Research date: June 10, 2026
Goal: identify people from the tech/cyber world associated with right-wing ideas, libertarianism, crypto-anarchism, technolibertarianism, neoreaction, or technological conservatism.

Important note

This list does not mean that everyone here is “conservative” in the same sense. In the tech world, the right appears in several forms:

• Libertarianism / technolibertarianism: less state, more market, more individual liberty, stronger cryptography, less regulation.
• Crypto-anarchism: using cryptography to reduce the power of governments, banks, censorship, and state surveillance.
• Elite tech right: venture capital, accelerated innovation, deregulation, and technological competition.
• Neoreaction / Dark Enlightenment: a much more radical, anti-democratic, elitist current.
• Technological conservatism / national defense tech: military technology, national sovereignty, strategic industry, and Republican/conservative alignment.

The best general category is cyberlibertarianism or technolibertarianism. David Golumbia’s book Cyberlibertarianism: The Right-Wing Politics of Digital Technology argues that parts of digital culture were built with right-libertarian assumptions, especially anti-statism, individualism, and market faith.

1. John Perry Barlow

Who he was: co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Grateful Dead lyricist, and one of the great public voices of the free internet in the 1990s.

Type of right / position: civil libertarian. He was not a traditional conservative. He was closer to cultural anti-statism: free speech, privacy, cyberspace autonomy, and resistance to state regulation.

Core idea: the internet should be free from the sovereignty of national governments.

Why he matters: Barlow gave the internet a quasi-mystical political language as a “new home of Mind.” His vision influenced hackers, digital activists, privacy advocates, and open-web culture.

Works and links:

• A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace — https://www.eff.org/cyberspace-independence
• The Economy of Ideas — https://www.wired.com/1994/03/economy-ideas/
• John Perry Barlow Library at EFF — https://www.eff.org/john-perry-barlow

2. Timothy C. May

Who he was: engineer, cypherpunk participant, and author of The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto.

Type of right / position: crypto-anarchist and radical libertarian. More anti-state than conservative. His politics centered on cryptography, anonymity, markets, and escape from government control.

Core idea: strong cryptography would let individuals and groups communicate, negotiate, contract, and exchange value anonymously, sharply reducing state power.

Why he matters: May is central to understanding the connection between cypherpunks, cryptocurrencies, digital privacy, and libertarian ideology.

Works and links:

• The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto — https://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.805/articles/crypto/cypherpunks/may-crypto-manifesto.html
• Brazilian Portuguese translation: O Manifesto Criptoanarquista — https://cypherpunks.com.br/documentos/o-manifesto-criptoanarquista/

3. Peter Thiel

Who he is: entrepreneur and investor associated with PayPal, Palantir, and Founders Fund. One of the most influential figures in the elite tech right.

Type of right / position: right-libertarian, critic of liberal democracy, pro-technology, pro-venture capital, and connected to conservative/Republican networks.

Core idea: conventional democratic politics tends to block libertarian outcomes; technology, startups, new territories, and new institutional arrangements may reduce dependence on traditional politics.

Why he matters: Thiel connects money, technology, defense, data, startups, transhumanism, seasteading, and American conservative politics.

Works and links:

• The Education of a Libertarian — https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertarian/
• Zero to One — https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/234730/zero-to-one-by-peter-thiel-with-blake-masters/
• New Yorker profile, No Death, No Taxes — https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/11/28/no-death-no-taxes

4. Eric S. Raymond

Who he is: programmer, open-source advocate, author of The Cathedral and the Bazaar, and a major figure in hacker/open-source culture.

Type of right / position: libertarian. His defense of open source is not socialist; it is often connected to technical autonomy, individual liberty, merit, decentralization, and criticism of institutional control.

Core idea: open, decentralized projects can be more efficient than closed, hierarchical models.

Why he matters: Raymond helped frame “open source” in language compatible with markets, engineering, and hacker culture, different from Richard Stallman’s more moral/political “free software” framing.

Works and links:

• The Cathedral and the Bazaar — https://catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/
• The Cathedral and the Bazaar book directory — https://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/
• Homesteading the Noosphere — https://tuxedo-esr.com/~esr/writings/homesteading/index.html
• Armed and Dangerous blog — https://esr.ibiblio.org/

5. Curtis Yarvin / Mencius Moldbug

Who he is: software engineer, creator of Urbit, and political writer under the pseudonym Mencius Moldbug.

Type of right / position: neoreactionary, anti-democratic, elitist, associated with the Dark Enlightenment / NRx.

Core idea: liberal democracy is inefficient and dominated by a cultural-institutional elite he calls “The Cathedral.” His alternative points toward more hierarchical forms of government, closer to corporate administration.

Why he matters: Yarvin is perhaps the clearest example of a right-wing politics born in blogs, forums, and engineering culture, using the language of systems, governance, efficiency, and “exit.” He is influential in parts of the American tech right.

Works and links:

• A Formalist Manifesto — https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2007/04/formalist-manifesto-originally-posted/
• Unqualified Reservations archive — https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/
• Gray Mirror — https://graymirror.substack.com/
• Critical New Yorker profile — https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/06/09/curtis-yarvin-profile

6. Nick Land

Who he is: British philosopher, former academic, associated with accelerationism, the CCRU, and later the Dark Enlightenment.

Type of right / position: hard to classify in his early phase, but his later work is associated with neoreaction, anti-egalitarianism, and radical criticism of liberal democracy.

Core idea: in his accelerationist phase, Land saw capitalism and technology as dehumanizing and accelerating forces. In the Dark Enlightenment phase, he articulated critiques of democracy and defenses of hierarchical/elitist structures.

Why he matters: Land mixes continental philosophy, cyberpunk, capitalism theory, speculative fiction, and internet culture. He influenced both left accelerationism and neoreactionary currents.

Works and links:

• The Dark Enlightenment — https://www.thedarkenlightenment.com/the-dark-enlightenment-by-nick-land/
• Printed edition of The Dark Enlightenment — https://www.imperiumpress.org/shop/the-dark-enlightenment/
• Britannica overview of Dark Enlightenment — https://www.britannica.com/topic/Dark-Enlightenment

7. Balaji Srinivasan

Who he is: entrepreneur, former Coinbase CTO, former Andreessen Horowitz partner, and author of The Network State.

Type of right / position: technolibertarian, crypto-oriented, anti-centralized-state, with ideas close to network governance, digital sovereignty, and opt-in communities.

Core idea: technology can create new communities, currencies, cities, and even internet-born countries: “network states.”

Why he matters: Balaji represents a tech right/center-right that does not begin with traditional nationalism, but with exit: leaving the traditional nation-state and building new technology-mediated political communities.

Works and links:

• The Network State — https://thenetworkstate.com/
• Balaji’s page about the book — https://balajis.com/p/preorder-the-network-state

8. Marc Andreessen

Who he is: creator of Netscape, investor at Andreessen Horowitz, and one of the most influential voices in Silicon Valley venture capital.

Type of right / position: techno-optimist, pro-market, pro-technological acceleration, critic of excessive regulation. In recent years his public position has moved closer to the American right on technology, regulation, and innovation.

Core idea: technology is a driver of progress, wealth, and abundance; society should accelerate innovation instead of slowing it down through fear or regulation.

Why he matters: his Techno-Optimist Manifesto became a symbolic text for the e/acc, pro-AI, pro-growth, anti-degrowth, anti-technopessimism mood.

Works and links:

• The Techno-Optimist Manifesto — https://a16z.com/the-techno-optimist-manifesto/
• a16z podcast on the manifesto — https://open.spotify.com/episode/2Vpz1AWv7zSjJeSauI5FZu

9. Patri Friedman

Who he is: libertarian theorist, grandson of Milton Friedman, and founder of The Seasteading Institute.

Type of right / position: libertarian/anarcho-capitalist.

Core idea: create autonomous ocean communities to experiment with new political and legal systems outside the limits of traditional states.

Why he matters: seasteading is a physical version of the libertarian idea of “exit”: if the state is bad, build another jurisdiction. This directly connects with Peter Thiel, Balaji Srinivasan, and the tech culture of institutional escape.

Works and links:

• The Seasteading Institute — https://www.seasteading.org/
• History of The Seasteading Institute — https://www.seasteading.org/history/

10. Cody Wilson

Who he is: gun-rights activist, crypto-anarchist, and founder of Defense Distributed.

Type of right / position: crypto-anarchist, radical libertarian, pro-gun, pro-freedom of information.

Core idea: digital files, distributed manufacturing, and cryptography make it impossible for the state to fully control objects, weapons, information, and production.

Why he matters: Wilson is an extreme case of libertarian cyberactivism: he turns the freedom-of-information debate into a direct clash with state control, gun rights, and digital manufacturing.

Safety note: this research does not link to technical files, blueprints, or instructions for manufacturing weapons. The links below are journalistic/editorial or book pages.

Works and links:

• Come and Take It: The Gun Printer's Guide to Thinking Free — https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Come-and-Take-It/Cody-Wilson/9781476778273
• Reason interview — https://reason.com/podcast/2023/06/09/cody-wilson-the-future-of-gun-control-and-u-s-politics/
• Victoria and Albert Museum article on The Liberator — https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/the-liberator-the-worlds-first-3d-printed-handgun

11. Palmer Luckey

Who he is: founder of Oculus VR and Anduril Industries, a military/autonomous technology company.

Type of right / position: originally libertarian; later a supporter and fundraiser for Republican candidates and Donald Trump; today he represents a tech right linked to national defense, military industry, and reindustrialization.

Core idea: Silicon Valley should not avoid the military sector; advanced technology, AI, and autonomy are strategic for defense and national power.

Why he matters: Luckey is an example of a shift in Silicon Valley: from VR/gamer/cyber ideals to defense tech, drones, border surveillance, and military AI.

Works, companies, and links:

• Anduril Leadership — https://www.anduril.com/anduril-leadership
• Palmer Luckey’s blog — https://palmerluckey.com/
• Rebooting the Arsenal of Democracy — https://www.rebootingthearsenal.com/
• TED: The AI arsenal that could stop World War III — https://www.ted.com/talks/palmer_luckey_the_ai_arsenal_that_could_stop_world_war_iii

12. David Golumbia — not right-wing, but essential for understanding the topic

Who he was: critical scholar of digital culture.

Type of position: critic of the technological right, not a representative of it.

Core idea: major parts of digital culture were shaped by right-libertarian values: suspicion of the state, faith in markets, radical individualism, and hostility to democratic regulation.

Why he matters: if you want to study the cyber/tech right seriously, Golumbia is a crucial critical source. He helps avoid the naive assumption that technology is politically neutral.

Works and links:

• Cyberlibertarianism: The Right-Wing Politics of Digital Technology — https://www.upress.umn.edu/9781517918149/cyberlibertarianism/
• Google Books — https://books.google.com/books/about/Cyberlibertarianism.html?id=m2Kw0AEACAAJ

Recommended reading order

If the goal is to understand the field without getting lost, the smartest order is:

1. John Perry Barlow — A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace
2. Timothy C. May — The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto
3. Eric S. Raymond — The Cathedral and the Bazaar
4. Peter Thiel — The Education of a Libertarian
5. Marc Andreessen — The Techno-Optimist Manifesto
6. Balaji Srinivasan — The Network State
7. Curtis Yarvin — A Formalist Manifesto
8. Nick Land — The Dark Enlightenment
9. David Golumbia — Cyberlibertarianism

Simple conclusion

Yes, there is a right wing in the tech/cyber world — and a large one. But it rarely appears as classical conservatism. It appears mainly as:

• cryptography against the state;
• the internet as an autonomous territory;
• the market as a social organizer;
• startups as an alternative to politics;
• new jurisdictions, network states, and seasteading;
• technological acceleration;
• criticism of liberal democracy;
• and, in some cases, explicit defenses of hierarchy, authoritarianism, or technological nationalism.

The moderate version is libertarian. The radical version is neoreactionary. The newest Silicon Valley version mixes AI, defense tech, crypto, venture capital, anti-regulation, and American conservative politics.