The new docu-drama series, Valley of the Boom, recounting America's boom-to-bust story of the technology-internet upstart area known as "Silicon Valley" is starting on Sunday 20 January at 20:00 on National Geographic (DStv 181 / StarSat 220 / Cell C black 262).
Created by Matthew Carnahan, Valley of the Boom tries to tell the story of the rise and fall and rise of Silicon Valley, blending documentary style interview with real-life subjects, together with scripted storylines, similar to National Geographic's MARS that just concluded it's second season.
Set during the 1990s in Silicon Valley, the 6-episode Valley of the Boom has Bradley Whitford, Steve Zahn and Lamorne Morris as part of the cast, with Matthew Carnahan as showrunner and Arianna Huffington as executive producer.
Valley of the Boom follows the turbulent ride of 3 different companies whose founders were trying to change the world using the new technology of the internet.
Before Google, Netscape pioneered the first commercial web browser and launched the so-called "browser wars" with Microsoft.
Before Facebook, theglobe.com was a rapidly expanding social networking site built by dreamers on a university campus. And before YouTube, a con artist on the run from the FBI reinvented himself in Silicon Valley to start a streaming video company called Pixelon, resulting in an entrepreneurial rise and fall almost too insane to be believed.
"Our society is internet-dependent but most of us are not familiar with many of the visionaries who brought the web into existence and battled for its soul," says Matthew Carnahan.
"In Valley of the Boom I focused on telling the humorous, messy and real stories of these inventors, investors and con men. The goal is that the way in which the story is told is as disruptive as these figures themselves."
