Internet Values

Merit over Status - Your value is judged by your output, not your background, degree, or institutional affiliation. - “Show me the code” > “Tell me your title.”

Permissionlessness - Anyone can build or join without asking a gatekeeper. - Example: permissionless innovation on the web, or deploying smart contracts on Ethereum.

Build > Talk - Builders and makers are prioritized over theorists and commentators.

Open Source as Default - Sharing your code and knowledge is the norm. - Licenses like MIT, Apache, and GPL are cultural mainstays.

Decentralization - Preference for decentralized systems (e.g., blockchains, Web3) over top-down hierarchies. - Supports individual sovereignty and minimizes reliance on centralized institutions.

Openness - Open-source software. - Open access to information (e.g., Wikipedia, MOOCs). - Transparency in protocol and system design.

Pseudonymity / Privacy - Value of pseudonymous identities (e.g., Satoshi Nakamoto) - Enables freedom of expression and contribution in oppressive regimes or politically sensitive domains. - Support for privacy-preserving technologies (e.g., zero-knowledge proofs, end-to-end encryption)

Globalism - Borderless collaboration—remote-first, async-first, English-as-a-working-language. - A community where geography is secondary to shared protocols and platforms.

Code is Law - Systems are governed by code, smart contracts, and cryptographic proofs—not subjective legal interpretations. - Aligns with the crypto-anarchist and cypherpunk ideologies.

Forkability - If you don’t like the direction a platform or protocol is heading, you can fork it and go your own way. - This applies to software, communities, and even countries (à la network states).

Censorship Resistance - Free speech by design. - Platforms and protocols should resist coercive state or corporate censorship (e.g., Signal, Tor).

Asynchronous Communication - Time zones don’t matter. - Work happens via GitHub issues, Pull Requests, Notion docs, and async tools like Slack or Discord.

Optimism for Technology - Strong belief that technology can solve problems better than regulation or politics. - Faith in exponential progress (e.g., AI, biotech, space).

Network-first Thinking - Value flows from networks: protocols, platforms, DAOs, reputation systems. - Belief in building “from the internet up” rather than “from the nation-state down.”

Skepticism of Legacy Institutions - Distrust of media, governments, academia, and legacy banks. - Preference for provable systems (e.g., cryptographic proofs) over appeals to authority.

Build Culture - Celebration of builders, makers, hackers, and entrepreneurs. - “Build” as a verb and ethos—central to Balaji’s own philosophy.

Remote-first Work - Physical location is irrelevant; productivity matters. - Work from anywhere, coordinate online.

Opt-In Governance - Governance by consent and voluntary association. - DAOs, smart contracts, and network states exemplify opt-in social contracts.

Transparency - Preference for provable claims, not appeals to reputation. - Public blockchains, reproducible builds, and open APIs.

Rapid Iteration - Fast feedback loops, shipping MVPs, deploying in public. - Agile > Bureaucracy.

Economic Skin in the Game - Aligning incentives through tokens, equity, or contribution. - Stake-based governance and financial accountability.

Exponential Mindset - Belief in accelerating returns from technologies like AI, crypto, biotech, robotics. - Linear models seen as outdated.

Anti-fragility - Systems should improve under stress. - Modular, redundant, and evolvable architectures are favored.

Protocols over Platforms - Long-term focus on protocol layers (e.g., HTTP, TCP/IP, Ethereum) rather than centralized platforms (e.g., Facebook, Google). - Protocols tend to be more open, stable, and interoperable.

Cryptographic Trusts or replace trust with verifiability - Replace trust in institutions with math (e.g., zero-knowledge proofs, hash commitments). - “Don’t trust, verify.”

Exit > Voice - Rather than complain about broken systems, just leave or build a better one. - This is foundational to network states, open-source forks, and even digital nomadism.

Community over State - Identity rooted in online communities, not national borders. - You’re a citizen of Ethereum, not just the U.S., Turkey, or Japan.

Long-Termism - Belief in building civilizations and technologies that last. - Network states, Mars colonization, AI alignment—these all reflect long time horizons.

Xanadu - Xanadu Project

Deflationary Culture - Software costs trend to zero; hardware costs fall over time. - Opposes fiat inflation, hence favoring Bitcoin and deflationary assets.

Digital Minimalism - Build products that don’t exploit attention spans. - Favor productivity over engagement-maximization (a reaction to social media addiction).

Education is Open and Peer-Led - Learn on YouTube, StackOverflow, Coursera, GitHub—not from gatekept institutions. - Degrees are less relevant than portfolios or public work.

Interoperability - Internet protocols work together: TCP/IP, HTTP, DNS, etc. - New systems should follow the same ethos: composability and open APIs.

Epistemic Humility - Internet-native thinkers often assume no one is fully correct, and truth is emergent from open discourse.

• This is why open debate, feedback loops, and Skin in the Game matter.

Default to Public - Building in public, learning in public, and sharing knowledge openly. - This allows replication, remixing, and improvement.