The Nerd Reich

One thing the billionaires are really good at is imagining the future. And their future is very grave for most of us. But we also have to seize that power of imagination. A lot of these billionaires are imagining a future without us because we won't have jobs, we won't have roles in the world. So I think it's fair to imagine a future without billionaires, which would reduce this existential threat we face from within our own country.

–Gil Durán, author of The Nerd Reich

I discovered Gil's newsletter "The Nerd Reich" about a year ago and find it both fascinating and terrifying. It's become one of my must reads. Duran tracks the rise of anti-democracy politics coming out of Silicon Valley with a focus on tech authoritarianism, billionaire extremism and the Network State movement. The core thesis is that a small circle of Silicon Valley billionaires and venture capitalists have concluded that democracy is an obstacle and they should be governing in its place.

He's built the case for how people like Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen, Balaji Srinivasan, Curtis Yarvin and Elon Musk have fed ideas like accelerationism, "network states" and privately run cities feed into a broader push for corporate rule over elected government.

Now it's a book: "The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy," out August 18, 2026. I'm picking up a copy. You should too.