Part of the problem is that in most of the Silicon Valley existence, its comprehensive monoculture privileged certain types of “smart people.” It was a kind of clever man who campaigned for Barack Obama, marched for gay rights, and built custom prayer stools to complement the priestly fetish at the Folsom Street Fair. The subject of ethics was frequently nurtured, but also grew almost exclusively in the context of their non-similar relationships. If the Black Life Matter Signs germinated from the garden and wandered into spirituality beyond the constraints of atheism, it was Eastern diversity. Being a Muslim was actually cool. Because if you were against it, you probably hated xenophobia. And since anti-Semitism was not yet popular, Judaism was fine too.
Maybe you know this person, and you may be this person. Because, while most of the Bay Area is original, it thoroughly saturated mainstream consciousness, stripped away all of its original subversion. When you visit most millennial parties in Los Angeles or New York, you will be given the same rainbow-covered packaging of psilocybin-studded chocolate. What was once radical is now commonplace. Burning Man leaned forward towards Coachella. Richard Dawkins is a farce, and anxious perceptions daw it, but we all thought we were locking our arms in a cheerful march to human progress. Even the hard-nosed progressives were beginning to feel something rotten was simmering in the slimy, cultural waters. Was what society needed to do with its return to the ethical framework that had survived for thousands of years?
There’s no need to make much guesses to see why clever Christians in Silicon Valley are more encouraging. After all, there are billionaires in their ranks. One of them is Peter Thiel. He has spoken about his evangelical tendencies for over a decade, and has recently shared his views on his faith with an increasing number of frequencies. “I believe in the resurrection of Christ,” he said in a 2020 lecture. “The only good role model for us is Christ.” (When I saw the story of what Tiel was talking about his faith, I realized I was really confused. Not because Tiel lacks belief, but because his thoughts on the subject are so immersed in the galaxy, the rest of us seem to be catching up, “When you don’t have transcendent religious beliefs, you’re just looking around others. Crowds.”)
And it’s not just Tiel. In an interview with Jordan Peterson last summer, Elon Musk carefully described him as a “cultural Christian.” “I believe that Jesus’ teachings are good and wise,” he said. Having two of the world’s wealthiest engineers, the recently estimated $400 billion (Musk) and $14 billion (Tiel), speaks brilliantly about the teachings of the Bible. Meanwhile, downstream of Tiel and Musk are people like Tan, shepherd the next cohort of entrepreneurs in the Valley, and occasionally tweeting the Bible from his X account.
It is a change that follows the tightening of the post-pandemic economy, to publicly embrace right-foot politics and write corporate statements in favor of the MEI, or write “merit, excellence, intelligence” as an antidote to the DEI. Cancer… a pagan religion that infects our university. (Culp, of course, refers to awakening, which is the correct view, particularly as an overstrained fixation with political correctness related to identity. In recent years, influential Silicon Valley leaders have compared it to religions that have become obsessed with their original sin, but lacked redemption.) For example, Chamath Palihapitiya, who, since January 6th, called President Donald Trump a “shit-full scumbag” and worked together in a flashy campaign fundraiser on behalf of the president in June.
Amid this new political climate, Silicon Valley ambitions have changed, and with them the prototype of the factory’s fresh founder has emerged. Previously, Wiz’s child, in her 20s who coded a viral game and dropped out of Stanford, was a beloved venture capitalist. “The VC was throwing money at the guy,” said the woman who manages communications at a top-notch venture company. “Now someone came in and said, ‘I love my parents so much, I grew up going to church, and then I joined the military, which is what gives my work ethic.’
The beginning of this platonic ideal can come from the publication of venture capitalist Mark Andreessen’s essay “Time of It’s Bultion.” He says where are our supersonic aircraft, monorails and high speed trains? Western life, particularly in America, was permeated by a sense of “smug complacency, (a) satisfaction with the current situation.” This was a question that ran deeper than politics in his eyes. Our entire civilization was lost. He continued, it was time to return to the world of “ancestors and ancestors” that built everything “what we take for granted.” “Now is the time for complete, non-apology, uncompromising political support from the right to positive investment in new products, new industries, new factories, new science, great leap forward.”
Silicon Valley is currently growing projects that spark a slightly more spectacular vision than its subscription software vision. These projects are directed not by soft-dees who drink anemia, but by a new kind of entrepreneur with a serious vision of the future. The Valley’s most powerful venture capitalists are looking for entrepreneurs who have “the fierceness of speech and behavior, a physical manifestation of fire in the eyes, the seriousness of severity.”
