Last month, venture capitalist Balaji Srinivasan announced the Network School, a three-month learning retreat aimed at people interested in “network nations,” a kind of utopia for the anarcho-capitalist set. The first class is 150 strong. It starts today.
Details about the school have been kept secret, even from applicants. Aspiring Network School participants have paid deposits of up to $2,000 without even knowing the location of the Network School. Srinivasan has yet to make it public, though social media posts and WIRED reporting indicate it is Forest City, Malaysia.
The Network School is one of the most ambitious projects yet for those interested in creating what Srinivasan calls a “decentralized country.” The goal is for people dissatisfied with their own societies to unite and create a movement that creates “parallel” societies, special economic zones with alternative education systems, media institutions and currencies — as well as tax laws that favor prosperity. A crucial step is having physical territory, and the Network School is meeting that bar. On Sunday, Srinivasan said he’s working on “building out the real estate” with the goal of “scaling the school.”
While Srinivasan has yet to publicly disclose the location of the Network School, he has been more vocal about the values he wants students to adhere to. According to his Substack post introducing the Network School, these requirements include an admiration for “Western values,” seeing Bitcoin as the successor to the US Federal Reserve, and trusting AI over human courts and judges.
“It’s for those who believe in technology, harmony, internationalism, and capitalism,” Srinivasan’s Substack post reads. “It’s for those who want Silicon Valley without San Francisco.”
Srinivasan added that the school is open to artists, athletes and engineers from all countries.
When applying to the school, people are asked to rate a series of things in different categories on a scale of negative 10 (not favorable) to positive 10 (favorable). Topics include “protocols” like Solana and Bitcoin maximalism, “politics” like Karl Marx and Jordan Peterson, “technology” like AI acceleration and military technology, “places” like Dubai and Israel, “culture” like tattoos and traditional masculinity and femininity, “policy” like Drag Queen Story Hour and carbon credits, and “progress” like artificial general intelligence and space exploration.
Several people on X and Reddit said they were accepted to Network School and were told they had to pay their first month’s rent in advance within two business days of being accepted, or risk losing their spot. The time pressure and not knowing exactly where they would be staying caused stress for some.
One techie who was accepted into the Network School tells WIRED he agrees with the school's premise, but that sending money without knowing key details was a step too far.
“I talked to some friends about it and they said, ‘Wow, that sounds really questionable,’ and I thought, ‘Yeah, you're right,'” said the applicant, who asked to remain anonymous due to privacy concerns.
As for day-to-day life at Network School, Srinivasan says in his Substack post that students will solve daily problems in mini-classrooms. These involve a combination of coding and posting to social media, and earn “proof-of-learning” NFTs upon completion. Srinivasan says students can also compete for daily “crypto prizes” worth $1,000 “for open-source projects, AI content creation, and microtasks.”
