Saturday night’s event, which was billed as a look at “the changing global political order” and technologists’ place in it, wasn’t quite as disastrous as President Joseph Biden’s appearance in the first debate. But as duds go, it came close.
Almost 900 people registered for a live Q&A with Balaji Srinivasan, the venture capitalist with one million followers on X who has advocated for sovereign and tech-governed territories around the world called “Network States.” But instead of an inspiring or provocative vision of the future, the audience got more of a huckster, pitching Bitcoin as a TV salesman might sell donut machines on QVC.
“Bitcoin, if it wins, completely changes the world, because it changes the government of centralized states to do what they’ve been doing,” said Srinivasan, mentioning Bitcoin almost three dozen times in 60 minutes. At one point, he said the cryptocurrency was so important that it might be the cause of a new civil war in the United States: Some states would attempt “Bitcoin seizures,” and others would become “Bitcoin sanctuaries,” he said.
It was just as well that his audience ended up being closer to 300 people, only a third of the expected attendance.
“I follow him on Twitter. I know what he has to say,” said Rob Leclerc, a venture capitalist at San Francisco-based AgFunder. “I think there’s several fundamental flaws in his assumptions, which make it fall apart.”
Jeremy Sherman, who has a Ph.D. in evolutionary and decision science and came with a friend, said, “He’s just like Trump,” and explained that anyone can paint a positive picture of the future, but that Srinivasan’s lacks substance.
“It sounds really pretty, and the details aren’t there. It’s like, ‘Let’s Make America Great Again.’ Sounds really pretty,” he added.
In a 20-minute “movie” that featured Srinivasan sitting at a beige table in front of a mic — the same setting as his four-hour podcast calling for “tech Zionism” — the VC went back and forth between what the world was like “back then” and what it is like now: Then, the western frontier closed; now, the internet frontier has opened. Then, the United States shipped goods to China; now, China ships to us. Then, journalists defeated industrialists; now, tech founders beat journalists. Then, you had a white man ruling over India; now, an Indian man is the prime minister of the United Kingdom.
The collection of examples was a hodgepodge, and the throughline between them was confused. If there was a central thesis, it is that the world increased in centralization and westernization in the first half of the 20th century, and that economic power moved away from the West and decentralized in the second half. Bitcoin, Srinivasan said, would be key to this decentralization, though exactly how was unclear.
To Sherman, the pitch was like someone who “wants to start his own lifestyle brand … It’s just like, ‘I’ve got a vision of the future. I’m going to be Moses, and I’ll lead us to the promised land.’”
Safe to say that, after Saturday’s event, Srinivasan may have lost some followers.
The evening had been billed as a showing of “Technodemocracy,” a documentary produced and narrated by Srinivasan. Then there would be a live interchange with the wunderkind. So many guests signed up in late June that the event was moved from Gray Area in San Francisco to the Loom in Oakland.
The event was the finale of Deep Tech Week, and guests were hyped. During the week, some 6,500 people attending 42 events heard that “the future is being built in San Francisco.” Srinivasan was at the top of its speakers list.
Hundreds of attendees packed a warehouse-turned-events-space in West Oakland, with a bedazzled stilt walker greeting the long line that formed around a sign reading “The future is here.” Inside, guests were treated to white-washed brick walls, pink-and-purple neon lights, and fog machines; the atmosphere was more akin to a rave than a tech talk, as was the case at other events for the technology week.
Attendees could get soft drinks or beer at the bar, or take a drink of liquor from a woman wearing a plastic tutu, which held shot glasses around her body.
“We’re one step closer to this beautiful future where we bring so much abundance to the world … It’s the counterforce to doomerism,” said the moderator as he introduced what he called “a beautiful film” to cheers and whistles.
But instead of a documentary, baffled audience members watched a 20-minute webinar recording in which Srinivasan presented slides. Bitcoin was front and center.
“Is that the movie?” one participant asked to no one in particular.
“I don’t know,” other audience members whispered.
Some in the audience began to leave, making the already half-empty venue even emptier.
“What did you think? Did we learn a lot?” the moderator asked, eliciting a few isolated claps.
Hundreds of attendees packed a warehouse-turned-events-space in West Oakland, with a bedazzled stilt walker greeting the long line that formed around a sign reading “The future is here.” Photo by Yujie Zhou, June 29, 2024. 
The crowd at an afterparty following the Balaji Srinivasan event. Photo by Yujie Zhou, June 29, 2024.
“I’m super disappointed. I did not clap,” said one woman who works in engineering and consulting in an interview after the event.
“Deep Tech Week has been absolutely phenomenal. I was blown away by every single event that I’ve attended. This is why I came to this event,” the woman continued. As for this event, “I knew it was going to be a movie. I knew it was going to be polarizing, and it was gonna be political, and I might not agree with everything that’s gonna be said. But it was a fucking webinar recorded from 2023.”
The live Q&A was, instead, a Zoom call.
Srinivasan, a former partner at venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and former chief technology officer of Coinbase, who is allegedly based in Singapore, conducted the Q&A through a free Zoom account with a 40-minute time limit. Srinivasan left seconds before the timer hit zero.
Sitting in front of a shelf holding plastic plants, a globe, and his book “The Network State,” he showed little to no facial expression as he went through slide after slide or answered the audience’s questions. More than a dozen men and one woman lined up to ask the VC more about his talk.
What would be his advice for a future U.S. president? one participant asked. “The right answer is going to be something more like the internet first than America first,” said Srinivasan.
Some of Srinivasan’s fans remained firm, “I’ve followed Balaji for years now. He always has things to say. This [event] is a no-brainer for me to sign up for,” the fan said.
A woman who came with her boyfriend said Srinivasan “has a point.” Her boyfriend, whose background is in economics, said he shared Srinivasan’s belief in the internet, but conceded that “‘internet first’ is a little early.”
This is hilarious – as absurd as any satire. Thanks for bringing us this story.
The writing is worthy of Joe Eskenazi.
“What’s it called?…
MonoraiI!”