Choosing the right tech props for HBO's "Silicon Valley" was key to giving the show an authentic feel.

Business Insider spoke with production designer Richard Toyon about how they made important decisions about which characters used which gadgets.

After scoping out various tech company headquarters, Toyon says, "When I went to Facebook, the overwhelming weapon of choice was the MacBook Air. They were also everywhere at TechCrunch, probably 90% of the machinery we saw there was all Apple."

Still, says Toyon, "The PC and the Android platforms are very present and many companies create for both of them, so we made sure we had a good balance."

As for which characters worked on which computers, Toyon tells us, "We tried to ascribe accordingly of what their jobs were — so when you look at the Hacker House [where Richard, the main character, lives] certain people had Macs, certain people had PCs, and it was based on what their jobs were and what their requirements were for hardware. We did some research in terms of what they would use for particular jobs so we tried to make that as correct as possible."

For example, the character "Gilfoyle" — a coder and security expert who protects the potentially revolutionary app at the center of the show — "is a much more hands-on, hardware architecture guy, so his stuff was all created by hand," explains Toyon.

"In other words, his central processing unit (CPU) he put together himself," Toyon continues. "He also had this other CPU that is for coders. They have a really special operating system that is very modular, very coveted, and so Gilfoyle has one of those whereas the other guys have more off-the-shelf kind of stuff."

As far as cell phones, "we used a variety of platforms," says Toyon. "But there was a large Apple presence, we found that to be true by our own investigations, and Apple was very favorable to us in sending us equipment that we could use on set."

With all of the Apple products used in the show, the company is quietly happy with the endorsement.

"I haven’t seen any formal response," says Toyon. "But our prop master and our set decorator, who are the ones who deal with Apple, got a very positive response sent to them that said they’re on board for next season, so that was good!"

"Apple is not very verbose," says Toyon, "so we will accept that email as success."

SEE ALSO: ‘Silicon Valley’ Had To Make An Insane Number Of Burger King Runs To Shoot This Brilliant Scene

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Google has made yet another big land grab.

According to the Silicon Valley Business Journal, the search giant has leased the two-building, 285,000-square-foot complex that used to serve as the headquarters of Palm Computing, the now defunct manufacturers of the PalmPilot. 

It's an interesting example of a common theme in Silicon Valley, as a rapidly growing company taking over the offices of a once-powerful firm. Palm controlled 80% of the market share for handheld computers in September 1999, but it was bought by HP in 2010 and shut down in 2011. 

The space is in Sunnyvale, California, a couple of miles away from Google's headquarters in Mountain View. Google also leases 949,000 square feet in the city's Technology Corners complex, bringing the company's total to more than 1 million square feet in Sunnyvale alone. 

Google has been on a tear lately — it's expected to close soon on a 400,000-square-foot office park in Mountain View, in addition to the 8-acre blimp hangar still in negotiation at Moffett Federal Airfield. 

Tech analyst Rob Enderle explained Google's real estate frenzy to the Silicon Valley Business Journal: "They're in everything from longevity research to self-driving cars. They've got wearables growing. Their drone business could take off. Robotics could be bigger than PCs and smartphones combined and squared. A lot of these things they're going into are high growth, and if they take off, Google is expanding ahead of that."

SEE ALSO: Richard Branson Might Open A Virgin Hotel In Silicon Valley

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Marc Andreessen says that Silicon Valley's meetings with the Obama administration regarding internet privacy and surveillance have been "mostly for show and have produced not even a little progress," he said in an interview with The Washington Post.

Key representatives from brand name companies like Google and Netflix met with White House staff in December and March in an effort to unwrap the delicate issue of the NSA's domestic spying program as revealed by Edward Snowden.

While the White House cited the meetings as productive, Andreessen remains skeptical.

"The level of trust in U.S. companies has been seriously damaged, especially but not exclusively outside the U.S. Every time a new shoe drops — and there are 10,000 of them — it serves a blow to the U.S.," he said.

Other than trust, there's also a heavy financial cost at play as well. The New York Times has previously reported that all the NSA hubbub has cost certain companies loads of money — IBM, for example, has spent "more than a billion dollars to build data centers overseas to reassure foreign customers that their information is safe from prying eyes in the United States government."

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But alas, Toyon says, "at the last minute, we couldn’t get the air car, so we ended up getting the car we did use and it was still really funny anyway."

The car was used in a scene in which the Peter Gregory character gets into his vehicle after being pitched by start-up founders following his Ted Talk.

Production ended up putting the billionaire venture capitalist character into a rare T600 All Electric Tango car, intended as a commuter vehicle to increase freeway lane capacity.  The small but mighty speedster can do 0-60 in 3.2 seconds all under electric power.

"The very narrow design can split lanes and fit in narrower spaces than some motorcycles," according to one YouTube video about the car. "Seats are set up like an F-14 fighter jet in a tandem arrangement. This is one tiny Tesla competitor."

“It was such a funny sight gag,” Toyon previously told Silicon Valley Business Journal. “We were so glad to get it. There were only two in the nation, and one owned by George Clooney. We were unable to wrestle the one from George Clooney. But we were able to get one from Seattle.”

While Vulture called the car "the best sight gag in the episode," Toyon explains that "even with that car there was another gag that was intended: the valet was going to open the door and reveal that it was only one seat wide but we never did that — it was funny enough because when he got into the car it spoke a lot about him when you saw him on the edge."

Toyon tells us "there were a few other gags and things that were requested" throughout the show's first season, "but generally speaking from a production design standpoint, you try not to be too gaggy because you want the comedy to come from the dialogue."

But the Tango car is actually part of a very insider joke, dating back to a 1986 April Fool's prank in which employees at Sun Microsystems in Mountain View replaced boss Eric Schmidt's office furniture with a Volkswagen Beetle. In 2008, Google employees tried the prank again — this time putting a Tango car in the chairman's office.

Schmidt explains the epic prank below:

SEE ALSO: Here's How 'Silicon Valley' Chose Which Tech Gadgets To Use On The Show

MORE: ‘Silicon Valley’ Had To Make An Insane Number Of Burger King Runs To Shoot This Brilliant Scene

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Production designer Richard Toyon is responsible for making HBO's freshman comedy "Silicon Valley" look truly authentic to the tech world.

It's no easy task, so Toyon tells us he did plenty of research ahead of the show's April release.

"Mike Judge [show creator] and myself visited Google, Facebook, and a few of the companies in between," he tells Business Insider of creating a Google-like headquarters on the show. "I personally went to Zynga, I went to Dell, I’ve been to Microsoft before, and what’s interesting about these companies is that they have campuses in a very collegiate-like way where the spaces in between the buildings are for pedestrian use."

Toyon says that "in the case of Facebook and Google, the intended consequence is that you run into people that you know to encourage discussion and participation between people"— which was a problem for a show shooting in the Los Angeles-area.

Toyon explains, "If you look in Southern California, all of the office parks have parking in between, so none of them worked. We searched and searched and the only thing that I felt was ever going to come close to what you find in Silicon Valley are real college campuses, and so that’s what we ended up doing, shooting on a real college campus."

California State University, Los Angeles, located five miles east of Downtown Los Angeles, was where Toyon chose to shoot many outdoor scenes for "Silicon Valley." [A few other exterior shots were also filmed at California State University, Dominguez Hill.]

"They have a new quad area, and a couple of new student buildings that are very fresh and very current looking, so they worked well for what we were requiring," explains Toyon of his choice.

But that doesn't mean production didn't have to change a few things first in order to make the college campus look like the show's Google-esque company, Hooli.

"With a lot of signage changes and other elements we brought to it, we made it feel like what Hooli was supposed to feel like," says Toyon. "I think it worked. It was sort of an homage to Google."

Here's how the final transformation looked:

When production had to shoot interior scenes at Hooli, they used the office of Chiat Day advertising agency.

Here's an image of the interior of the agency's office from their website:

Here's what the interior of Hooli ended up looking like in the show:

And here's an actual Google office on which the set is based:

It was eventually "the combination" of the Chiat ad agency and Cal State LA that "created Hooli," says Toyon.

The only problem the show ran into when visiting big tech companies for research or filming on college campuses? Show creator Mike Judge's celebrity.

Judge, who used to live in Silicon Valley while working as an engineer at a tech startup in the '80s, is also the mastermind behind "Beavis and Butt-head,""King of the Hill," and "Office Space,"among others.

Toyon recalls, "When we went with Mike Judge, he has a certain amount of celebrity within the tech community, so word would get out that Mike was there and by the time we ended our tour there were a number of people doing the Beavis laugh and had stuff from 'Beavis and Butt-head' that they wanted autographed."

SEE ALSO: How HBO Chose The Perfect Ridiculous Car For ‘Silicon Valley’

MORE: ‘Silicon Valley’ Had To Make An Insane Number Of Burger King Runs To Shoot This Brilliant Scene

MORE: Here's How 'Silicon Valley' Chose Which Tech Gadgets To Use On The Show

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Apple's App Store is filled with more than one million iPhone and iPad apps.  

Chances are, even those who can't put down their phone for more than five minutes haven't sifted through a fraction of what the App Store has to offer. 

So what is it that makes an app popular? What makes one app better than another that provides a very similar service?

Those are million-dollar questions for developers, many of which have scratched their heads over finding out the secrets to getting their apps discovered.

Ashish Toshniwal, the 31-year-old CEO of San Fransisco-based Y Media Labs, has been very fortunate on this front.

In the five years that his app strategy firm has been in business, apps that the company has worked on have been featured more than 700 times in Apple's top featured slots in the App Store. 

Toshniwal sat down with Business Insider to discuss what makes an app successful and some of the most common mistakes to avoid when trying make an app flourish. 

Business Insider: Sometimesa great idea doesn’t always turn into a profitable app. What’s the best way to increase your chances of actually making money from creating an app?

Ashish Toshniwal: It’s hard at this point to just create an app and make it very profitable. One way is to take a social angle. If you come up with an idea and then you create an app around it, either you get millions of users or you fail.

Either you get millions of users or you fail.

And when you get millions of users, those users convert into some kind of really attractive network, which is really valuable at the end of the day.

For instance, look at Vine or Instagram. They’re not selling anything, but they’re really valuable. They have created a lot of traction and that’s why they’re so valuable even though they’re not selling anything.

But it’s really hard to come up with an app to sell something and then make money. Games is the only category where you can successfully create an app and sell something.

Another avenue which I’ve seen is giving out the app for free so users can experience it. And if they like it, they can upgrade to a premium version.

BI: At Y Media Labs, you work with a lot of high profile clients such as Sesame Street, PayPal, and Shutterstock. What are a lot of these companies doing wrong when it comes to creating mobile apps?

AT: At this point, the strategy in most of these cases should be mobile first, desktop second. And a lot of these traditional companies, since they’ve been doing so well online on the desktop, they feel like it should be desktop first, mobile second.

Even if they want mobile to be a big deal, they don’t have the right talent or mindset internally. And that’s where we come in.

Everyone is convinced that mobile is the way to go, but the question is how quickly you can make that transition and how fast you can ramp up. They contact us to make sure they’re up to speed. They can’t just create mobile products internally.

BI: How much does app engagement matter in terms of being successful? If I download your app but it sits on my phone and I never use it, is that even beneficial to you in any way?

AT: At Y Media, we highly advocate engagement over downloads. A download is a function of advertising. You spend more money, you get more downloads. But engagement is not a function of advertising.

Engagement is a function of a good product. If a product is good, people will come back and use it. If it is not, no matter how much money you spend, people won’t come back.

No matter how much money you spend, people won’t come back.

I think overall engagement trumps downloads.

BI: Is it better to launch an app on iOS or Android? Does it matter?

AT: The challenge is that if you develop on both Android and iOS, the cost is going to be more.

So you have to pick and choose one. And the answer is clearly not very straightforward. One of the things you have to ask is whether it’s going to be in the US only or international.

If you’re trying to come up with an innovative idea, I’ve seen iOS to be the leading platform. You can do a lot of cool stuff. Even though you can do a lot of cool stuff with Android, people are more open to seeing cool stuff on iOS compared to Android.

Once you know that you’ve gotten traction, you should immediately launch on Android as well.

At this point I don’t think you can do with just one platform. You have to be on both. You go on one platform, you learn quickly, and then you launch on both.

BI: Why do you say that people are more open to “cool things” on iOS as opposed to Android?

AT: I think the number one reason is iOS is just branded that way. Even though Android has caught up to a large extent. [With iOS]  you could create really cool apps right off the bat, which was not the case then with Android.

Android has progressed significantly. It’s just a lot of history behind iOS at this point. Even from a development standpoint, with iOS you can probably do a few more things in terms of transition, animation, etc.

I feel like overall, Android provides more features. But iOS, whatever they provide, they provide really well.

With Android, because of fragmentation, if you don’t have a high end phone than some of the features may not work really well, and so on. So , in terms of differences, I feel like Android may have more features, but iOS has more engagement.

BI: Have you seen any evidence of iOS apps being more profitable than Android apps?

AT: Yes. iOS users are used to paying more.

We have worked with Lonely Planet in the past, which is in the business of selling travel guides. We clearly saw much more sales on iOS, and each of their apps are selling for $9.99 or something like that.

The main reason is that Android has all kinds of users. Android has a lot of like low-resolution phones as well. But iOS doesn't have anything like that. They come up with new versions of the same phone. The quality is just really consistent on iOS, and they don’t have any cheap phones. Inherently they’re trying to capture a market that’s much less price conscious.

With Android, they have so many options that anyone with a cheap budget can have an Android phone.

BI: A lot of the apps Y Media Labs has worked on have been featured in Apple’s App Store. So other than nailing the right design, what makes an app so successful?

AT: The number one secret is to focus on one or two main use cases. Let’s not overwhelm the user, but really focus on one or two use cases and do them really, really well. In this particular app [enterprise data storage app EMC], it’s about how you access your files on the go. That’s the number one use case, and you’ll see that we spent a lot of time here making sure the user can search and find the file they’re looking for and access them very easily.

So that’s the number one thing we ask our clients, to make sure they’ve got one or two use cases and not a laundry list of all these features.

For instance, I’ll show you in this PayPal app. If you tap on the close by restaurant option, you can do this [swipe] gesture and actually pay. Why this is important is because payment is such a physical thing. It’s a traditional thing that you want to feel like you’re paying by swiping. So all of these things are important.

The number one thing is if you’re coming up with a new idea or you’re launching a very fresh concept,  in literally the first five to 10 seconds it should be very obvious to the user why they are they downloading the app.

If they’re not, than you’re doing something wrong.

SEE ALSO: Meet The Therapist Who Turns Startup Co-Founders Into Silicon Valley Millionaires

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Silicon Valley real estate is outrageously expensive, but perhaps nowhere is this more true than in the quiet town of Atherton, California. 

The town of 7,000 was recently named the most expensive zip code in the country. 

Tech billionaires Paul Allen, Eric Schmidt, and Meg Whitman all currently own homes here. Sheryl Sandberg also lived in Atherton before she moved into her new waterfall-equipped home in nearby Menlo Park last year. 

According to Curbed SF, the median listing price in Atherton is a whopping $9.44 million. While the median sales price for San Francisco is $950,000, in Atherton, it rises to $4.59 million.

Our friends at Point2Homes helped us find the most expensive homes for sale in Atherton right now.

This five-bedroom home has an interesting 'Cape Town' colonial style.

Address: 91 Fleur Place

Price: $9.4 million

Custom doors that retract into the wall make for a unique indoor-outdoor living experience. The lower level also has a media room and wine cellar.

This beautiful home was just completed last year.

Address: 1 Callado Way

Price: $9.48 million

The 8,063 square feet of living space include six bedrooms and seven bathrooms. There's also an incredibly large pool out back.

This three-story home comes with an elevator.

Address: 291 Polhemus Avenue

Price: $9.8 million

There are seven bedrooms and eight bathrooms in addition to extra accommodations in the guesthouse. 

There is a gender gap in tech. But which investors are doing their part to help change the ratio and fund more female founders?

Business Insider researched active portfolios for 26 early-to-mid-stage venture capital funds in Silicon Valley that have made at least a dozen investments. We then found the number of startups in the portfolios that had at least one female founder and calculated the percent of the total portfolio that included female-founded companies, based on publicly available information, such as Crunchbase and the firms' websites. We then reached out to the firms to confirm numbers. Angel investors, incubators, and accelerators were not included.

Here are the results. For more details on the percentage break downs, and to see which female founders are represented, read on >>

*Forerunner Ventures has since been added to this data. It has more women in its active portfolio than Felicis with 33.3%.

Female-founded startups in Founder's Fund's active portfolio: 4%

Firm partners: Peter Thiel, Ken Howery, Luke Nosek, Brian Singerman, Lauren Gross, Geoff Lewis, Scott Nolan

Total active startups in portfolio: ~ 100

Total investments in active, female-founded startups: 4

Female founders in portfolio: Kegan Schouwenburg (Sols), Ramona Pierson (Declara), Elli Kaplan (Neurotrack), Leah Busque (TaskRabbit)

Percent of female-founded startups in active portfolio: 4%

Female-founded startups in Redpoint Ventures' active portfolio: 6.4%

Firm partners: Allen Beasley, Jeff Brody, Satish Dharmaraj, Tom Dyal, Tim Haley, Brad Jones, Pueo Keffer, Chris Moore, Lars Pedersen, Scott Raney, Ryan Sarver, Tomasz Tunguz, John Walecka, Geoff Yang, David Yuan

Total active startups in portfolio: 78

Total investments in active, female-founded startups: 5

Female founders in portfolio: Adora Cheung (Homejoy), Linda Avey (Curious.com), Caterina Fake (Findery), Holly Liu (Kabam), Lisa Riolo (Impact Radius)

Percent of female-founded startups in active portfolio: 6.4%

Female-founded startups in New Enterprise Associates' active portfolio: 7.16%

Menlo Park team: Forest Baskett, Krishna ‘Kittu’ Kolluri, Scott Sandell, Peter Sonsini, Ravi Viswanathan, Rohini Chakravarthy, Carmen Chang, Patrick Chung, Robert Garland, Paul Hsiao, Mohamad Makhzoumi, Jake Nunn, Jon Sakoda, Paul Walker, Chetan Puttagunta, Frank Torti, Rick Yang, Josh Makower, Brooke Seawell, Aaron Jacobson, Christine Guo, Sheel Tyle

Total active startups in portfolio: 265

Total investments in active, female-founded startups: 19

Female founders in portfolio: Anne Wojcicki and Linda Avey (23andMe), Alison Di Spaltro (42Floors), Dr. Marcie Black (Bandgap Engineering), Michelle Zatlyn (CloudFlare), Daphne Koller (Coursera),Jessica Greenwalt (CrowdMed), Vicki Cheung (Duolingo), Crystal Hutter (Edmodo), Alexis Maybank and Alexandra Wilkis Wilson (Gilt Groupe), Trae Vassallo (Good Technology), Clara Shih (Hearsay Social), Adi Tatarko (Houzz), Alexis Ringwald (Learnup), Lauren Santo Domingo (Moda Operandi), Elizabeth Stoner (Rhythm Pharmaceuticals), Halle Tecco (Rock Health), Heidi Zak (Thirdlove), Himani Amoli (Wedding Party), Leah Jones (Zumper)

Percent of female-founded startups in active portfolio: 7.16%

Well, my timing’s impeccable. A mere two weeks ago, I was awarded verified status on Rap Genius, and now the whole company’s in chaos because co-founder Mahbod Moghadam uploaded the Santa Barbara virgin killer’s manifesto and annotated it with tasteless comments.

Moghadam was thrown under the bus by his colleagues and told to resign, both as an employee and from the board of directors. 

What did he say that was so awful? Well, Moghadam theorized that Elliot Rodger’s sister was “smokin hot” and complimented the killer on his prose style. His interjections were vapid, and, as we say on the web, “too soon.” But am I the only person left wondering how leaving childish comments online can disqualify a person from running, erm, Rap Genius?

It’s easy to be judgmental without appreciating the unique psychology of the site, which elevates the edgy, inappropriate and socially dissonant to high art. “Getting carried away” is the raison d’être of Rap Genius. To ascribe to the company any grandiose higher calling, or to hold its co-founders to the standards of statesmen, is just absurd. Companies like Rap Genius simply don’t function without high-profile, mischievous figureheads.

In other words, it’s one thing to kick out an executive because he can no longer perform the functions of his post. But booting him out for the crime of embodying the company’s value system seems… well, self-defeating, at the very least. Libel cases rest on the claimant having a good name to lose. In this case, I am left asking: whose reputation was really at risk?

What the prissy press corps and Rap Genius’s skittish investors don’t realize is how ridiculous they sound when they feign surprise at the antics of frat boys like Moghadam. And here’s another recent example of a storm in a teacup: Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel, who was raked over the coals this week for emails dating to his time at Stanford in which he—shock, horror—expressed a fondness for boobs and booze.

I got in touch with Moghadam, whom I like, after all this happened. The most the poor guy could muster was an emoticon in response: “<3.” It was a fittingly terse epithet from a man whose life represented the beating heart of Rap Genius, torn out in a petty act of vandalism, after the sort of mistake any of us could have made. 

A new censoriousness in the media is delivering a Kafkaesque world in which you can get fired for posting stupid comments on Rap Genius and in which the CEO of a startup dedicated to ephemeral tit pics gets bad press for having been boisterous at college. Criticize Rap Genius or Snapchat for what they are, if you like. But these disingenuous attacks on founders whose only crime is that they “live the brand” are petty and pointless. 

So, R.I.P. Rap Genius, a website on which spoilt, attention-seeking people appended comic remarks to other spoilt, attention-seeking people’s songs about sex, drugs and violence—but whose board couldn’t cope with the revelation that one of its co-founders had a tendency toward tomfoolery.

IN BRIEF

Are there no depths to which “Big Tobacco” will not sink? Its latest wheeze appears designed to make e-cigarettes as uncool as Google Glass. At least, that’s the only explanation I can come up with for a rash of articles claiming that the “vaping community” (pass the sick bag) refers to ordinary ciggies as “analogs.” It’s the sort of cringeworthy hipster jargon guaranteed to ensure their nicotine-dispensing sonic screwdrivers are associated in the public mind with waxed moustaches and penny farthings. Surely the Marlboro Man is responsible for this cruel slander?

***

While we’re on the subject, some terrible e-cig news: inner-city vapers are apparently going “off label,” turning up the heat settings on their portable girl repellants. Higher temperatures can release as many carcinogens into the lungs as a conventional cig. As a regular smoker, I had hoped to shuffle offstage in my mid-50s from a peaceful oasis in Florida. But it seems I’ll be sharing the hospice with odious hipsters who modded their coffin nails. Still, it’s gratifying to know their finger-wagging about “healthy smoking” was a load of old tosh. 

***

When not otherwise engaged hanging gays from cranes or stoning women for running away from abusive husbands, Iran takes a keen interest in the browsing habits of its citizens. This week, an Iranian court summoned Mark Zuckerberg to answer charges that Instagram and Whatsapp, both owned by Facebook, are “infringing privacy.” A bit rich, if you ask me—especially considering the Islamic Republic’s fondness for spying on its own subjects and its apparent tolerance for home-grown hackers. Given Iran’s penchant for Western hostages, it seems unlikely Zuckerberg will be seen in Tehran any time soon.

*** 

My thanks to the folks at HBO, who have sent me the most brilliant TV stash I’ve ever received: a mock merchandise kit from Silicon Valley’s fictional startup, Pied Piper. The box includes a Robin Hood-style feathered cap, a t-shirt and a wooden flute. I’ve not managed much more than a trill on my instrument so far, but I’ll keep you posted.

***

Gwyneth Paltrow, whiny and self-pitying? Hard to believe, I know. But the star took to a technology conference stage this week to moan about people being mean online. Full marks for using the word “pulchritude” in a sentence, Ms. Paltrow. But you only have to look at your own website, the excruciatingly-named Goop, to work out why some mean-spirited characters are pointing and laughing. Goop is what happens when you give over-zealous vegan yogis a budget and a WordPress login. What a joy it would be if Paltrow decided to “consciously uncouple” her website from the internet. 

***

After your humble correspondent, Glenn Greenwald is probably the most famous bottom in blogging. But that’s where the similarities end. I’m appalled by Greenwald’s promise to publish the name of every U.S. citizen spied on by the NSA. If he makes good on the threat, he risks sparking the digital era equivalent of a paedophile witch-hunt, in which every American with an “Islamic-sounding” name, guilty or otherwise, will be doxed and, most likely, harassed. Isn’t that the precise opposite of what Edward Snowden intended when he leaked details of the Government’s intrusion into our private lives? I mean, I enjoy a Brazilian as much as the next girl, but there’s a degree of nakedness that should probably be kept under wraps.

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When it comes to techie style, comfort is key. 

According to Chris Lindland, CEO of San Francisco-based online retailer Betabrand, the modern worker needs clothing that fits an active lifestyle.

"When folks dressed like Don Draper, your clothing only needed to perform well in the boardroom and the bar. Today's worker is far more active," Lindland said to Business Insider. "Business travelers consider our dress pant sweatpants and yoga pants a Godsend. They allow you to dress up while dressing down."

Click here to check out the latest techie fashion >

Betabrand first captured the Internet's attention with Cordarounds, horizontal corduroys that are "67% less likely to cause friction fires in your groin," according to its product description.

Betabrand then released the Executive Hoodie in 2012, just in time for the Facebook IPO. The pinstripe hoodie is a blend of business and casual that's quite obviously aimed toward nerdy Mark Zuckerberg types. Now Betabrand designs, manufactures, and releases five new products a week.

The brand's crowdfunding service, Thinktank, has also led to more than 75 new products since launching in September. Outside designers can submit sketches to the site, and if they get enough votes, Betabrand will create a prototype. The company then puts successful prototypes into production and awards the designers a 10% commission on each unit sold.

"Crowd-funding simply allows us to better understand what customers really want. It allows us to be far more experimental, and work with all kinds of designers," Lindland said. "Men continue to crowd-fund anything that injects performance fabrics into workwear. Casual workwear / active workwear is a category our customers can't get enough of."

The site is very tongue-in-cheek, and its goal is to appeal to an Internet-centric audience. 

"Our aim is to create fashion forwardable products.  The designs, photos, & product descriptions must be interesting enough to forward on to friends," Lindland said. "We're trying to brighten people's inboxes with something funny every couple days ... Humor's proven very necessary to get people to escape work for a moment and click over to our site."

Lindland shared some of the most popular products you can buy on Betabrand right now. 

The dress pant yoga pant has been Betabrand's most popular product by far. Like most yoga pants, they're made out of a stretchy rayon material, yet the boot cut makes them look professional enough to wear to the office. Betabrand has sold more than 6,000 pairs of the pants since January.

(Price: $88)

The dress pant yoga pants inspired nearly a dozen spin-off designs, including the Work-It Blazer. Made out of a stretchy rayon blend, it comes with a detachable hood that has moisture-wicking lining.

(Price: $158)

For men, incorporating sports wear into work clothing has been popular. The READY Button-Down Shirt is made of a high-tech cotton/poly blend that wicks moisture away from the skin. Still, the material is woven in traditional patterns, so it will fit right in at the office.

(Price: $108)

On the surface, Silicon Valley and Hollywood have a lot in common. They both trade in creativity, depend on attracting eyeballs and worship out-of-nowhere success.

But that's where the similarities end, says Nick Bilton, author of Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship, and Betrayal. "They are only a few hundred miles apart but light-years in terms of culture," he says.

Hollywood may still have the "cool factor that can dazzle tech geeks," says an observer who has straddled both worlds, but "the dividing line comes down to money. The numbers are just so much bigger in the tech world. People in Hollywood can't help but look on with some admiration" at such deals as Facebook's $19 billion acquisition of WhatsApp.

LIST: Silicon Beach Power 25

One of the biggest contrasts is communication style: Hollywood never likes to say no, while "in tech, you are expected to give direct, even critical feedback and be brutally honest," says Sibyl Goldman, Facebook's head of entertainment partnerships."That's how products are improved and features evolve to become awesome."

The Valley is seen as being driven by innovation, while Hollywood has a rep for being hidebound. Still, not all stereotypes ring true, observes Rich Raddon, co-CEO of Venice, Calif.-based online video venture Zefr: "Entertainment is relationship-driven. Tech is data-driven. When we first showcased YouTube fan uploads, studios quickly embraced it. Hollywood doesn't get credit for innovation like San Francisco does, but it can occur in L.A. as long as it's not disruptive to the core business model."

Other key differences between the cultures follow.

SEE ALSO: ‘Silicon Valley’ Had To Make An Insane Number Of Burger King Runs To Shoot This Brilliant Scene

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Sunday marked the season finale of HBO's new hit comedy, "Silicon Valley."

One reason the show was successful and renewed for a second season is that it portrayed what life in Silicon Valley is really like.

Production designer Richard Toyon worked hard to make everything feel realistic — from the "hacker hostel" house the main characters share to the Google-like campus (Hooli, as it's called in the show) they frequent throughout the season.

But at the advertising agency where the show often filmed, it wasn't easy making an entire office interior look like Google.

Toyon says he followed Google's rule of the three "H's" when constructing the Hooli office set: "Health, hygiene, and hunger."

"Supposedly they work hard to keep you satisfied in those three areas,"Toyon tells Business Insider. "It’s all about productivity so you can come in at 10 a.m. and leave at midnight, or you can work 24 hours a day and still be able to take a nap, take a shower, exercise, and be fed."

Toyon explains, "For the health part, Hooli had a sports court and a mountain-climbing wall. The quad area always had people bicycling around the campus."

"The hygiene we never really showed in the shower rooms or anything like that. It was implied."

As for "hunger," Toyon says the series showed "micro-kitchens" that were "not more than 150 feet from where the characters were working."

Production had a say in everything, down to the drinks characters consumed on camera.

"We did a lot of ground work where we found out from a local beverage distributor how much they’re selling, or what particular products they’re selling to Google, and we tried to use those."

Toyon adds: "We found that a lot of people seem to like Dos Equis, so we used a lot of Dos Equis, but also tried to use craft and local beers as much as possible. And then there’s the overabundance of energy drinks."

One thing Toyon and show creator Mike Judge found particularly interesting about Google when they visited the campus were the "multiple heights of desks and the multiple things people sit on, stand on, or work on."

"Google has a great department of ergonomics so when you’re a new employee they will come over and measure you and figure out what your posture is and your height and will work with you in terms of being comfortable as possible at your work space," says Toyon.

"So when you look at any Hooli environment there is a variety of those things," adds Toyon. "They’ll be multiple monitors, the monitor systems will be up some, will be down some, some will be regular chairs, some will be standing, some will be a high chair. So that was really signature, so we wanted to make sure we captured that."

Toyon says that "one of the things you see at Google are the Energy Pods, which are one of those sleeping couches that have the bubble around them and inside they have some very subdued lighting and subdued music and sounds and you can put in."

"They’re around Google and Mike Judge really liked that," adds Toyon. "We really worked to put one of those into our set."

SEE ALSO: How 'Silicon Valley' Turned A College Campus Into A Google-Like Exterior

MORE: Here's How 'Silicon Valley' Chose Which Tech Gadgets To Use On The Show

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AMC's new "Halt and Catch Fire" has received some flack over its odd title, but the show's name is actually a reference to tech history.

The show, starring actor Lee Pace, takes place during the early wild days of the 1980's computer boom — and while the title may seem strange, it's one of the most mythical command codes in the tech world.

The show explained in its first episode that "halt and catch fire" (or HCF for short) was an early computer command that forced the machine to go as fast as possible, causing it to stop functioning.

The "catch fire" aspect of the name relates to the computer supposedly catching fire and basically self-destructing.

The Wrap points out that having the show open with an explanation of its title is very similar to how "Mad Men," another great AMC show, opened its series.

The show premiered last weekend to somewhat lackluster ratings.

"Halt and Catch Fire" airs Sundays at 10 on AMC.

SEE ALSO: AMC's New Drama Is About The Advent Of Personal Computing, And It's Excellent

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MOUNTAIN VIEW, California (AP) — Sitting in a kitchen stocked with free food, a handful of 20-something Google summer interns weigh their favorite perks, but where to begin? With bikes, buses, massages, swimming pools, dance classes, nap pods, parties and access to their tech heroes, it's a very long list.

"Unlimited sparkling water?" someone says.

In the end, however, the budding Googlers are most excited about the work.

"The project I'm working on is super high impact, and I'm looking for ways to make my mark," says Rita DeRaedt, 20, studying visual communication technology at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. She admitted to being a bit star-struck after she was assigned to a team headed by a designer she's long admired.

With summer's arrival comes an influx of thousands of Silicon Valley interns who are well paid and enjoy many perks. The young up-and-comers from around the world who successfully navigate the competitive application process are assigned big time responsibility at firms such as Google, Facebook, Dropbox and Twitter.

Silicon Valley tech firms pay their interns more than any other sector in the U.S., according to a Top 25 list of 2014 intern pay by online career website Glassdoor.

Palantir Technologies, a Palo Alto-based cybersecurity firm, topped the list with $7,012 average monthly base pay. Also on the list: Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, eBay, Google and Apple, all of which pay more than $5,000 a month, or $60,000 annually if these were full time jobs.

And that's not counting the perks, which at Facebook even include housing in this high rent region.

Executives hope that a fun and stimulating summer will motivate them to come back after graduation to launch careers. It's money well spent in a field fighting for talent, says Keck Graduate Institute professor Joel West in Claremont, who hired interns when he ran his own software company, and now helps place students at internships.

"When you're an employer, interns are a win-win, because you get relatively cheap labor and you get a first look at talented and ambitious people," he says. "You get first dibs on them."

Indeed, many of the internships turn into careers.

Max Schireson, CEO of database startup MongoDB, with offices in Palo Alto and New York, says they nurture former interns, 35 this summer selected from a pool of 3,000, when they return to their respective schools — primarily Brown, MIT, Stanford and Princeton.

"We try to keep in touch with them both to keep that relationship warm but also because they can help us in identifying our next crop," Schireson says.

Schireson says that while there's solid pay, with food, drink and candy around the office, there are limits. Ultimately, he says, "we want people attracted mostly by the workplace challenges."

Typically, interns are assigned to collaborative teams working on specific projects; a computer science student might be writing software code to make failed passcode attempts erase data, while a human resources student might be creating online learning modules for new hires.

Serial entrepreneur Jon Bischke, currently CEO of San Francisco-based Entelo, a tech recruiter, said interns better arrive ready to hustle.

"Companies in Silicon Valley are growing faster than literally any companies anywhere since the beginning of time," he said. "The energy is palpable and for people who appreciate fast-paced environments, you won't find anything faster than what's going on in Silicon Valley right now."

But there is an effort to keep hours reasonable, and many said East Coast financial sector interns work longer hours for less pay.

"We believe in paying for work and paying our interns, full stop, but we don't believe in making interns work all hours of the day unnecessarily, and think there are lessons to be learned in terms of managing time and workflow," said Google spokeswoman Meghan Casserly. Overtime is allowed, however, for projects that warrant it, she says.

Chris Crawford was 18, a student at the University of California, Santa Cruz, when he landed his first internship at nearby Cupertino-based Apple. He spent the next five summers interning at Apple, two in public relations, three at iTunes.

"I love Apple technology, I'm a musician and I loved what they were doing in the music industry, and I got real life business experience there," says Crawford, who went on to launch his own startup, Loudr.fm, in 2009, an online service where musicians can sell cover songs and original music to fans, or through iTunes, Spotify, Google Play and other sites.

Now and then, he says, their little firm of eight even gets an intern.

Google's head of global staffing Kyle Ewing says the biggest misconception about their interns is that they are all computer scientists from elite universities. Instead, Google, and many other firms, have outreach programs to both diversify their workforce and provide opportunities for non-technical students.

As for the new class of interns, thousands of them, Ewing says she expects them to be tackling major challenges as they sip their sparkly water over the next three months. "Our hope is that we can offer a job to anybody who has a successful summer," she says. "We have a very, very successful pipeline."

___

Follow Martha Mendoza at https://twitter.com/mendozamartha

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It seems that every entrepreneur in Silicon Valley wants to be CEO of the company they founded, because they feel it's necessary to have total control over its direction.

John Hennessy, president of Stanford University, told Bloomberg that founders should wait to become CEO, and instead work with someone more experienced.

Hennessy, a former entrepreneur who serves on the board of Google and Cisco Systems, said: "I've told a lot of young founders that I've talked to, 'You're not ready to be the CEO. I know you're the visionary — go head the engineering team, go become the chief technical officer. Learn a little more before you become the CEO.' Because you've got to learn skills that you don't have."

He told Bloomberg that young entrepreneurs are inexperienced, for example, in hiring the right salespeople, negotiating, and determining whether or not a deal is worth making.

"I mean, yeah you can do all the math, but in the end you got to have some gut instinct," he said, implying that such instinct only comes with years of experience.

In his book "The Founder's Dilemmas," Noam Wasserman points to data that suggests founder-CEOs may even be setting themselves up for being fired:

Entrepreneurial strengths often become Achilles heels: Early on, a founder's passion for the idea, confidence in its prospects and in his or her own abilities, and attachment to the startup can be the founder's greatest strengths. As the startup evolves, though, each of those strengths can become a major liability as the founder refuses to adjust the idea, underestimates the need for additional resources or skills, and makes decisions that harm the startup.

As a successful startup grows from outside investors, power shifts from the founder-CEO to the board, which may decide they want a more business-savvy, less egotistical executive. Wasserman cites a study that shows more than 50% of founders are replaced as CEOs by the third round of financing.

So, if you want to start a business, you may be better off remaining the visionary and letting an experienced CEO help you launch your company.

Want your business advice featured in Instant MBA? Submit your tips to tipoftheday@businessinsider.com. Be sure to include your name, your job title, and a photo of yourself in your email.

SEE ALSO: 15 Traits Of Entrepreneurs Who Fail

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Ongoing tensions over how to handle social inequality in San Francisco has sparked a rare outburst among venture capitalists.

Facebook executive-turned-venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya called for San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee to resign due to a "very stupid city government," spurring fellow venture capitalist Ron Conway to jump to his feet.

"How dare you!" shouted Mr Conway from the rear of the auditorium at the end of a discussion on inequality at Bloomberg's Next Big Thing conference, held at an exclusive resort just across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco.

The city's role in bolstering technology, including giving tax breaks to Twitter and other companies, has come under fire in recent months as complaints rise about income inequality. Many city residents blame a growing wealth gap on large technology industry salaries.

On Monday, disagreements over who to hold responsible came to a head as Mr Palihapitiya told a roomful of executives that the city did not focus enough on its problems and blamed a "really, really, really broken political system."

Asked twice by moderator Emily Chang if the tech industry should take any responsibility, Mr Palihapitiya first said the industry's "spillover effect" should be weighed. One study from the University of California, Berkeley, concludes that each San Francisco technology job creates five more jobs.

"Having these expectations, it's kind of a false trade off," he then said. Mr Palihapitiya lives in Palo Alto, in the heart of Silicon Valley.

By contrast, Mr Conway, who helped elect Mr Lee, lives in San Francisco and leads Sf.citi, a group of technology companies that is trying to tackle problems such as affordable housing and job creation.

"He is doing something," Mr Conway shouted at Mr Palihapitiya, referring to the mayor who Palihapitiya had said led a group of "ineffective or dumb" workers in city government. A spokeswoman for the mayor did not respond to a request for comment.

Until Monday, such outbursts remained the province of demonstrators, who in recent months have taken to the streets and blocked commuter buses from moving.

The buses, operated by companies such as Facebook and Google, ferry workers who live in San Francisco to jobs at companies 30 or 40 miles away in Silicon Valley.

Mr Palihapitiya, who grew up in Canada in a family of Sri Lankan immigrants, said those protests "weren't cool."

He also called for the city to take a 1 per cent equity stake in any technology company in return for city incentives such as tax breaks.

Mr Palihapitiya is a partial owner of the Golden State Warriors basketball team, whose plan to build a new arena on the site of two city piers was derailed earlier this year, partly because of regulatory challenges.

"If we had waited for the city, it would have been like waiting for Godot," Mr Palihapitiya said, referring to the never-arriving character in the existential novel by Samuel Beckett.

Mr Conway said the mayor was working on the city's problems, including creating more affordable housing.

"Maybe you could donate some," he suggested to Mr Palihapitiya.

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LinkedIn just released its workforce diversity numbers, and the company isn't happy with them.

LinkedIn's workforce is 61% men and 53% white. 

"There are currently more than 5,400 LinkedIn employees working in offices from Mountain View to Sao Paulo to Bangalore,"LinkedIn Head of Talent Pat Wadors wrote on the company blog. "Over the past few years, we’ve experienced tremendous growth and have become a truly global company, but in terms of overall diversity, we have some work to do."

This comes just a few weeks after Google released its workforce diversity data. Google's workforce is 70% men and 61% white.

Check out LinkedIn's diversity data below.

SEE ALSO: If Silicon Valley wanted to solve the diversity issue, it would be solved

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Who says there aren't any jobs for women in tech?

A startup just posted a new job earlier this week specifically seeking a female candidate — except the job sounds more like an ad for a housekeeper than an assistant.

The Craigslist job post, which was spotted by Valleywag, sounds reasonable at first (if you can get past the "Girl Friday" part of the job title).

The author behind the post casually mentions that cooking meals would be part of the gig, but also frames the role as your standard office assistant.

The post reads:

Being familiar with the design/tech industry is preferred. Any basic knowledge of Illustrator and Photoshop is a plus, but not required. You'll need to be able to multitask, manage several projects at once as well as help with day to day tasks that come up.

It's the next part of the job listing that gets offensive. The top-listed responsibilities come before any skills that would require tech industry experience: cooking meals and keeping the kitchen clean.

Expertise in "grilling meats" and preparing "Paleo" meals seem to be important for this job. Oh, and of course this ideal "Girl Friday" candidate would need to be a savvy grocery shopper capable of planning out meals for the week. You know, sort of like a lunch lady. 

Google recently admitted that its workplace was 70% male. Although that company is trying to become more diverse, it underlined the fact that tech is often a lopsided, tone-deaf, boy-like industry. For example, Yunha Kim, CEO of Locket, shared an email she received after trying to hire someone to work at her company. The candidate responded saying he's happy at his current job, but proceeded to make a pass at her suggesting that she could "lure" him away from his job in an "unconventional" way.

The job listing has since been taken down, but Valleywag managed to grab a screenshot of the Craigslist ad, which you can see below.

SEE ALSO: This Woman Had To Slap A Guy In The Face When He Stalked Her At A Tech Hackathon

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SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Theme lunches, giant TVs and viewing parties. Silicon Valley may be far from the World Cup in Brazil but tech employees are getting in on the globe's most prestigious soccer event.

Twitter, LinkedIn and Nvidia are among several tech companies airing matches in their offices during the next month and encouraging employees to follow the action.

The World Cup has made inroads in the United States, although employees at many companies must be circumspect about getting their fix. But some tech companies, famous for giving their engineers everything from gourmet food to on-site hairdressers, World Cup fever's penetration is reminiscent of Latin America or Europe, where the tournament captivates the public.

Redwood City's Evernote, which makes note-taking software, dished up traditional Brazilian Feijoada meat stew and bolo de fuba cornmeal cake for lunch while Thursday's opening match between Brazil and Croatia played on projector TVs.

As the tournament progresses, with up to three games per day in the coming weeks, Evernote, as well as Twitter, Facebook Inc and Zynga Inc will have games playing in conference rooms and other locations.

"There are no real rules, you can watch as much of the game as you want," said Linda Kozlowski, Evernote's vice president of worldwide operations. She expects many employees to bring laptops along and work while cheering their favorite team.

Most of this year's matches are scheduled during office hours in California, making for potential disruptions at companies known for demanding work schedules.

Electronic Arts Inc, which makes the 2014 World Cup Brazil videogame, is hosting "viewing parties" at its offices, including in a big-screen theater at its Redwood City headquarters. Its Vancouver, Canada office has daily contests for employees to win official World Cup soccer balls.

The region's top technology companies attract talent from around the world, making for diverse engineering departments often including a fair share of soccer enthusiasts.

Half of Silicon Valley residents speak a language other than English at home, compared to a fifth of people across the United States, according to the US Census Bureau.

French, US, Brazilian and Mexican team jerseys were spotted at chipmaker Nvidia on the days of "friendly" matches ahead of the 32-country tournament.

Cafeterias at Nvidia's 4,000-employee Santa Clara headquarters are showing matches throughout the tournament, said human resources manager Stephanie Luck.

"Because we hold our large meetings in cafeterias, we already have big screens and projectors. So the World Cup or (San Francisco) Giants World Series, anything super-important like that, you can walk into the cafeteria and it's just a sea of people," she said.

The arrival of international stars like David Beckham to play in North America's growing soccer league has increased Americans' interest in the world's most popular game. But Silicon Valley, the birthplace of the iPhone, may be ahead of the trend.

Two in three Americans do not plan to follow the tournament, and only 7 percent anticipate following it closely, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll. 

(Reporting by Noel Randewich; Editing by David Gregorio)

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Aniruddh Chaturvedi came from Mumbai to Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Penn., where he is majoring in computer science. This past summer he interned at a tech company in Silicon Valley.

During two years in the U.S., Chaturvedi has been surprised by various aspects of society, as he explained last year in a post on Quora.

Chaturvedi offered his latest thoughts on America in an email to Business Insider.

The most surprising things about America:

• Nobody talks about grades here. 
• Everyone is highly private about their accomplishments and failures. Someone's performance in any field is their performance alone. This is different compared to India where people flaunt their riches and share their accomplishments with everybody else.
• The retail experience is nowhere near as fun/nice as it is in India. Because labor is cheap in India, there is always someone who will act as a "personal shopper" to assist you with holding your clothes, giving suggestions, etc. In America, on the other hand, even if you go to a Nordstrom or Bloomingdales, there is almost nobody to help you out while you're shopping. Shopping in America is more of a commodity / chore than it is a pleasurable activity 
• This may be biased/wrong because I was an intern, but at least in the tech world, nobody wants to put you under the bus for something that you didn't do correctly or didn't understand how to do. People will sit with you patiently till you get it. If you aren't able to finish something within the stipulated deadline, a person on your team would graciously offer to take it off your plate.
• The same applies to school. Before I came to the United States, I heard stories about how students at Johns Hopkins were so competitive with each other that they used to tear important pages from books in the library just so other students didn't have access to it. In reality, I experienced the complete opposite. Students were highly collaborative, formed study groups, and studied / did assignments till everyone in the group "got it". I think the reason for this is that the classes are / material is so hard that it makes sense to work collaboratively to the point that students learn from each other. 
• Strong ethics — everyone has a lot of integrity. If someone cannot submit their completed assignment in time, they will turn in the assignment incomplete rather than asking for answers at the last minute. People take pride in their hard work and usually do not cheat. This is different from students from India and China as well as back home in India, where everyone collaborates to the extent that it can be categorized as cheating.
• Rich people are thin/ well maintained, poor people are fat. This stems from the fact that cheap food is fatty, rich people don't eat cheap food — they tend to eat either home-cooked food which is expensive or eat at expensive / healthy places. Unfortunately, it is expensive to be healthy in America.
• Fat people are not respected much in society. Being fat often has the same connotations as being irresponsible towards your body. If you're thin (and tall, but not as much), people will respect you a lot more and treat you better. You will also receive better customer service if you're well maintained. This extends my previous point which mentioned that if you're thin, you're statistically likely to be rich. Reason why I know this is that I went down from being 210lbs to 148-150lbs. The way people started treating me when I was thin was generally way better than the way I was treated when I was fat. As a small example, the Starbucks baristas were much nicer to me and made me drinks with more care / love. 
• Girls are not very promiscuous, contrary to most Hollywood films
• Almost every single person in America has access to basic food, clothing, water and sanitation. I haven't been to states like Louisiana and cities like Detroit, but from what I can tell, nobody is scrambling for the basic necessities required for sustenance. 
• Dearth of African Americans in technical fields. This probably stems from the fact that they aren't given enough opportunity, broken families, etc. I'm pretty sure you can extend upon this if you'd like.
• It's expensive to have brick houses in America, contrary to India where brick houses are the norm
• Emphasis on physical fitness / being outdoorsy — this is more of a California thing but I noticed families going on biking trips, boat trips, hiking, camping, barbecuing, etc. Americans take pride in the natural beauty of their surroundings and tend to make the most of it
• Americans waste a lot of food. It is very easy to buy in bulk because it's so much cheaper and as a result a lot of wastage occurs. 
• Obsession with coffee — Starbucks, Dunkin' etc is crowded with office-goers and students every morning. I don't understand why they can't drink or make coffee before leaving for work. Such a waste of money! ($5/day * 5days / week * 52weeks/year)!
• Split families, not having married parents, etc is not seen differently than the contrary. 
• Support towards the LGBT community — it's fairly normal to be part of the LGBT community; it's not considered a mortal sin if you like someone in your own gender or if you aren't comfortable being male/female/etc. Proof of this is the LGBT Pride Day held in every city etc. 
• Smoking weed is seen the same as smoking cigarettes. 

And here are some more things he found surprising about America, excerpted from his post last summer on Quora :

The way that stores price their products makes no apparent economic sense, and is not linear at all.

For example, at a typical store: 
 - 1 can of coke : $1.00
 - 12 cans of coke : $3.00
 - 1 Häagen-Dazs ice cream bar : $3.00
 - 12 Häagen-Dazs ice cream bars : $7.00

The return policy on almost everything: None of my friends back in India believed me when I told them that you can literally buy anything, including food, and return it within ninety days for a full refund even if you don't have a specific reason for doing so (most stores actually have a "Buyer's Remorse" category under Reason for Return options while returning the product).

The pervasiveness of fast food and the sheer variety of products available: The typical supermarket has at least a hundred varieties of frozen pizza, 50 brands of trail mix, etc. I was just astounded by the different kinds of products available even at small gas station convenience stores. 

Soda being cheaper than bottled water: It makes no sense that carbonated and flavored water with HFCS are cheaper than regular water, but hey, that's just how it is.

The fact that there are full service rest stops with decent chain restaurants and big supermarkets every couple of miles on interstate highways 

Fruit and vegetable prices, as compared to fast food prices:

- Bag of grapes : $6.00
 - Box of strawberries : $5.00
 - 1 lb tomatoes : $3.00

 - McChicken : $1.00
 - [McDouble] : $1.00

Unlimited soda refills:

The first time (and one of the last times...) I visited McDonalds in 2007, the cashier gave me an empty cup when I ordered soda. The concept of virtually unlimited soda refills was alien to me, and I thought there was a catch to it, but apparently not. 

Slightly digressing, I've noticed that the typical fountain machine has a huge selection, including Pepsi, Pepsi Max, Sprite, Sprite Zero, Hi-C, Powerade, Lemonade, Raspberry Lemonade (and/or their coca-cola counterparts)... The list goes on. This may not seem like much, but it is actually a lot more compared to the 3-4 options (coca-cola, sprite, fanta, limca) that most Indian soda fountain machines have. 

Serving Sizes: American serving sizes are HUGE! I've noticed that entree sizes are huge as well. I am by no means a small eater, but it usually takes me at least 1.5 meals to finish the entree. 

US Flag displayed everywhere: I was surprised to see that the US flag is displayed in schools, on rooftops of houses, etc. India has very strict rules governing the display and use of the national flag. Also, something that struck out to me was how it was completely normal to wear the US flag or a US flag-like pattern as a bikini. 

Over-commercialization of festivals: I'm not denying that festivals like Diwali and Eid aren't extremely commercialized in India, but America takes it to a whole new level.  Black Friday, Cyber Monday, etc., and an almost year-round sale of Christmas, Halloween, Easter, etc. items.

An almost-classless society: I've noticed that most Americans roughly have the same standard of living.  Everybody has access to ample food, everybody shops at the same supermarkets, malls, stores, etc. I've seen plumbers, construction workers and janitors driving their own sedans, which was quite difficult for me to digest at first since I came from a country where construction workers and plumbers lived hand to mouth. 

Also, (almost) all sections of society are roughly equal. You'll see service professionals owning iPhones, etc. as well. This may be wrong but part of it has to do with the fact that obtaining credit in this country is extremely easy. Anybody can buy anything, for the most part, except for something like a Maserati, obviously. As a result, most monetary possessions aren't really status symbols. I believe that the only status symbol in America is your job, and possibly your educational qualifications.

Chaturvedi ended his post with a link to a video of "America F--- Yeah" from the movie "Team America." 

SEE ALSO: 17 crazy things that only happen in India

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