Policy & Regulation
Malaysia reportedly shuts down Balaji Srinivasan's Network School
Malaysia has reportedly ordered the shutdown of Balaji Srinivasan's Network School, a startup community he framed as the first step toward building a new, techno-optimist country.
The Malaysian government has reportedly ordered the shutdown of the Network School, a startup-centric community founded by entrepreneur and investor Balaji Srinivasan, according to the Wall Street Journal. Billing itself as “a frontier community for techno-optimists,” the Network School grew out of Srinivasan’s conviction that the United States is in irreversible decline; Srinivasan has said his goal is to start a new country.
The Network School is meant to represent the first step in a seven-stage plan — outlined in Srinivasan’s book “The Network State” — for building a new society. Based in an abandoned Malaysian hotel, the program has been described by the WSJ as part tech incubator, part self-improvement retreat. Attendees, however, complained about moldy rooms as well as a lack of women and nightlife.
After the WSJ began asking questions, Srinivasan — who apparently renounced his American citizenship in 2023 — published a lengthy post on X declaring himself “a proud Singaporean” and accusing the newspaper of preparing a story that would portray him as an outlier rather than an early adopter.
The current Malaysian campus will reportedly need to close due to licensing issues. Srinivasan, though, has already announced a new agreement for a campus in Kazakhstan.
Why it matters
The episode illustrates the practical and regulatory friction facing “network state” projects that try to build quasi-sovereign communities inside existing countries — friction that Srinivasan’s venture will now carry to its next planned site in Kazakhstan.