I became interested in tech’s growing social and political influence, and the values driving its behavior, after noticing a change in sentiment in the early 2020s. Tech had shifted from primarily building and funding startups to building movements and engaging with public institutions. I wanted to understand why this was happening from a systems perspective; key events that drove this change; and how tech’s story rhymes with prior historical industry wealth booms.
This project was initially funded thanks to an Emergent Ventures grant, with additional sponsors along the way. I co-organized a seminar on this topic at the Sloan Foundation’s offices in fall 2024, sponsored by Cosmos Ventures.
Writing
- Rewriting the Californian Ideology // American Affairs; May 19, 2025, about why Silicon Valley is neither libertarian, progressive, or conservative
- Playing with Guns (And Phones) // Arena; July 31, 2024, about why tech is strangely avoidant of national debates about the harms of social media
- Tech Strikes Back // The New Atlantis; Winter 2024, about effective accelerationism as a reaction against years of doom and gloom in Silicon Valley
- Remembering GitHub’s Office, a Monument to Tech Culture // Wired; May 28, 2023, about lavish startup offices of the 2010s and what they stood for
- Silicon Valley’s Civil War // Tablet Magazine; May 14, 2023, about the clash between tech’s “counterelites” and existing social institutions
- Explaining tech’s notion of talent scarcity // April 25, 2023, about how tech companies define talent differently from other companies
- A Bank of One’s Own // March 11, 2023, about the Silicon Valley Bank crisis and what SVB means to tech
- Silicon or Carbon? // The Point; Feb 22, 2023, about Balaji Srinivasan’s network state and the American spirit
- Early stage funding markets for science - an analysis // Jan 23, 2023, a deep dive into three new science funding mechanisms, driven primarily by tech and crypto funders
- Mapping out the tribes of climate // Nov 30, 2022, about how the climate movement is fragmenting into distinct tribes, and where they overlap with tech culture
- Idea machines // May 12, 2022, about the limitations of effective altruism, and why philanthropic foundations are less fashionable than movement building in tech
- Out of the valley // March 16, 2022, about how tech is transforming from business industry to a system of values
- Understanding science funding in tech, 2011-2021 // March 2, 2022, about how tech funders think about science philanthropy
Podcasts
- “Trump’s election syncs up with tech backlash against gloom and guilt” // Marketplace Tech, January 21, 2025 (Spotify, Apple, website)
- “Silicon Valley’s Civil War with Nadia Asparouhova” // Moment of Zen, June 10, 2023 (Spotify, Apple)
- “Mapping Digital Tribes with Nadia Asparouhova” // Green Pill, April 11, 2023 (YouTube, Spotify, Apple)
- “Nadia Asparouhova - Tech Elites, Democracy, Open Source, & Philanthropy” // Dwarkesh Podcast, December 15, 2022 (YouTube, Spotify, Apple)
- “Nadia Asparouhova: on public goods & peer production” // Into the Bytecode, August 31, 2022 (YouTube, Spotify, Apple)
- “Nadia Asparouhova: Future Of Philanthropy, Science Funding, Creator Economy, Family Stories” // Ben Yeoh Chats, June 13, 2022 (Spotify, website)
- “Exploring how technology collides with politics, culture and society” // Thoughts in Between, March 21, 2022 (Spotify, Apple)