Notes From The Oversky

Trust in Startup Societies

Trust can be a rare commodity in startup societies. We meet in passing under the same hotel roof without taking the time to learn the truth about each other. We meet during meals three times a day and get a new taste of each other's personalities. We have to agree on a certain set of rules, called etiquette and politeness, to make living together tolerable while avoiding unnecessary conflict. We see each other or avoid eye contact at hotel lobbies and social lounges both day and night. Trust is what makes society sustainable. Trust exists when another person’s choices can have a direct effect on you, when you have confidence in how they will use that freedom, and when trust is a choice rather than forced by circumstance. Without those conditions in place, what people often call trust is closer to projection. Bad actors like love-bombers or gaslighters will often weaponize this to manipulate others.

Those who have my trust are those who have the ability to affect me. I also choose to trust them because I have reason to believe they will act well. At Network School, that means my roommates, the founders of this startup society, some of its core team members, the friends I have made, and hotel employees. In a startup society, what sort of person is best suited to earn trust by many people who have diverse, unpredictable objectives? The honest man is a good candidate. Yet not just any honest man will do. He must seem useful to all those people in society. 'Useful' in this context is what engages interest in people such as being intelligent, fit, funny, elegant, easily remembered, morally right and so on. Trust can often be misplaced by indoctrination, and that is usually what triggers my existential crisis during my time spent in Forest City.

People once behaved under the shadow of God because they trusted an almighty force to punish wrongdoing even when no human eye could see it. In the 1800s it was “In God We Trust.” Over time, as faith in that force declined and God was declared dead, trust migrated toward the State. Political power was expected to hold society together. Now, with faith in the State declining too, Network School's wager is that the Network (internet, social platforms, cryptography, online communities) becomes the next power that people trust to coordinate behaviour.

The founder of Network School, Balaji Srinivasan, earned social trust from people through his online presence, not because he proved to be an honest man, but is someone with high agency. After all, his influence in the start-up ecosystem is what attracted the initial cohort to Network School. Balaji did not arrive at Network School as an unknown quack asking strangers to "trust me bro." He had already spent years making himself useful on the internet by teaching Stanford’s Startup Engineering course to a large online audience, backing Bitcoin early, co-founding the company that became Earn.com, joining Andreessen Horowitz, helping launch Coin Center, serving as CTO of Coinbase, and later launching USDC. By the time he published The Network State, he was not just a theorist of new societies but someone whose reputation had been built through repeated proof of work across startups, crypto, and online institutions. That track record is what made an initial cohort willing to follow him into something as speculative as Network School.

The Writer's Purpose In Society

Walking up to me was a Network School newcomer with food on his paper plate: "What kind of folks live around here?" "Well, stranger, what kind of folks was there in the country you come from?" "Well, they was mostly a lowdown, lying, gossiping, backbiting lot of people," "Well, I guess, stranger, that's about the kind of folks you'll find around here." Another newcomer walks up. "What kind of folks live around here?" "Well, stranger, what kind of folks was there in the country you come from?" "Well, they was mostly a decent, hardworking, law-abiding, friendly lot of people." "Well, I guess, stranger, that's about the kind of people you'll find around here."

It is worth knowing that what I notice in Forest City is shaped by my own values, taste, insecurities, and blind spots. If I say Network School has not yet found people-market fit, I am revealing as much about my own standards as about the community itself. These letters reflect reality as it passes through my filter, for my writing is intended for netizens of start-up societies.

At Network School, I have become aware that there is a version of myself I can easily explain, another that people may understand before I do, another version that I keep hidden behind charm or competence, and still another that remains obscure even to me. Within a few days, people know my name, where I'm from, what I am building, and how fluently I can answer the question of who I am. After a while, people may observe information about me that I would not know myself, such as my mannerisms and nonverbal behaviour that others see but I do not. What unsettles me is not the possibility of being misunderstood. I fear that others may see parts of me more clearly than I do myself, like my motives, fantasies, and yearning that would compromise the version of me that I've curated for others. Then again, why do I feel the need to curate at all?

The question I keep asking myself is what I am here to do at Network School. I would like to write a book about my year of living here. I do not want to spend my life doing work of little interest just to steal a few hours for work that feels real. Writing these letters feels fun to me. I came to Network School in part because I thought a place like this might make for a good story. It has been a month and a half since I arrived in Forest City, long enough for this place to rearrange my habits. I came here partly to make distractions less convenient. I replaced my iPhone with a CAT flip phone, which puts a little friction back into my attention. The cover images for these letters are all taken with my CAT phone. My days have grown quieter, and in some ways predictable. I write at night beside the gold-lit trees in NS Cafe, surrounded by the rotating cast of founders and remote workers who seem to live different ratios of work to life.

My routine at Network School is backwards compared to most people here. I have a career as a data consultant for U.S. clients, which means I work Eastern Time without telling them I’ve moved halfway across the world to join a startup society in Forest City. There is a twelve-hour time difference between Toronto and Singapore, so I start work at 9 p.m. and usually go to bed by 4 a.m. I wake around noon, read and write through the afternoon, go to the 5 p.m. gym "Burn" session, eat the catered dinner, then settle into NS Cafe until work begins. Some nights I jiggle my trackpad just enough to keep the green symbol glowing on Teams while I write these letters. Consulting pays the bills; writing feels like the work I am trying to grow into. I am using one kind of work to buy time for the other.

I recently picked up a book that taught me the cause of suffering is the ignorance of the true nature of reality, as well as insatiable desire. The cure is freedom from craving and self-grasping. I see no aim for these letters. No purpose. I simply write them because it's fun to notice how reality unfolds, then communicate the story with others. If founders build products in the hope that people will find them useful, writers build stories in hopes that someone might feel more alive for having read them. That, at least, is the trade I find myself trying to learn through these letters in Network School.

The Forest Inside A Ghost City

As I write the following letter, or rather the bulk of them moving forward, I am living in a techno-community in Forest City, Malaysia. My purpose in going to Forest City is not to live cheaply, but to transact some private business with the fewest obstacles. I also want to be in solitude so that I can write. Thoreau had Walden, Didion had California, Baldwin had Saint-Paul de Vence, and I have Forest City.

Forest City is the aftermath of a sales pitch so confident it mistook assembly for demand. The island was constructed in advance of desire, which tells us the story of every startup failing to find product market fit. Built on reclaimed land in southern Malaysia, just across from Singapore, it was meant as luxury development for the middle-class in China. It offered a city of towers, hotels, beaches, and panoramic views rising from nearly fourteen square kilometres of artificial island. Yet political backlash, capital controls, border closures, and developer distress left most of the land between luxury and abandonment. This resulted in empty roads and shuttered storefronts, earning it the reputation of a ghost city. The unfinished quality is part of what makes it such an appealing setting for Network School, which has moved into the emptiness because of it.

The Network School campus is hosted inside Marina Hotel, a large full-service building with floor-to-ceiling windows, cloud-like ceiling motifs, and polished amenities. The hotel suggests a luxury development still trying to remember its original sales pitch. While it offers pools, beaches, gyms, cafes, conference rooms, and roof-top views of the water, Network School has made the hotel feel like a home for digital nomads. The staff greet arrivals through the automatic glass doors with the practiced warmth of a place designed to feel effortless. Upon entering, you may pass by whiteboards and poster stands informing newcomers about products and services on campus. At the heart of the hotel lobby is NS Cafe, where coffee and random encounters will bid your time. This is where most of my writing gets done, while seated in the middle of the cafe next to several artificial trees that light gold at the tips. They stand beneath hanging glass sculptures giving the ceiling the look of waves caught mid-motion. This effect is oddly kaleidoscopic.

Writing this while sitting here, in NS Cafe, I realize that Forest City is a fitting home for Network School. Both were built in anticipation of demand that did not fully exist. One was designed as a luxury city for buyers failing to arrive in the projected numbers. The other is assembling a society of internet natives to make an online community politically real. In that sense, each begins with the bet that if the infrastructure is built first, the people will follow. In my last letter, I suggested that Network School is not a place, it’s a people. While that may be true in the future tense, right now, Network School is conceivably a place in Forest City, which is organized around the hope that concentrated ambition can be converted into capital, then into a state.

I initially lived on the Network School campus in September and October of 2025. After those two months in Marina Hotel, I had some sense of what it meant to live on a once-abandoned, man-made island. The apartment towers were barely twenty percent occupied, and the shops and convenience stores in the mall next door often seemed staffed more reliably than were visited. At the time, roughly 250 people were circulating around the hotel. About a 100 people committed to staying for a year in hopes that Network School would thrive. When I left at the end of October, I realized I had grown fascinated by the place and soon returned in March of 2026 as a long-term stayer myself. There was something compelling about living in a place among people willing to uproot their lives for a society originally built on the cloud.

After a month of observing, what became clear was that Network School is sorting people by what they want from the place, and how long they are willing or able to stay. New arrivals often seem drawn by novelty and the promise of instant affiliation. I've witnessed them introduce themselves eagerly, attend events daily, and move through campus as if trying to become visible to the room as quickly as possible. Long-term stayers, on the other hand, are on a different wavelength. Many have figured out their routines, friendships, and priorities, while treating social gatherings more selectively, maybe even preferring solitude. This difference gives the place a subtle hierarchy. The monthly cohort brings energy, openness, and churn, while long-term residents give institutional continuity. The same introductions that create friendship can also create optionality, and the population that makes this place exciting can also make every interaction faintly overwhelming.

What I am noticing so far is that the ghost city is no longer empty. The new context is not only social, but spatial. Network School's growth places quiet pressure on the same apartments, buildings, and offices that owners and locals are already circling. Forest City is slowly growing in population, alongside the presence of Network School, which may cause competing intentions. The lights are on, the lobbies are polished, the locals are gathering, but the final form of the place remains unsettled. The same is true for Network School inside of Marina Hotel. A society like this does not become real all at once. It happens gradually, through the people willing to live inside the unfinished version of it. I shall continue writing these letters from the inside as the shape unfolds. If you want to see Forest City for yourself, you can start here.

The Network State Of Mind

As I write these words, sitting across from me is a man worth billions. He’s in a plain white t-shirt, black shorts, and sandals, sipping a three-dollar coffee, no different from mine. I am living in Network School, an experimental community in Forest City, Malaysia, where founders, remote workers, and other internet-native builders live together as they work on projects, train, and live under the same roof. Network School is an attempt to gather talent, capital, and shared values in one place as a prototype of a Network State, which is a nation that begins online and hopes, over time, to become politically real. One of the mantras of a Network State is “cloud first, land last.” If one can speak of Forest City as a settlement, and if that man-made island contains full-time craft specialists such as founders, engineers, marketers, influencers, musicians, and traders, then the internet systems coordinating it begin to resemble a start-up society. Network School is offering society-as-a-service.

What is the archetype of a remote worker who travels to a once-abandoned island in Malaysia to attend an esoteric school? Is the person leading, exploring, or fleeing? Are their motives for attending rooted in duty, vocation, or avoidance? As they meet other people, are they genuine or just actors? Are their personalities authentic, or do they perform a persona? Are they engaging with the community by lending a hand, or are they just witnessing it? Do they want to go along with collaboration, go ahead by leading, or go solo? I found myself circling these questions as the place slowly came into focus.

Some people in Network School are here to use Forest City as a base so they can travel around Asia, especially with Singapore being just a 40-minute drive away. Others are nomadic workers who want to lock in their earning potential by minimizing costs. Founders come here to stay for months at a time and have a routine readily available to focus on building their startups. Then we have people who come to find relationships and grow deeper bonds with friends or lovers, not to mention the ones seeking situationships, or worse, having affairs. Others may want to farm equity by being early to a novel yet potentially profitable idea. Taken together, if the Network School succeeds in becoming a Network State, the alumni will find themselves in a position of significant wealth and status.

After spending three months living in Marina Hotel, I’ve grown accustomed to hearing people introduce themselves. The line of questioning typically goes, “Where are you from?” or “What are you working on?” Unlike startup founders, I find it difficult to talk about myself because there’s a hint of shame in what I do. Sure, I have a relatively respectful career as a consultant solving corporate problems for clients. Although I’m skilled enough, the obstacle in my path is working towards something other than a paycheck. Even so, despite being at odds with the people at Network School who are seeking breakthroughs with blockchains and agents, I cannot help but feel like their equal. Our tax brackets may be far apart, but under the same roof at Marina Hotel, the distance can feel smaller than expected.

I came here as a remote worker hoping to understand what kind of people and desires this startup society gathers. I now plan to stay in Malaysia for a year to write about this frontier community. Network School is not just attracting techno-optimists. It invites people who feel that old institutions no longer organize ambition or meaning well enough. The people I interact with daily are not categorized demographically, but by problems they are trying to solve in Forest City. One may be seeking influence, another belonging or reinvention, or a sense of discipline, proximity to power, or escape from stagnation. To me, Network School is starting out as a sorting device for desire before it becomes a political entity.

I can feel how much people project and anticipate one another’s judgment, and what I say next is definitely from my own projections, but I find it slightly difficult to cultivate relationships that I have organically grown in the past. What interests me is not simply that some people are fake. In environments built around networking, performance becomes structurally rational. If identity is partly assembled in public through intros, timelines, projects, and signals of ambition, then everyone is under some pressure to become seen in a flattering way. That does not mean the community is insincere, but sincerity itself can feel staged. A person may genuinely want to build or belong while also curating how that desire appears to others. These are my feelings after the third month of living here. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and for start-up societies to function well, there must be such rules for civility.

The danger is not in playing a role but in repeating it until it becomes your identity. Identifying a performative male is like running a Turing test to see whether a machine is human; you’ll know he’s real when he stops pretending. Like the For You Page that learns from repetition, such people become clever algorithms designed to manufacture admiration rather than meaning, running until the man inside realizes he has worked overtime to impress people who are not actually there. That was what led me toward the Light Forest Theory: the sense that what felt personal in Forest City was also structural, because the environment rewards strong signalling and public performance of building.

The internet makes it easy to find strangers who are wacky enough to gather on a ghost island in Malaysia to learn skills, earn capital, and burn calories as a community. The internet revolution was accompanied by the availability of blockchains, originally designed for currency but now poised to organize large groups of people. Not to mention, the abundance of processors originally designed to handle 3D graphics in gaming, now being used to train AI agents with large datasets. Together, those ingredients make start-up societies more plausible. Seen that way, beyond the technical infrastructure, Network School is gathering talent while also building a social environment where visibility itself becomes a resource.

The Dark Forest Theory assumes that in a universe where intentions are unknowable, signalling invites attack. Fermi’s paradox of “Where is everybody?” becomes “Everybody’s here, they’re just quiet.” To survive, one must stay silent. By contrast, the Light Forest Theory suggests that in public networks, signalling is rewarded rather than punished. A light forest emerges when coordination technologies like the internet make signalling net-positive. It is a place for people show their work to earn wealth and influence. By that logic, a society should strive to become a light forest for its people. That is part of what Network School is attempting by attracting “dark talent.” What keeps it from being just another startup scene is that the social experiment and the political ambition are inseparable.

If the world rewards being seen, then the kind of society it produces will be shaped by people who know how to make themselves visible while also maintaining privacy (topic for another time). We are already creating through our digital activities, enormously rich records of how we think and what we feel, and during this decade, our technology for recording, storing, and organizing this information will advance rapidly. When talent becomes legible online, it becomes easier to find, coordinate, and assemble into new institutions. Network States promise to build new institutions from online coordination rather than inherited constraints. On the other hand, Network School is a prototype of that ambition, a proof of concept meant to show the idea has legs. The team secured an island near Singapore, built a school campus inside a hotel, invited “dark talent” from across the world, and began assembling a community on the once-abandoned island of Forest City.

There’s a scene in Thor: Ragnarok where the God of Thunder talks to Odin about the Kingdom of Asgard getting destroyed. Odin responds, “Asgard isn’t a place. Never was. This could be Asgard. Asgard is where our people stand.” That gets at the core idea behind Network States: the people matter more than the place. Network States are “cloud first, land last” because the cloud is where the people connect, and the land is where they meet. If Network School is a prototype of a Network State, then its attendees are a prototype of a new citizenship. In that sense, Network School is not a place, it’s a people. Its most durable resource is not land, but the social scalability of the community itself.

pura vida,

• overskyman