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.

Please click here if you’re interested in Bulk Orders or Translations.

Want more updates? Follow @EricJorgenson on Twitter for quotes, stories, and more.

 
 

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.

Balaji Srinivasan photo
 

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.

Eric Jorgenson photo
 

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

Building What Money Can’t Buy

Faster, Better, and Cheaper

Value Creation Comes from Technology

Unlocking Unseen Value

More Technology; More Progress

The Impact of Technology

Technology Lowers Prices

Technology Is the Driving Force of History

Technology Determines Political Order

From Centralized to Decentralized

Our Digital Future

Physical, Then Digital, Then Native Digital

The Blockchain Disruption

Technology to Create Alignment

The Digital Frontier

All Value Becomes Digital

Our Physical Future

Automation Delivers Abundance

Self-Measure to Live Forever

Not Life Extension, Youth Extension

Transhumanism: Self-Improvement with Technology

Part II - Truth

The Types of Truth

Scientific Truth

Technical Truth

Political Truth

Economic Truth

Cryptographic Truth

Protecting the Truth

Modern Media Is Misaligned with Truth

You Are What You See

The True Nature of Legacy Media

The NYT Said Rockets Could Never Work

Media Has Its Own Motives

How to Realign Media

Creating High-Value Media

Media Driven by the Reader’s Benefit

Aligning Incentives for Writers

Building a Fact-Based Media

How Media Gets Us to Mars

Building a Better Truth Machine

Social Media Is a Huge Vat of Brains

How New Technologies Shape Communication

The Future of Media is Decentralized

Creating Pre-Narrative News

Separating Facts from Narratives

Becoming Citizen Journalists

Joining a New Media Community

Part III - Building the Future

Believing

Adopt a Mindset of Abundance

Creating Your Own Wealth

Your Simple Formula for Financial Independence

Starting Small

Finding a Frontier

Bad Leaders Divide. Great Leaders Create.

Don’t Argue. Build.

Founding

Researching

Ideating

Validating

Engineering

Launching

Hiring

Managing

Growing

Executing

Surviving

Evolving

The Productivity Playbook

Sustain a High Output Over the Long Term

Learning to Learn Well

Learn to Think in Multiple Ways

Build Broadly Applicable Skills

Invest in the Future You Want to See