Balaji Srinivasan

Former CTO of Coinbase, Independent

Search every verified Balaji Srinivasan interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Balaji Srinivasan has been promoting his concept of the "network state" and its practical manifestation, the Network School in Forest City, Malaysia. In multiple podcast appearances, he described the network state as an opt-in, internet-based alternative to traditional governance, arguing that institutions designed before the internet "won't survive the internet." He stated that the Network School represents a way to "materialize the cloud upon the land" and "print out a community and actually make it cool." During a tour of the facility, he noted that it hosts people from over 100 nations and includes amenities such as meals, housing, Wi-Fi, and a gym. Srinivasan also discussed broader geopolitical and technological themes. He characterized the United States as being in a "long emergency of emergencies" and suggested that the "internet is the successor to American empire." He argued that the U.S. has "193.6 trillion in unfunded Medicare and Social Security promises." On technology, he outlined a vision for "personal, private, and programmable" decentralized apps using open-weight AI models and locally installed crypto wallets, and he predicted that public blockchains will become the most secure backends because they have "a public billion-dollar bug bounty on them."