Richard invented and built the start-up Pied Piper, a program designed to find music matches, while living at Erlich’s Hacker Hostel alongside his best friend Big Head and fellow nerds Dinesh and Gilfoyle. Pied Piper’s compression algorithm triggered a bidding war and ultimately garnered funding from Peter Gregory's company Raviga. After winning TechCrunch Disrupt -- and $50,000 -- Richard and Pied Piper are in the spotlight more than ever, which for Richard means non-stop thrills (read: nausea and crippling panic).

Erlich administers the Hacker Hostel, a tech incubator where Richard, Big Head, Dinesh, and Gilfoyle live and work in exchange for 10 percent of their potential businesses. Erlich clings to his glory days, when he sold aviation start-up Aviato, a move that, at least in his mind, qualifies him to be a svengali lording over other tech nerds. He still drives a car emblazoned with multiple Aviato logos and smokes copious amounts of weed.

Big Head is the best friend of Richard, who he once lived and worked with at the Hacker Hostel alongside Gilfoyle and Dinesh. Richard made the tough decision not to hire Big Head, who admits to not being great at any one aspect of building sites or coding, but landed on his feet at Hooli. Although technically unassigned to any department, Big Head's "rest and vest" lifestyle agrees with him.

Gilfoyle lives and works in the Hacker Hostel with Richard, Big Head, and Dinesh. He is pompous and purports to be good at system architecture, networking, and security. Gilfoyle often finds himself sparring with Dinesh.

Dinesh lives and works in the Hacker Hostel with Richard, Big Head, and Gilfoyle. He possesses a dry wit and skills at writing code, particularly java script. Dinesh often finds himself sparring with Gilfoyle.

Before Peter Gregory's death, Monica was Raviga’s head of operations, handling the day-to-day duties of his tech investment business and often fielding pitches and working directly with tech folks using Peter’s money. Now she works under Laurie Bream as an associate partner. Monica took a particular interest in Richard and Pied Piper from the beginning and has taken Peter's board seat at Richard's request.

Previously a Hooli executive, Jared traded in his corporate position to serve as head of business development at Pied Piper. His organization skills and professionalism don’t always mesh with Pied Piper's loose culture, but he's proven himself a valuable asset to the team.

Gavin Belson is the Chief Innovation Officer of Hooli, a huge tech company in Silicon Valley that seemingly has its hands in everything but specifically does “targeted search and cross-platform verticals.” He had a long-standing rivalry with Peter Gregory, which only fueled his desire to acquire Richard’s algorithm -- a quest that continues after Peter's death. For Gavin, bigger is better -- and money is no object.