant entrepreneurial spirit that fed off the unglamorous computer scientists while generating an awe filled following. 

The other brother’s success was based upon an ability to charm, hustle, and manipulate both the worker bees and the greedy financiers who were the ultimate masters of fate of entrepreneurs. 

The hustler brother’s challenge was to pretend he was the master of both the workers bees upon whom he was dependent and the financiers upon whom he was dependent. 

Then there were the parents representing the somewhat indulgent, idealistic public and cool-headed critics and investment analysts. 

Among the teeming startups in the Silicon Valley, most would eventually fail, leaving the excessively egoistic go-getters flailing in the wind until they were finally seen as the most dispensable of the dot com revolution and sent packing.  The hustler brother was like the hundreds of ambitious promoters of these startups who eventually had to face such a harsh disintegration as their mettle failed, their egos deflated, and the “men were separated from the boys.”  The worker bees and the whiz kid software developers went quietly and modestly on their way eventually melding with ever-larger conglomerates.  Thousands of hopeful, dazzled, small investors lost their entire life savings over this debacle. 

This was a tragic modern version the ancient Greek dramatizations of hubris.  It is also a telling allegory of the Hubris of America’s free enterprise system.