A Guide to Technology, Truth, and Building the Future
This book is a guide to thinking for yourself, seeing possible futures, and learning how to build a piece of the future. By reading this book, you might pick the next great investment, start a billion-dollar company, or start an entirely new country.
“Balaji has the highest 'good idea output rate' of anyone I know. This anthology compiles his insights in one place.”
- Marc Andreessen, co-founder, Netscape and Andreessen Horowitz
Balaji Srinivasan is a brilliant entrepreneur, investor, and futurist. Applying his unique perspective will help you see opportunities, identify breakthrough technologies, and build something tremendous.
Want to sit with Balaji and spend a few hours deep in conversation to absorb all of his biggest ideas?
That’s exactly what this book feels like. It has all of the most useful and timeless ideas from tweets, podcasts, and essays across his entire career.
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Balaji Srinivasan
Balaji Srinivasan (@balajis) is an angel investor and entrepreneur. Formerly the CTO of Coinbase and General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, he was also the co-founder of Earn.com (acquired by Coinbase), Counsyl (acquired by Myriad), Teleport (acquired by Topia), and Coin Center.
Balaji recently published The Network State, a book that explains how to advance humanity and technology through a new frontier of distributed countries.
Eric Jorgenson
Writer, Builder, and Investor. CEO of Scribe Media. Creator of the Almanack of Naval Ravikant, which sold over one million copies. GP at Rolling Fun, an early-stage investment fund.
His business blog has educated and entertained more than one million readers since 2014. On a quest to create—and eat—the perfect sandwich.
Jack Butcher
Our Illustrator. Designer by trade, Jack retired from a short career in corporate advertising to spend most of the day on Twitter, building design studio & media brand Visualize Value.
He is a renowned digital artist whose work has moved millions, been auctioned at Christie’s, and is celebrated worldwide.
Table of Contents
We designed this book to be useful even if you only ever read the Table of Contents. Skim this, and it will show you the breadth of ideas in this book, and what you will learn in reading it.
Part I - Technology
The Value of Technology
Value Creation Comes from Technology
More Technology; More Progress
The Impact of Technology
Technology Is the Driving Force of History
Technology Determines Political Order
From Centralized to Decentralized
Our Digital Future
Physical, Then Digital, Then Native Digital
Technology to Create Alignment
Our Physical Future
Not Life Extension, Youth Extension
Transhumanism: Self-Improvement with Technology
Part II - Truth
Modern Media Is Misaligned with Truth
The True Nature of Legacy Media
The NYT Said Rockets Could Never Work
How to Realign Media
Media Driven by the Reader’s Benefit
Aligning Incentives for Writers
Building a Better Truth Machine
Social Media Is a Huge Vat of Brains
How New Technologies Shape Communication
The Future of Media is Decentralized
Separating Facts from Narratives
Part III - Building the Future
Believing
Your Simple Formula for Financial Independence
Bad Leaders Divide. Great Leaders Create.
Evolving
Sustain a High Output Over the Long Term
Learn to Think in Multiple Ways