A tech founder wanted to start a new country. An existing country stood in his way
Balaji Srinivasan left Silicon Valley and set up an incubator for new countries in an Asian ghost town, until the government shut the project down.
Tech entrepreneur Balaji Srinivasan believes the U.S. is sliding into anarchy. His solution: start a new country from scratch.
Srinivasan left Silicon Valley and, as a first step, tried to establish a competing tech community in Asia. He set up a complex that included co-working spaces, a high-end gym, and meals designed by longevity expert Bryan Johnson. He also surveyed applicants for admission, testing their views on topics like politics and pronatalism—the pro-high-birthrate philosophy he promotes.
“Bryan Johnson wants to live forever. Sam Altman wants to build a super-AI. Elon wants to go to Mars,” Srinivasan said in a recently published podcast. “I just want to start a new country.”
The setting for this experiment was as surreal as it was ambitious: a hotel in a $100 billion luxury complex built by a Chinese company in Malaysia that has become a nearly empty ghost town.
Now, two years after it launched, his vision, known as the “Network School,” has collided with reality. Participants complained about moldy rooms, poor nightlife, and a lack of women—a shortcoming well known from Silicon Valley. And then came an even bigger obstacle: the country they were living in.
Malaysian authorities launched an investigation into the project’s residents after an Instagram post claimed it was housing citizens from Israel. Malaysia, which is majority-Muslim, does not officially recognize Israel and requires Israelis to obtain special permission to enter the country. Authorities said that so far, no evidence of lawbreaking has been found.
But last week, the local government ordered the project to close due to licensing issues unrelated to the incident. Within hours, Srinivasan announced on social media that he had signed an agreement to open a campus in Kazakhstan.
