Balaji Srinivasan, VC advocating dystopian vision for San Francisco
One of the organizations aiming to build a new tech-funded “campus” within a one-square-mile zone of central San Francisco is funded, in part, by Balaji Srinivasan, the leader of a controversial movement to crowdfund new, sovereign and tech-governed territories around the world called “Network States.”
In a podcast interview last September, Srinivasan spoke at length about the possibility of creating such tech-controlled zones in San Francisco — places where Democrats, whom he labels as “Blues,” would be excluded.
“Push out all Blues,” he said in the interview. “Tell them they’re … unwelcome,” he continued. “Just as Blues ethnically cleanse me out of San Francisco, like, push out all Blues.”
Until last week, Srinivasan was listed as a backer of the Solaris Society on the company’s website. Founded by Thomas Schulz, Solaris is one of three organizations seeking to create a tech-focused zone called City Campus, which would encompass Alamo Square, the Lower Haight and Hayes Valley, as earlier reported by the San Francisco Chronicle.
Other Solaris backers listed on the site included Caffeinated Capital, Eric Wu, Homebrew and Form Capital. None of the funders responded to requests for comment about Srinivasan’s involvement or his statements about banning Democrats. Corporate records show they collectively invested $2 million in a Schulz-led Delaware corporation called Together Casa, Inc., in 2021. It’s unclear whether Solaris Society is an offshoot of Together Casa or a separate entity.
On April 30, the Chronicle revealed the project’s existence in a story headlined “Mysterious fliers are pitching a utopian ‘city campus’ in part of S.F. What is going on?” Sometime between April 21 and April 30, when the Chronicle story published its story, the Solaris Society’s website underwent a major overhaul — in which all mentions of Srinivasan and his fellow backers were expunged. Instead, the Solaris Society now markets itself as Solaris AI, “an office for AI startups” backed by, among others, Open AI CEO Sam Altman.
Srinivasan has been outspoken in presenting his vision for replacing current communities with new forms of tech-run societies, going so far as to document them in a free-to-download book called “The Network State: How to Start a New Country.”
Alongside the Solaris Society, the tech-funded groups Neighborhood SF and the Commons SF, which specialize in creating community spaces, are also behind the City Campus.
In an email, one of the City Campus project’s leaders denied any connection to Srinivasan or the Network State.
“City Campus isn’t affiliated with the Network State or funded by Balaji,” said Jason Benn, the founder of Neighborhood SF, which has been working to create co-living houses and “reproduce the vibes of a university campus” in San Francisco since 2021. “All of our projects [The Commons, Solaris and The Neighborhood] are separate from City Campus.”
The City Campus website says otherwise: “The Commons, Solaris and The Neighborhood are coming together to build a walkable city campus in the heart of SF — Hayes, Alamo & Duboce.”
In addition, Benn gave a presentation about his Neighborhood SF project at Srinivasan’s official Network State conference last October, during which speakers detailed the progress being made on Network State projects. At the conference, Benn described his mission as helping to “start autonomous communities and hangout spots,” and said that 150 people had already been inspired to move to what he calls “the best” one-square-mile area “in the whole Bay Area.”
In an email, Benn, a former software engineer who has lived in San Francisco for 11 years, described a vision different from Srinivasan’s. “Our goal isn’t to exit society or build gated communities. It’s the opposite: We want to build more bridging communities. As Robert Putnam says, bridging social capital creates strong democracies. We’d like to collaborate with the City and our neighbors, if possible — why else would we put up flyers? — and make SF feel like a 15-minute city for friendship for as many people as possible.” He described the project as a “nonprofit public good.”
Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan, currently leading a tech-funded effort to win control of City Hall, also participated in the October conference. In a conversation with Srinivasan during the conference, he outlined his efforts to “replace” parts of the city’s “political machine” and build “parallel education, nonprofits, media [and] unions.” The discussion had the feel of a TED Talk, with no resemblance to Srinivasan’s explosive interview on the “Moment of Zen” podcast.
Through a spokesman,Tan declined to comment on Srinivasan’s remarks about pushing Democrats out of the city. “Mr. Tan is a Democrat,” said Sam Singer, the spokesman.
The revision of the Solaris Society’s website is not reflected on the personal website of Solaris Society founder Thomas Shulz. As of May 2, it still listed Srinivasan as a “funder” of the company, and lists other Network State projects, like a Peter Thiel-backed idea for a new city on the Mediterranean called Praxis, as “similar and inspiring” to his own effort.
Schulz, Srinivasan and his fellow Solaris Society backers did not respond to requests for comment about the company’s relationship to the Network State
Srinivasan talks about his views in a four-hour podcast interview
“You know that there’s something called De-Ba’athification,” said Srinivasan during that four-hour appearance on the “Moment of Zen” podcast in September, referring to Iraq’s purge of members of Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath party after his overthrow. “De-Nazification after World War II, right? Lustration was the equivalent in communist countries, where former communists were drummed out. De-Blueification is the goal. Blues out, right?”
In the interview, Srinivasan — a Stanford University graduate and former partner at Andreessen Horowitz, the venture-capital firm — called for “something like tech Zionism” and envisioned a future in which members of a tech-aligned group he calls the “Gray tribe” amass enough property and capture enough power to “literally have, like, the sovereign city of San Francisco and secede effectively” from California and the United States.
He imagined a “Gray Pride Parade” in which tech workers in gray T-shirts emblazoned with logos for Elon Musk or Y Combinator would march through the city, accompanied by police and “drones flying overhead in formation.” He also recommended building public monuments to commemorate victims of crimes that would be blamed on Democratic policies. And he suggested renaming city streets to honor tech figures.
A ‘Scenius’
For his part, Benn has launched City Campus Real Estate, a special real estate company focused on housing in the proposed tech zone, which is largely located in District 5. The company aims to create what Benn calls a “scenius”— a portmanteau of the words “scene” and “genius” — “so that our kids can grow up surrounded by caring and inspiring adults.” A map on the company’s website indicates that City Campus’ target area also includes Buena Vista, Corona Heights, Duboce Triangle, Haight-Ashbury, Mint Hill, Panhandle and North of Panhandle. The company’s website says that it will put 10 percent of its profits to City Campus, which will reinvest the money into acquiring more territory.
City Campus plans to officially launch on May 11, according to the Chronicle, and its founders depict it as a “walkable campus” where residents can “meet inspiring collaborators,” “live near friends” and “raise kids in community.”
District 5 Supervisor Dean Preston, a main target of Tan’s tech-funded campaign, called the City Campus concept “concerning” in an area already “devastated by racist redevelopment and mass displacement.”
“I encourage those interested in this ‘campus’ to get to know their neighbors, rather than becoming part of an enterprise that seeks to displace them,” he added.
Plans for City Campus came to light after the group taped posters advertising the project to utility poles in Hayes Valley and the Lower Haight. This, too, echoes Srinivasan’s playbook for Gray takeover of municipal land. In his podcast interview, Srinivasan talked about the need to put up signs or flags to mark the Grays’ territory, and he likened the conflict between Grays and Blues to the rivalry between the Crips and Bloods gangs.
“A flag signifies control of territory,” he said. “If it’s not taken down, it indicates you control the territory, especially the longer it stays up, right?”
On April 30, Schulz posted a photo on X of a green phoenix symbol — the official Solaris logo — stenciled onto a San Francisco sidewalk.
“Spotted,” he wrote.
When this reporter replied to his tweet by asking him to respond to questions about Srinivasan’s involvement, he answered, “decline to comment.”
Gil Duran is a freelance journalist. He recently wrote a piece about Balaji Srinivasan and his vision for San Francisco in The New Republic.