Robert and Michelle King are taking their prolific storytelling partnership into the world of big tech with their newest show, Cupertino. The series places technology’s most powerful executives in its sights, focusing on an industry whose influence now stretches across work, entertainment, communication and daily life.
And the Kings do not appear interested in burnishing the mythology.
“They’re really the stupidest and dumbest people,” Robert King said, delivering a blunt verdict on the figures inspiring the project.
A title steeped in Silicon Valley meaning
The name Cupertino carries immediate technological resonance. The Californian city is inseparable from Apple, whose headquarters are based there, making it one of the most recognisable place names in the global technology industry.
That association gives the title considerable weight, even without confirming that the show will focus on Apple or recreate the story of any particular company. Instead, the available premise points towards a broader examination of technology’s ruling class: the founders, chief executives and dealmakers whose decisions can reshape markets and habits almost overnight.
For a drama centred on modern power, few locations offer richer shorthand. Cupertino suggests sleek campuses, enormous valuations and carefully managed public images. It also evokes the tension beneath that polished surface: fierce competition, secrecy, ambition and the extraordinary concentration of influence within a relatively small group of companies and individuals.
Challenging the mythology of the tech visionary
Technology culture has long favoured the language of genius. Executives are presented as visionaries, disruptors and architects of the future, often before the consequences of their products or policies are fully understood. The Kings’ approach appears to push in the opposite direction, questioning whether scale and success are reliable indicators of intelligence or judgement.
Robert King’s description is deliberately unsparing. By characterising technology leaders as “the stupidest and dumbest people”, he frames them not as untouchable geniuses but as flawed individuals operating with extraordinary resources and influence.
That distinction matters. The most consequential technology companies do not simply sell devices or applications; they help determine how people find information, conduct business, socialise and consume culture. When their leaders make poor decisions, the effects can extend far beyond a single product launch or corporate boardroom.
The result is fertile territory for television. A technology executive can be a visionary on a conference stage, a ruthless negotiator behind closed doors and an unlikely source of chaos in equal measure. Those contradictions offer writers an opportunity to explore power without accepting the industry’s preferred image of itself.
Tech power moves from the background to the foreground
Much of the technology sector’s influence is designed to feel invisible. Algorithms organise what audiences see, platforms mediate professional and personal relationships, and devices collect vast amounts of information while presenting themselves as simple tools. The labour, politics and executive decisions behind that experience are often hidden beneath clean design and seamless interfaces.
Cupertino looks set to drag some of that machinery into view. By focusing on the people at the top, the show can examine how technological systems are shaped by personal ego, corporate pressure and the pursuit of growth. It also creates space to ask who benefits from innovation, who absorbs the risks and how little accountability may exist when a company becomes too important to ignore.
This is not simply a question of whether a new phone works or an application is easy to use. It concerns the values embedded in digital services and the priorities of the executives responsible for them. Profit, privacy, competition, labour conditions and public trust can all collide inside decisions that appear technical on the surface but carry significant social consequences.
For prolific producers such as Robert and Michelle King, the sector offers a contemporary arena in which institutional power can be scrutinised through character and conflict. Technology may be the setting, but leadership is the subject.
A sharp creative target with global relevance
The Kings’ comments do not reveal the series’ plot, characters or precise tone. They do, however, establish a clear point of view: Cupertino is unlikely to treat technology’s most powerful figures as inherently wiser simply because they are wealthy or influential.
That approach could resonate well beyond Silicon Valley. Technology companies based in California serve customers across the world, while their products and policies frequently influence governments, media organisations and competitors. A story about tech bigwigs can therefore become a story about the global distribution of power, even when it is rooted in one particular city or corporate environment.
The title also leaves room for ambiguity. Viewers may hear