Balaji Srinivasan recently made an interesting observation about Anthropic rejecting a Pentagon request. This former Coinbase CTO pointed out something quite blunt: what we call 'principles' in politics and technology are often just masks for tribal interests.

He provided a very concrete example. Democrats once supported Starlink for Biden's military needs, but now oppose Anthropic for Trump's military needs. This isn't about consistent principles, but about which tribe you support. The tribal logic is very rational from each group's perspective.

What’s interesting is that Balaji shows dialectics as the fundamental dynamic between networks and the state. American society didn't emphasize tribalism much before, but in recent years polarization has deepened. AI practitioners once naively thought consensus would return, but reality is much more complex.

He believes that survival isn't about holding rigid principles, but about clearly understanding which tribe you belong to and which tribe you are facing. Of course, you can have your own principles, but the truly enduring principles are those that can provide collective strength for your tribe over time. That’s what passes natural selection.

This observation shifts how we view Silicon Valley. It’s no longer about a single universal technological vision, but about how tech companies navigate the dialectical relationship between network power and state power. As a result, Silicon Valley is spreading to various global entrepreneurial cities, seeking spaces where they can operate more freely.