To kick off the second episode of the new HBO comedy from Office Space/King of the Kill genius Mike Judge, we have a very sad five-person "launch party" in the Palo Alto headquarters of Pied Piper, including one angry stripper named Mochaccino and zero aroused programmers.

We also get a sheepish gesture from Zach Woods' character Jared, who we met in the pilot as the right-hand-man to billionaire Hooli mogul Gavin Belson, who somehow heard about the launch party and comes to earnestly offer up a bottle of domestic champagne, and to offer his "business development skill set," should they need it, because he was incredibly inspired by Richard's turning down Belson's $10 million. He also apologizes if he scared our hero Richard (Thomas Middleditch) on his approach up the front walk. "I know I have somewhat ghostly features."

Erlich immediately sends him packing, telling Richard, "Your whole life you've been an ugly chick. Now suddenly you're a hot chick, with big tits and small nipples. So guys like that are going to keep coming around... Don't be a slut, Richard." But, as we saw from last week's preview, Jared comes back. With his skill set.

Suffice it to say no one has any fun at this party, except Big Head, who gets a brief lap dance and tells Mochaccino he's in love with her.

Erlich gives Richard a talking-to that basically amounts to this: You need to be more of an asshole, because it's the only way you're going to survive as a CEO. "If you're not an asshole it creates this kind of asshole vacuum, and that void is filled by other assholes."

And Jared becomes essential very fast after Richard and Erlich have a meeting with investor Peter Gregory, expecting to pick up their $200,000 check, only to find out that he wants a business plan and cap table before he hands over any money. Jared knows about these things, and that phone call gets made very fast — how Jared is able to show up promptly the next morning and not go to his job at Houli is because, it turns out, he quit his job at Houli.

Peter is also concerned about the "who" of Pied Piper, this company he's investing in, so Richard and Jared sit everyone down to discuss what they see their roles will being. Gilfoyle: system architecture and security ("While you were minoring in gender studies and singing a capella at Sarah Lawrence, I was gaining root access to NSA servers..."); Dinesh, who's "the only one of these bastards that can code in Java," just wants more equity than Gilfoyle; and Big Head, "Uh... programming." And they all basically turn on Big Head, kind of like how that female designer got shut out and dropped when her five-person company gut acquire-hired by Google the other week, saying that he's "dead weight" and doesn't deserve shares in the new company they're forming just for being Richard's best friend.

We learn Big Head's real name for the first time: Nelson Bighetti (or Bigheddi?). And just as Richard is taking Jared's advice and pushing him out of the company, and as Big Head is packing up to leave town altogether, he gets called into Gavin Belson's office at Hooli and offered a job. Belson gives him $600K a year just to steal him away from Pied Piper, in revenge for taking Jared.

So, just as Richard decides to go out on a limb and insist that Big Head stays, Big Head comes home and announces the news, saying, "This is huge for me."

Fast-forward to the next day when Richard is going to deposit his $200,000 from Peter Gregory, thanks to Jared's business plan, and Big Head calls to inform him that Houli is already reverse-engineering his compression algorithm and trying to copy it as closely as possible without getting sued — the prototype he gave to the brogrammers turns out to be all they needed. It's going to be called Nucleus, and Gavin Belson now just wants to beat Pied Piper to market.

Way to amp up the stress and move things along briskly just two episodes in, Mike Judge. We can't wait to see Big Head get a big head and start driving a Tesla.

Previously: 'Silicon Valley' Episode 1 Recap: Welcome To Palo Alto