Cyberselfish Author Paulina Borsook Returns as Book Resurfaces
Long out of print, Paulina Borsook’s critical look at Silicon Valley culture is finding new life as readers seek to understand the tech industry's ideological roots.
Radwan AbdulhadiEditor and technology writer
The Return of a Silicon Valley Critique
Books about technology frequently struggle to age well amid rapid industry shifts, but past warnings about Silicon Valley are finding a receptive modern audience. Last year, “Nerd Reich” author Gil Durán declared that it was time to revive the career of Paulina Borsook, noting she tried to warn observers decades ago. Following that sentiment, The New York Times reported that Borsook’s book was attracting new readers interested in why the tech industry lost its way.
Originally published in 2000 and long out of print, “Cyberselfish” is returning in a new edition from Tin House, featuring a new introduction by Durán. Borsook explained in an interview that the work serves almost as a travelogue documenting her attempts to understand techno-libertarian influences within Silicon Valley culture.
Examining Techno-Libertarianism
Reflecting on the ideology prevalent in tech circles, Borsook characterized the mindset as a heavily anti-regulation worldview. She pointed out the contradiction that no sector of society has benefited more and suffered less from government support than the tech industry. Despite dot-com crashes and shifting market conditions, that underlying attitude persisted and spread across the culture.
Following the original release of her book, Borsook noted that public interest dried up for years. However, she eventually noticed climbing prices for used copies on the secondary market and unexpected social media posts praising the book's insights. Inquiries from European academics eventually sparked additional press coverage and paved the way for the new publication.
Origins in the Bay Area
Borsook's journey into observing tech culture began inadvertently after she started exploring Bay Area tech circles in the early-middle 1980s. Hearing unusual offhand remarks in the early 1990s, she began tracking a distinct libertarian mindset. Having grown up around the Caltech-JPL space program in Pasadena, she was already familiar with a STEM culture that maintained a clear understanding of the positive role government can play.
When she began working with an agent after earning her MFA at Columbia, she was asked if she had a nonfiction book in her. She pointed to the peculiar subculture she was observing, which led her down the rabbit hole of documenting the phenomenon through snapshots rather than standard polemics.
Factions Within Tech Culture
Rather than viewing Silicon Valley as a monolithic entity, Borsook emphasizes its multicultural nature—referring not to countries of origin, but to distinct subcultures operating in parallel. In her book, she famously distinguished between 'Ravers' and 'Gilders,' naming the latter after conservative thought leader George Gilder, and the former in homage to figures like John Perry Barlow.
Borsook notes that this cultural division persists today in contemporary Silicon Valley, where Christian nationalists and conservative Catholics share space with Burners, experimental lifestyles, and the effective altruism and AI communities. While regional electoral politics on the San Francisco peninsula continue to lean blue, the cultural mindset of the tech leadership class remains a distinct phenomenon.
Sources
- TechCrunch‘Cyberselfish’ author takes aim at Silicon Valley libertarianism as her book returns from the dead
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