Postcards: Bugs... Bugs Everywhere (The Week Ahead)

Let's talk about cicadas and more...

Dear Fellow Expat:

In the third episode of the first season of HBO's "Silicon Valley," Peter Gregory, portrayed by Christopher Evan Welch, has a great subplot involving Burger King and sesame seeds.

Gregory gets distracted by Burger King’s business model while one of his portfolio companies (a startup in which he invested) deals with a global supply chain issue.

The executives at the company badly need a bridge loan (money lent to them between investment rounds to maintain operations).

But Gregory doesn’t reply to their requests.

Instead, he orders his employees to go to a nearby Burger King and purchase everything on the menu.

Later, the food lays before him on his desk when the payoff finally arrives.

The two businessmen in whom he invested snap at him, demanding that he provide a loan or else their business will fail. Their emotions do not phase him.

It turns out that Brazilian and Myanmar cicadas (locusts) will emerge from their hibernation at the same time. This is a mathematical …