1. 24
TALK WHAT MATTERS NOW
PLAYBOY: You ma-
jored in computer
science in college,
and now you play
Dinesh, a talented
programmer, on
Silicon Valley. Art
imitating life?
NANJIANI: Not ex-
actly. After college,
everybody who
graduated with me
would have looked
down on my job. I
was basically glori-
fied tech support.
There was no real
computer science
to it. I would just
say, “Hey, did you
try restarting it?” I
asked that question
for five years.
PLAYBOY: How’s the
feedback from the
real Silicon ­Valley?
NANJIANI: Every-
one says they know
people like our
characters. If the
most tech-savvy
people didn’t like us,
they could destroy
us on the internet.
They tweet about
the show.
PLAYBOY: You
tweet a lot yourself.
Would it be difficult
for you to unplug?
NANJIANI: It
sounds like a hor-
rifying idea to me.
When I’m out of
the country, I’m
fairly disconnected,
but I don’t have
the willpower to
impose that on
myself. I feel like I
never have a quiet
moment when I just
look at a tree.
PLAYBOY: We
look at our phones
instead. Speaking of
phones, do you have
a favorite app?
NANJIANI: Shazam
is amazing. I can’t
believe that’s a real
thing. It’s crazy.
What does it know?
PLAYBOY: The little
robot in your phone
knows everything.
NANJIANI: It
knows when you’re
not looking at it
because it pauses
the video when
you look away. And
when you take a
photo with your
phone, the robot
knows where the
faces are. How does
it know where the
faces are? When the
robots come, that’s
the technology they
will use to kill us.
They’re going to
shoot us in the face.
The comedian and silicon valley star talks tech and
the impending robot apocalypse
• Unless you’ve been living under a pile of unreturned Netflix DVDs
for the past three years, chances are you’ve come across Kumail
­Nanjiani—perhaps as the scene-stealing waiter on Portlandia, the
voice of Prismo on Adventure Time or the co-host of Comedy Cen-
tral’s stand-up show The Meltdown. His latest undertaking, as a logi-
cal and lovable programmer on HBO’s satirical hit Silicon Valley, is to
date the greatest showcase for his deadpan delivery. “The real Silicon
Valley is a specific ecosystem where some of these entrepreneurs are
like gods and kings,” he says. “When one of them walks into a room,
it’s like he’s Michael Jackson. I’m like, I don’t know who this older
white guy is. I’ve never seen his face.”—Nora O’Donnell
Kumail nanjiani