Fascism

Garry Tan Called Me a ‘Parasite.’ Now I'm in a Book

Gil Duran

12 Oct 2025 — 3 min read

Yesterday, I received my copy of Gilded Rage: Elon Musk and the Radicalization of Silicon Valley. The new book by journalist Jacob Silverman tells how Musk and his fellow tech billionaires became right-wing zealots, teaming up with Trump in a project to destroy American democracy.

I encourage you to buy it and read it—immediately! Of course, I'm biased, since The Nerd Reich newsletter gets a nice cameo in the book. Silverman tells the story of my early battles with San Francisco’s new breed of far-right tech figures.

In a memorable episode, Y Combinator President Garry Tan was so upset by my work that he called me names and spread fake rumors about me.

From Gilded Rage:

As Duran’s work began to circulate more, [Garry] Tan, writing on X, asked: who was paying this guy? The writer Susan Dyer Reynolds suggested—through a circuitous series of connections that defied space and time—that Duran was being paid by George Soros. “Interesting,” replied Tan, who had called Duran a “parasite,” “pathetic,” and “an unserious clickbait blogger.”

The book also details how Network State guru Balaji Srinivasan accused me of being at the center of “a vast web of influence and money.” Unfortunately for me, these alleged riches were nothing but tech bro paranoia and disinformation. My work was funded completely by my savings account and a few early subscribers to a newsletter “cheekily named The Nerd Reich.”

Writes Silverman:

As Duran admitted to me at the time, his newsletter had three paid subscribers.

(THANK YOU to those early readers who cared enough to throw money behind this project! And if you’re not a paid subscriber yet, click here to join us—because your support truly matters!)

But seriously: If enough people buy Jacob’s book, we can do something like a special online book club Q&A. If you buy it at this Bookshop link, you can support independent bookstores AND the Nerd Reich newsletter. The book is also available at bookstores nationwide and, of course, on sites like Amazon.

When you buy a book, you vote for the kind of world you want to see. Together, we must show that there’s an audience for work that exposes the treachery of Silicon Valley.