Malaysia is reportedly shutting down Balaji Srinivasan’s Network School

In Brief Posted: 10:05 AM PDT · August 2, 2026 Image Credits:TechCrunch The Malaysian government has ordered the shutdown of a startup-centric community called the Network School, according to The Wall Street Journal. Billing itself as “a frontier community for techno-optimists,” the Network School reportedly grew out of entrepreneur and investor Balaji Srinivasan’s conviction that the United States is in irreversible decline; Srinivasan has said his goal is “to start a new country.” So the Network School is supposed to represent the first step in a seven-stage plan (outlined in Srinivasan’s book “The Network State”) for building a new society. Based in an abandoned Malaysian hotel, the WSJ described the program as “part tech incubator, part self-improvement retreat.” Attendees, however, complained about moldy rooms, as well as a dearth of women and nightlife. After receiving questions from the WSJ, Srinivasan – who apparently renounced his American citizenship in 2023 — published a lengthy post on X declaring himself “a proud Singaporean” and complaining that the WSJ was working on a “hit piece” that would make him look like “an odd duck […] as opposed to an early adopter.” And although the current Malaysian campus will reportedly need to shut down due to licensing issues, Srinivasan recently announced a new agreement for a campus in Kazakhstan. Newsletters Subscribe for the industry’s biggest tech news Related Latest in Government & Policy