What You Don't Know About Elon Musk

Elon Musk is not the only Silicon Valley titan to build a worldview inspired by science fiction, but he is undoubtedly the most influential one today, and he is trying to turn this science fiction fantasy into reality. In 2000, when Musk and Peter Thiel merged their companies to create Paperpal, the office was filled with Neal Stephenson's classic novel "Snow Crash." This work depicts a future where governments collapse, countries disintegrate, and corporate CEOs dominate society. In Stephenson's account, government essentially disappears, the tax system collapses, national sovereignty is replaced by a franchise layer, and ultimately, entrepreneurs take over society to provide basic services to citizens. The novel became the bible for Silicon Valley's liberal utopia. At that time, PayPal even installed a software called World Domination Index in the company's system. Whenever a new user registered, the system would ring you. As if celebrating another step in their conquest of the world, Musk has no doubts about this worldview. In his view, what truly drives human progress is not the government, but the market, not rules and regulations, but technological innovation, not countries and borders, but individualism and free will.