An Executive Coach Grades 'The Audacity': Mostly Right About Silicon Valley

AMC renewed "The Audacity" for a second season before the first one even aired — and an executive coach who has spent more than a decade advising tech leaders says the show earns it. Mostly.

The coach, who has worked with people who reported directly to Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk and Steve Huffman, watched the series not as a TV critic but as the person executives confide in. "They tell me things they keep from their boards, their teams and their partners," the coach wrote in a first-person essay for Entrepreneur.

The series aired on AMC this spring and landed on Netflix in August, where it's finding a second audience. Its eight hour-long episodes pack in stock fraud, blackmail, ayahuasca, a tungsten cube and a wildfire.

What does the show's opening line reveal?

"More than physical pain, I fear humiliation." That's the first sentence of the series, spoken by tech CEO Duncan Park, played by Billy Magnussen, to his therapist.

The coach has never heard a client use that word. "I can't recall a client ever saying the word 'humiliation' to me," the coach wrote. "They say 'insecure' and 'imposter syndrome' instead."

The verdict: the show names a real fear in its opening seconds, using language real executives avoid.

Is the lying accurate?

In episode seven, Duncan says the fear of humiliation drives every small lie. His therapist, Dr. JoAnne Felder (Sarah Goldberg), frames it differently: everyone spins, even to themselves. The coach calls that "the most accurate line in the series."

Executives spin in coaching sessions too, the coach says. It usually shows up as catastrophizing what a boss might say, or fixating on the worst-case outcome of a big meeting. The fix the coach uses:

• Ask the executive to pause and take a breath
• Get clear on what they value and what they want
• Pick one small step forward

"The pause does most of the work," the coach wrote. "Once a leader slows down, the spin falls apart on its own."

Does the C-suite really look like that?

In the premiere, Duncan screams at his housekeeper for failing to catch a tungsten cube he throws at her. One recap called the outbursts one of the funniest parts of the episode. The coach calls it reality.

"I've coached executives whose CEOs screamed at them and berated people in executive meetings — at companies that have been voted 'best place to work,'" the coach wrote.

The show also gets right that founders and boards tolerate the behavior. One senior executive the coach worked with reported directly to a CEO like this. Their coaching focused on managing themselves long enough to exit and find a healthier environment — which they did. Sometimes, the coach says, the only fix is a new employer.

What about the money?

Carl Bardolph (Zach Galifianakis) is the billionaire Duncan wants to become. A teenager in the show describes him as worth a bazillion dollars and "the saddest man you've ever seen." Every character has money and wants something else — legacy, power, impact or control.

The coach hears this constantly. One client had led teams through back-to-back acquisitions and an exit, and still told the coach "it didn't feel like enough." The client's questions: How would he know when he had enough? Who did he want to be beyond his title? What was he neglecting at home? How did he want to be remembered?

He eventually landed a C-suite role on new terms: remote or hybrid work, time with his school-aged children and partner, real work-life balance and room to travel.

Where does the show stretch?

Duncan blackmails his therapist. The coach has never been blackmailed by a client. The jargon also runs heavier than reality — "quant ben" for quantifiable benefits was a new one.

Carl claims every billionaire decides whether to save the world or control it, and that "most of us go Dr. Evil." The coach pushes back: most leaders the coach works with are focused on making a positive difference. "The bad ones just get more publicity."

The accidental accuracies land hardest. Anushka (Meaghan Rath) calls the AI her husband Martin (Simon Helberg) is building "a digital child" — a phrase the coach has heard a real tech executive use verbatim. The realtor line "$2.5 mil is a steal around here" rang true too, as did office space costing $175 an hour. "That's why I coach from my home office over Zoom," the coach wrote.

The core takeaway: it's lonely at the top, and the show gets that right in every storyline. Every major character is isolated, and none says so out loud. The leaders who make progress bring that conversation to someone else — a coach, mentor or therapist — and speak honestly. Netflix's second audience is about to find out why.