Tech, crypto, politics, and corruption. Buy my book on the rise of the tech right: https://bookshop.org/p/books/gilded-rage-elon-musk-and-the-radicalization-of-silicon-valley-jacob-silverman/22121783. Click to read Jacob Silverman, a Substack publication with thousands of subscribers.
Gilded Rage
A PUBLISHERS WEEKLY BEST BOOK OF 2025A FINANCIAL TIMES BEST BOOK OF 2025'Makes a convincing case for how tech became radicalized' BLOOMBERGWhat happens if the w…
The scent of Musk: Power, charisma and paranoia in Silicon Valley
The Anti-Intellectualism of Silicon Valley Elites
I recently re-read Richard Hofstadter's Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, and now every time a reactionary Silicon Valley billionaire opens his mouth, I think about it. So I wrote about it for The Nation. Here's the column: On Instagram, there’s an activist named Brian Patrick (@pano.
The Next Frontier: Sam Altman on the Future of A.I. and Society
The Rest Is Advertising | Jacob Silverman
The truth, after all, is that there is money in journalism. It’s just woefully misallocated, doled out according to a stars-and-scrubs model. . .
Books — Sharon Weinberger
Drawing on deep, exclusive reporting, a veteran national security correspondent reveals how a new military-industrial complex is arising from the cradle of Silicon Valley, with vast implications for American democracy and the global balance of power.Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and Alexander Karp. These tech titans are fast becoming some of the most powerful figures in the realm of national security, with enormous implications for us all. As Sharon Weinberger reveals in this gripping account, the American military and spy agencies helped to create Silicon Valley as we now know it, and some of its biggest and most valuable companies today owe much of their success to the Pentagon and CIA. Beginning with the War on Terror and accelerating under Donald Trump, however, the old alliance between elected leaders in Washington and the unelected CEOs of Silicon Valley has grown increasingly uneasy as power has shifted to the private sector and Big Tech exerts greater and greater influence over its old patrons. Companies such as SpaceX and Palantir, along with newer entrants to the field such as Anduril, are proudly supporting—and quietly shaping—US national defense, whether by providing spies and soldiers with AI and cloud-computing tools or actual military hardware such as microwave weapons, hypersonic missiles, and advanced drones. The implications of this historic shift are poorly understood and fraught with peril. What happens when mercurial billionaires like Elon Musk control weapons and technologies that were once the preserve of the US government? How will this new military-industrial complex affect the way wars are fought, or even which wars are fought? That is the urgent question before us today, at the dawn of this new era—and as Weinberger reveals, it is one on which our collective future might well hinge.
Silicon Valley got what it wanted
It's not just Elon Musk. It's a new day for deregulation, crypto, and tech companies cozying up to Trump.
A forty-year career.
The Silicon Valley narrative centers on entrepreneurial protagonists who are poised one predestined step away from changing the world. A decade ago they were heroes, and more recently they’ve become villains, but either way they are absolutely the protagonists. Working within the industry, I’ve worked with quite a few non-protagonists who experience their time in technology differently: a period of obligatory toil required to pry open the gate to the American Dream.
When Silicon Valley’s AI warriors came to Washington
Effective altruism is increasingly described as a cult. But as the movement’s billionaire adherents pour money into D.C., its obsession with the AI apocalypse is remaking the capital’s tech policy landscape.
How Elon Musk and the Tech Billionaires Hijacked the State and Our Minds
Historian Quinn Slobodian tells Byline Times that Elon Musk's rise tells a deeper story—of fortunes built on state power, and a new politics where humans are treated less as citizens than as systems to be optimised
‘If we don’t fight back, we don’t have a future’: the journalist taking on the ‘tech fascists’ of Silicon Valley
As Elon Musk, Peter Thiel and their peers have grown richer and more influential, Gil Durán argues they have all but abandoned democracy – and found the perfect government to enable them
‘Founder as Victim, Founder as God’: Peter Thiel, Elon Musk and the two bodies of the entrepreneur
Silicon Valley’s tech moguls have increasing political ambitions, as spectacularly illustrated by Peter Thiel’s and Elon Musk’s involvements in the US 2022 midterm elections and 2024 presidential e...
Harnessing Collective Intelligence better than LLMs w/ Sean Geobey
Cryptocurrencies with Tim Ferriss, Nick Szabo and Naval Ravikant
An incredible deep dive into the world of Bitcoin, Etherium, ICOs and more with an expert, a passionate learner and a novice.
The Irrational Decision: How We Gave Computers the Power to Choose for Us | Critical AI | Duke University Press
Jathan Sadowski is an associate professor in the Faculty of Information Technology at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. He is the author of two books on technology and capitalism, Too Smart (2020) and The Mechanic and the Luddite (2025). He also cohosts the podcast This Machine Kills.