On Thursday evening, in a top-floor atrium in downtown San Francisco, techies from Google, Slack, X and Mozilla mingled next to two cardboard cutouts of Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya.
Dustin Moskovitz, founder of Facebook, chatted while others sipped on cocktails with clever names like the Fremen Mirage (gin, coconut campari, sweet vermouth) and the Arrakis Palms (vanilla pear puree, gin, tonic Fever-Tree). Tim O'Reilly, a tech industry veteran, stopped by. Alex Stamos, Facebook's former head of security, was also spotted.
“Do you think they'll let me take home one of the weird sandworm popcorn buckets'” someone in the crowd sneered. The suggestively designed buckets had become a social media sensation.
The techies were all there to celebrate Silicon Valley’s new obsession: “Dune: part 2,», the latest film adapted from the science fiction saga written by Frank Herbert, which helped inspire many to become interested in technology. The film, which follows 2021’s “Dune,” sold out approximately $81.5 million in tickets in the United States and Canada this weekend, the biggest premiere for a Hollywood film since “Barbie.”
The invitation-only private screening at the IMAX theater in downtown San Francisco was hosted by two former tech executives turned podcasters from “Emergency hatch», a weekly show focused on science fiction and fantasy films. And it wasn't the only game in town.
Across Silicon Valley – from venture capitalists to tech executive circles – people had booked their own private screenings of the film, directed by Denis Villeneuve. On Thursday, the venture capital firm 50 years invited founders, friends and investors to “come fuel your imagination with stellar science fiction” at a theater revival.
Founders Fund, a venture capital firm co-created by Peter Thiel, rented the Alamo Drafthouse theater in San Francisco's Mission District for the film's opening night Friday, complete with an open bar and free food. Some people came from across the country to attend.
“If you're a venture capital firm and you don't hold a private screening of Dune II, are you even a venture capital firm? » Ashlee Vance, a longtime technology journalist, wrote in a post on last month.
Even as tech companies have cut jobs and benefits in recent months, the tradition of the sci-fi movie premiere remains alive and well. Movies like “Star Wars” “Dune” And “Ready Player One» are exactly the elements that helped spark technicians' interest in the IT field. No longer content to watch the future unfold on screen, employees at companies like Meta, Google, and Palantir began drawing inspiration directly from their favorite films to create the products of tomorrow.
In the early days of Google, the company regularly bought out entire theaters to see the latest superhero movie. When “Blade Runner 2049” debuted in 2017, the specialist technology investment bank Code Advisors rented out the Alamo Drafthouse for a private screening and had a Q&A with the film's antagonist, Jared Leto. Venture capitalists have repeated the practice for other futuristic films and series, including “The Martian” “Arrival“and that of HBO”Western world.”
But “Dune” and “Dune: Part Two” hold a special place in the hearts and minds of Silicon Valley because of the scale of the series. It doesn’t hurt that “Dune” is born in San Franciscowhere Mr. Herbert lived in the late 1950s while researching what would become the science fiction novel series.
“It’s one of the original world-building exercises in genre fiction, and our goal is to build the world here,” said Jason Goldman, a former Twitter executive who joined tech-savvy friend Matt Herrero , to create “Escape Hatch”. » Podcast during pandemic lockdowns.
“Dune: Part Two” viewing events also acted as a kind of safe space for techies to step away, however briefly, from the tech culture wars raging online and offline.
“Twenty years ago, most people getting into tech were idealists with utopian dreams,” tech veteran Tom Coates said at the “Escape Hatch” cocktail party. “This is clearly no longer true: now, for many, it is much more just a job, which has attracted a certain type of 'tech bro'. But I think it's interesting that we're not all here tonight to look at Ayn Rand's filmography.
Mr. Goldman said part of Silicon Valley's enchantment with “Dune” might be due to characters like Timothée Chalamet's Paul Atreides, a messianic figure who leads an oppressed tribal group to rise up and defeat their evil overlords.
“What people want, what they're always trying to recreate, is that charismatic leader with the ability to see the future,” Mr. Goldman said. “The hero worship of Steve Jobs lives up to the fanatical praise of Paul Atreides.”
What wasn't clear was how many of Silicon Valley's tech elite had absorbed the intricacies of the source material. Mr. Herbert was deeply skeptical of man's technological progress, a perspective that framed his series.
“All of this is based on a world in which artificial intelligence has been completely wiped out,” said Cal Henderson, co-founder and CTO of Slack, who was at Thursday's party.
(That morning, Elon Musk had for follow-up OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, claimed the company put commercial interests ahead of the future of humanity. “Meta doesn’t even begin to describe it,” said another person at the party.)
Still, the participants were determined to have fun. One of them presented Mr. Herrero and Mr. Goldman with a custom-printed glossy “Dune: Part Two” poster, with the animators' faces photoshopped onto those of the film's celebrities. The tables were filled with platters of Nebula Nebulae parfaits (spiced chocolate and vanilla mousse) and platters of Atreides delights (rice noodles, harissa, sesame oil).
After the film, which lasted two hours and 46 minutes, finished, the group headed to a VIP room to record a live edition of the podcast about what they had just seen. Discussions continued after midnight.
Shortly afterward, Mr. Goldman purchased tickets for a Monday matinee of “Dune: Part Two.”
“I can’t wait to see him again,” he said.