TJ Miller, who plays the buffoonish, churlish Erlich Bachmann on HBO's Silicon Valley, has had choice words for the tech industry in the past. "You don't have a sense of humor about yourselves," he said in an Esquire interview from April, pointing back to his time hosting the Crunchies awards. In that prior instance, he didn't recognize — or cow-tow to — Uber's Travis Kalanick. (In fact, it should be noted he crossed the line, repeatedly calling Kalanick's girlfriend a bitch.)

As the third season of Silicon Valley comes to a close — and I've been really enjoying it personally, which I can't say was the case last season — the New Yorker saw fit to rhapsodize about the show in a piece published online this afternoon. One anecdote that stands out calls to mind the very different kind of fame that Miller and the type of figure he parodies receive in national pop culture.

Here's Miller to the magazine:

“Some Valley big shots have no idea how to react to the show.... They can’t decide whether to be offended or flattered. And they’re mystified by the fact that actors have a kind of celebrity that they will never have—there’s no rhyme or reason to it, but that’s the way it is, and it kills them.” Miller met Musk at the after-party in Redwood City. “I think he was thrown by the fact that I wasn’t being sycophantic—which I couldn’t be, because I didn’t realize who he was at the time. He said, ‘I have some advice for your show,’ and I went, ‘No thanks, we don’t need any advice,’ which threw him even more. And then, while we’re talking, some woman comes up and says ‘Can I have a picture?’ and he starts to pose—it was kinda sad, honestly—and instead she hands the camera to him and starts to pose with me. It was, like, Sorry, dude, I know you’re a big deal—and, in his case, he actually is a big deal—but I’m the guy from ‘Yogi Bear 3-D,’ and apparently that’s who she wants a picture with.”

Ouch! What interviews and a peek into the operations of the show reveal is that Silicon Valley is deeply researched and thought through. I mean, former Twitter CEO Dick Costolo is a consultant, y'know?

As the New Yorker puts it, the program is "a reported sitcom." Or, as Alec Berg, the showrunner along with its creator, Mike Judge, frames it, "The hope is that someone in the Valley”—a scrawny coder, a billionaire, or someone who fits both descriptions—“will be able to watch it and go, ‘I might not like that they’re taking shots at us, but at least it’s grounded in truth.’”

Related: Silicon Valley Star T.J. Miller Calls Out Humorless Silicon Valley Tech A**Holes