What’s in a name?

Paranoid Android seems like an very strange name for a company that deals in maintenance. We are often asked where the name comes from. Something as important as the name of your company has to have some sort of significance. Often times the name is derived from words that may relate back to the product or service offered by the company. Paranoid Android “restaurant maintenance” doesn’t quite fit that mold. There are many molds that our unique company doesn’t fit. Let’s dive into the name behind “Paranoid Android”.

The most common reference related to our company name is from a 1997 Radiohead song “Paranoid Android” off the album OK Computer. If a person were to ask us, “are you such big Radiohead fans that you used a title of their song to name your company?” they would be partially correct.

The name Paranoid Android was actually chosen by Thom Yorke for his Radiohead song, based off the character from Douglas Adam’s comedy science fiction series “The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy”. The picture to the left is a rendition of Marvin from the 2005 Film “The HitchHikers Guide to the Galaxy.

Marvin the Paranoid Android is a fictional character in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series by Douglas Adams. Marvin is the ship’s robot aboard the starship Heart of Gold. Originally built as one of many failed prototypes of Sirius Cybernetics Corporation’s GPP (Genuine People Personalities) technology, Marvin is afflicted with severe depression and boredom, in part because he has a “brain the size of a planet”[1] which he is seldom, if ever, given the chance to use. Indeed, the true horror of Marvin’s existence is that no task he could be given would occupy even the tiniest fraction of his vast intellect. Marvin claims he is 50,000 times more intelligent than a human,[2] (or 30 billion times more intelligent than a live mattress) though this is, if anything, an underestimation. When kidnapped by the bellicose Krikkit robots and tied to the interfaces of their intelligent war computer, Marvin simultaneously manages to plan the entire planet’s military strategy, solve “all of the Major mathematical, physical, chemical, biological, sociological, philosophical, etymological, meteorological and psychological problems of the Universe except his own, three times over”, and compose a number of lullabies.

Taken from the Wikipedia page “Marvin the Paranoid Android”

In the series Marvin is abandoned my his crew on a planet. He waited patiently for 576,000,003,579 years (he counted them) for them to return. The story of Marvin is told further in the second book of the series titled “The Restaurant at the End of the Universe”. Milliways, the name of the Restuarant at the End of the Universe, can only be visited practically by means of time travel, as it exists only at the end of time and matter. Marvin is the only character who manages to reach Milliways without the use of time travel, merely by being very patient. After waiting millions and millions of years, Marvin reaches the Restaurant at the End of the Universe and then time travels back in history to meet back up with his crew, but is now 3 times older than the universe himself.

We chose to name our company using these Pop Culture references for a variety of reasons.

• Radiohead is a major influential band in the life of the founder.
• Patience is one important characteristic that is often overlooked in today’s busy world.
• The comical story of Marvin and his life relate directly to maintenance, restaurants, and equipment.
• The Restaurant at the End of the Universe is a concept that combines entrepreneurship with Pop Culture relevant to the industry.
• We really enjoy Pop Culture, great music, science fiction, and just finding fun ways to make normal mundane tasks exciting.
• Wouldn’t you like to see Paranoid Android take your business to the Restaurant at the End of the Universe?

You can find the Pop Culture references in our Company Logo.

The Hitchhikers thumb and planet was used for the Motion Picture.

The Star and Circle is used by Douglas Adams in his sequel book.