The NYT Catches Up to The Nerd Reich
The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy remained on the New York Times bestseller list for a third straight week. Thank you to all who bought the book. Please keep spreading the word—it’s working! Don’t have it yet? Buy it wherever books are sold. Click here for online options.
Tech fascism may finally be getting the attention it deserves.
This weekend, the New York Times featured two major pieces on the subject. It’s validating to see the mainstream media catching up to the alarm I sounded in 2024—an alarm I expanded on in The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy, which experienced another surge in sales over the weekend.
Up first, this interview with Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor about their forthcoming book, End Times Fascism and the Fight for the Living World (publishes Sept. 15).
Says Taylor:
It’s important to note that far-right ideology has a long history in Silicon Valley. It didn’t start at the second inauguration.
A figure like Peter Thiel has been cultivating that worldview alongside David Sacks by investing in promoting a certain philosophical paradigm. In 2009, he wrote an article that is pretty famous for good reason, that basically says democracy and freedom are incompatible, staking his claim that if he has to choose between democracy and capitalism, he’d choose the latter.
We talk in the book about a conference that Thiel’s venture capital firm hosted just before the election in 2024 that was called Hereticon, “a conference for thought crime.” And the tagline was: “Maybe if you aren’t trying to destroy the world, you aren’t trying hard enough.” We’ve been wrestling with how to talk about what they say because some of it is so nuts that you sound a little kooky quoting them.
Read the entire interview at this gift link: “Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor Say the End of the World Is Now on the Table.”
Meanwhile, columnist Michelle Goldberg writes that Silicon Valley’s oligarchs are pitching apocalypse as a strategy.
She observes that tech billionaires are building a “quasi-religion,” highlighting Peter Thiel’s Antichrist lectures and Marc Andreessen’s “Techno Optimist Manifesto” as key texts. And she warns that tech billionaires have begun to view themselves as superior beings who deserve to control the future:
Some imagine themselves as digitally enabled Übermenschen. In 2023, the billionaire tech investor Marc Andreessen published “The Techno-Optimist Manifesto,” with a section titled, “Becoming Technological Supermen.” In it, he borrowed language from the Italian futurist — and fascist — Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, writing, “Technology must be a violent assault on the forces of the unknown, to force them to bow before man.” He quoted Friedrich Nietzsche to argue that absent such an assault, life becomes meaningless and small. In a section titled “The Enemy,” Andreessen listed ideas that would restrain technology’s momentum, including “tech ethics” and the concept of “existential risk.”
Click here for a gift link to read “Why Tech Oligarchs Are Willing to Risk Apocalypse.”
It’s amazing to see this story breaking through. A lot of establishment media and political types are still keeping their heads in the sand on this issue. But it’s going to become harder and harder to ignore. I believe the betrayal of American democracy by a radicalized cabal of its wealthiest citizens is one of the most important stories of our time.
The goal of this little newsletter has always been to challenge these billionaires and push this story into the light. When I started writing about this in 2024, a lot of people looked at me like I had three heads. But here we are in 2026...my book is on the bestseller list and tech fascism is a hot topic.
We were a little ahead of the curve, but the momentum is growing. If you haven’t already, please help fan the flames by purchasing The Nerd Reich book today!
Remember: your purchase is a vote to make the politicians and the press talk about this. This moment is our best chance to get the message out—and we can’t miss it.
