Paulina Borsook’s Cyberselfish Returns to Confront Tech Libertarianism

The book, initially dismissed and long out of print, has undergone an unexpected revival. Borsook attributes this resurgence to a growing recognition among academics and tech observers that her 2000 analysis of the industry’s “basket of beliefs” remains hauntingly accurate. She describes the work as a travelogue of a subculture that she believes has functioned like an uncorrected contaminant in the region’s intellectual aquifer, spreading from early anti-regulatory sentiment to the current dominance of AI and its associated financial interests.

Borsook characterizes the techno-libertarian ethos as a “12-year-old view of the world,” driven by a refusal to acknowledge the government subsidies and public infrastructure that enabled Silicon Valley’s rise. She argues that the shift toward a more aggressive, profit-driven culture—marked by the influx of finance capital and the rise of companies like Uber and Airbnb—has only intensified this lack of civic accountability. For Borsook, the current industry alignment with right-wing political figures is not an aberration, but a logical extension of a business culture that has historically treated sociopathy as a professional virtue.