Out-of-Print Tech Critique 'Cyberselfish' Returns as Silicon Valley Skepticism Peaks

Paulina Borsook's "Cyberselfish," first published in 2000 and long out of print, is returning in a new edition from Tin House — with a new introduction by "Nerd Reich" author Gil Durán and not a word of the original text changed.

The revival started with numbers Borsook tracked herself. For years, she checked used-book platforms a couple of times a year and found copies selling for three bucks — a price where, as she put it, the seller makes more on shipping than on the book. Roughly a year and a half ago, prices began creeping up. Then came inquiries from European academics and, in her words, "very out-of-the-blue, I-did-not-know-these-people posts on social media about how important this book was."

Last year, Durán declared it was time to revive her career, saying Borsook "saw it all very clearly and tried to warn us 25 years ago." The New York Times later reported the book was finding new fans trying to understand why the tech industry "lost its way." Durán's Bluesky campaign — "Let's try to bring this book back into print" — coincided with a podcast appearance, and suddenly, Borsook said, "you could not get a copy of TDB for love or money." (TDB is her shorthand: "that damn book.")

What did Borsook see in 2000?

Borsook, who moved in Bay Area tech circles from the early-to-mid 1980s, began hearing what she calls "very weird, offhand remarks" around the early 1990s. She calls the resulting ideology "a 12-year-old view of the world" — a basket of beliefs that is "violently anti-regulation," despite the fact that "no sector of society had benefited more and suffered less from the government than these guys."

She frames the book as "almost a travelogue" — snapshots, not a polemic. Its lasting distinction is between what she named Ravers (culturally liberal, Burning Man, John Perry Barlow types) and Gilders (social conservatives, named after George Gilder, whom she calls "this repellent thought leader of the early '90s"). That split, she argues, still holds: Christian nationalists and conservative Catholics hold leadership positions alongside Burners and the effective-altruist and AI worlds.

How much has actually changed?

Borsook sees continuity, not rupture. The turning point, in her view, was the Netscape IPO, when "Silicon Valley was invaded by the finance bros." Even after the dot-com crash, "that attitude was just there, percolating around, contaminating the aquifers. It was uncorrected, and it just spread out more and more."

She points to Airbnb and Uber as "strictly financial plays," not technological innovation, and to Airbnb's fights against regulation in housing markets it "basically destroyed." Her verdict on the current moment is blunt: "Sociopathy is a business virtue in a way that was never there before."

On AI, she doesn't hedge: "I see AI right now as a big Ponzi scheme." She cites Apple's hydraulic-press ad crushing musical instruments as evidence the company has become tone-deaf while still seeing itself as liberatory.

She's careful to draw a line between culture and electoral politics — the San Francisco peninsula still votes blue and sends Ro Khanna to Congress. Her target is "the leadership class here, the tech overlords." Sergey Brin saying "California is turning into Soviet Russia" while tech executives move to the Nevada side of Tahoe to escape California taxes, she notes, ignores that Tahoe's pure blue water is "decades of government intervention" and environmental regulation.

What does the reissue mean now?

The Tin House edition keeps the original text intact. Borsook's acquiring editor told her, "Don't change a word." Borsook agreed: the book is "an artifact of a time and place." She wrote only a short new introduction explaining how the book "came back from the dead." She never published a second book and said that after the first release, "no one was interested in anything I might have to say about anything, tech or not tech, forever after."

Her advice for young engineers who reject the Thiel-and-Musk worldview is candidly thin. AI is "sucking up all the investment money," government is broke, and the nonprofit sector is struggling. The old path — bootstrapping a small consultancy without "grotesque growth" — may no longer exist. Still, she says, "I never want to underestimate the both desperation and ingenuity of people." Her hope sits with those pursuing what used to be called appropriate technology — ideally spinning off from the hyperscalers entirely.