1.) 1.) How is this film about Silicon Valley even though it is set in New York City? Does it matter that the film is about “Silicon alley” rather than “Silicon Valley?” How might the story be different if GovWorks had been actual Silicon Valley start-up?

2.) Pay attention to the moment when Tom and Kaleil go to California. How do they characterize the differences between the East and West coasts? What does this episode, and the film as a whole, tell you about the similarities and differences between New York and California (or East and West). Should Silicon Valley be understand as a uniquely “West Coast” phenomena? Defend your answer.

3.) Think about the relationship between Tom and Kaleil. In what ways are they a good team? In what ways is their relationship strained? Compare their collaborations at the center of GovWorks with those of others you have encountered (Hewlett and Packard, Shockley and Noyce, Terman and Stanford, Wozinak and Jobs, Gates and Allen and Ballmer). What lessons do you draw about the personal and collaborative nature of business?

4.) What external factors helped GovWorks? What external factors hurt GovWorks? Which was more important to the success and their eventual failure of the enterprise: the individual ingenuity and work of the founders or the outside forces outside their control? Defend your answer.

5.) What does GovWorks teach you about the boundary between the personal and the professional in modern, high tech capitalism. In thinking about your answer, consider the non-work lives of the founders, their relationships with other people, their family life, and other factors not related to the live of the company. Compare your answer with what you learned from the film Code Rush, and then consider the following thesis: Silicon Valley involves the collapse of the boundary between work-life and private life, and the total consumption of the latter by the former.

6.) Consider the success of GovWorks’s rival in Atlanta. Why did they succeed when GovWorks failed? What does this tell you about the real nature of Silicon Valley?

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