MountainheadIs Jesse Armstrong’s Dark Mirror to the Tech Billionaire Era
So, here we go again—Jesse Armstrong, the mastermind behind Succession , is back, and yes, he’s writing about rich people. But not the Logan Roy kind. This time it’s the hoodie-wearing, AI-pushing, podcast-rambling tech billionaires who take center stage in Mountainhead , his first feature-length film, premiering on HBO and Max. And honestly, it couldn’t have landed at a more uncanny time.
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Now, I know what you're thinking: why is Armstrong still obsessed with the ultra-wealthy? Even he admits it's a fair question. But as he explained at the Hay Festival, it’s not just about the money—it’s about power. Armstrong’s work often asks, “Why is the world like this?” And in Mountainhead , that question zeroes in on the people who aren’t just riding the tech wave—they’re building it, coding its ethics (or lack thereof), and reshaping society in the process.
The film follows four tech titans—played by Steve Carell, Ramy Youssef, Jason Schwartzman, and Cory Michael Smith—who retreat to a snowy mountain resort just as one of their latest AI tools triggers global unrest. The satire runs deep, with characters spewing jargon like “decel,” “p(doom),” and “post-human potential” while wrestling with the chaos their creations unleash. And they’re doing it all in ski suits, in between philosophical salons and board game metaphors. It's ridiculous—and frighteningly plausible.
What makes Mountainhead so fascinating is how rapidly it was conceived and created. Armstrong pitched the idea in December, wrote the script in January, shot it in 22 days, and finished editing just a week before release. That frantic energy mirrors the pace of the tech world it critiques—always shipping, always iterating, always one misstep from disaster.
This isn’t just Armstrong lampooning the absurdities of billionaires. He dives deep into their psychology—their ambitions, their insecurities, their need to feel like they’re saving humanity even as they break it. One character can’t connect with his son, another is paralyzed by mortality, a third hides his social status with faux humility. These aren’t caricatures—they’re vulnerable, deluded men with too much influence.
Armstrong also made the leap into directing with this film, driven by a desire to capture the present’s ever-shifting tone. And it works. Mountainhead doesn't feel like it’s playing catch-up with reality—it feels like it's embedded in it. The film’s language—half Silicon Valley pitch deck, half stoner podcast—rings terrifyingly true.
Ultimately, Mountainhead isn’t just another satire. It’s Armstrong’s way of scraping back the tech world’s arrogance, using its own language and logic to expose its contradictions. It's funny, it's unnerving, and it feels eerily like a dispatch from a near-future we’ve already entered. As Armstrong said, he’s not trying to beat the news—he’s just trying to tell a story before reality beats him to it.
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