Malaysia is reportedly shutting down Balaji Srinivasan’s Network School

In Brief

10:05 AM PDT · August 2, 2026

The Malaysian government has ordered the shutdown of a startup-centric community called the Network School, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Billing itself as “a frontier community for techno-optimists,” the Network School reportedly grew out of entrepreneur and investor Balaji Srinivasan’s conviction that the United States is in irreversible decline; Srinivasan has said his goal is “to start a new country.”

So the Network School is supposed 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 WSJ described the program as “part tech incubator, part self-improvement retreat.” Attendees, however, complained about moldy rooms, as well as a dearth of women and nightlife.

After receiving questions from the WSJ, Srinivasan – who apparently renounced his American citizenship in 2023 — published ...

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