Quote:Picture this: A loosely organized cabal of obscenely wealthy tech moguls aim to overthrow democracy and replace it with a corporatist dictatorship. It would make for a good political thriller. It’s a far grimmer read in nonfiction.

Gil Duran, a journalist and former aide to Jerry Brown, Dianne Feinstein, and Kamala Harris, has spent the last two years tracking extremist strains of authoritarianism in Silicon Valley through his newsletter, The Nerd Reich.

That premise is now the central thesis of a new book. “The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy (opens in new tab),” out Aug. 18, catalogs the rise of what Duran characterizes as an ideological movement meant to overthrow liberal democracy and replace it with a tech-led oligarchy.

Quote:People often give me credit for coming up with it, but I didn’t. After I wrote a story about Balaji Srinivasan (opens in new tab), which went super viral, he started attacking me for several days. Then a pretty well-known figure from the crypto world reached out to me over DM and said, “You know, we’ve been calling these guys the Nerd Reich for years.” And I was like, “What?” The URL was available, so I rebranded my newsletter as the Nerd Reich and announced it in dramatic fashion.

To me, the most important thing is that this is not a name I came up with. This is a name their own peers use. They are telling people what they are doing. They want people to know because they’re evangelizing to bring in more believers.