Those who try to
downplay Balaji’s importance in Silicon Valley often portray him as a “clown.”
But Donald Trump taught us that clowns can be dangerous, especially those with
proximity to influence and power. In the nearly 11 years since his
secession speech at Y Combinator, Balaji’s politics have become even more
stridently authoritarian and extremist, yet he remains a celebrated figure in
key circles.
He has one million followers on X-Twitter, where Musk regularly boosts
him. Tim Ferriss and Lex Fridman, two influential podcasters, have interviewed him.
“Balaji is a friend of mine and is neither a dumbshit nor a clown,” tweeted
economics blogger Noah Smith last June,
defending Balaji from critics. Alex Lieberman, co-founder of the Morning Brew
newsletter, recently listed Balaji at the top of what appears to be his
ranked wish list of guests for an upcoming How to Start a Startup podcast
(Musk and Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg ranked sixth and fourteenth, respectively).
Last week, he headlined Token2049, a sold-out
conference in Dubai that bills itself as the “premier crypto event.”
Even
more disturbing, however, is Balaji’s tight connection with Tan, the Y
Combinator CEO who has publicly aligned himself with the Network State for
years. “I legit believe [Y Combinator] is a prototype model for what @balajis talks
about when he says the Network State,” wrote Tan in
August 2022, shortly before he was named CEO. Over the past two years, as Musk
has transformed Twitter into a right-wing information weapon, Tan has used the
platform, along with his bully pulpit at Y Combinator, to wage all-out war for
political control of San Francisco. This fits with Balaji’s recommendation
that, as an alternative to forming new cities, tech zillionaires can use
elections to seize existing governments.