Book Profile

“This transfixing debut from journalist Durán investigates the antidemocratic ideologies espoused by tech billionaires linked to the second Trump administration...It’s an ominous look at an insular elite arrayed against American democracy.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) A fearless and urgent chronicle of the tech-authoritarian movement from its early days in San Francisco politics to its current moment on the international stage, exploring the wild and dystopian ambition of the technocrats at its center, and offering a road map to resistance. When Silicon Valley says it is ‘‘moving fast and breaking things,’’ the world interprets the chaos as a necessary cost of innovation. Gil Durán reveals something far more sinister: a decades-long campaign to replace elected governments with corporate rule. Drawing on insider political experience and new investigations, Durán traces this ideology from its philosophical roots in The Sovereign Individual by James Dale Davidson and Lord William Rees-Mogg. He introduces its modern apostles—Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen, Balaji Srinivasan, and Elon Musk—and shows how the promise of technological liberation has transformed into a global movement for digital feudalism, powered by cryptocurrency, artificial intelligence, and the algorithmic propaganda of social media. The Nerd Reich explains the origins, strategies, and ambitions of Silicon Valley’s war on democracy for the first time. From San Francisco’s weaponized elections and secret billionaire projects to the White House, Durán exposes how the world’s richest men are building a new political order. The Nerd Reich is more than a hidden history, it’s an urgent warning: democracy is being dismantled not by coups or tanks, but by code, capital, and the illusion of innovation. Durán insists there is still time to fight back—if we act now.