Balaji and Steven Glinert on Network States, Supply Chains, and Allied Coalition Strategy
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What are the shifting dynamics between nations and networks?
On the left, there's a lot of people who think you can just push a button to like end homelessness, end poverty, just take all Elon's money. And they just don't do any math and they don't have any understanding of scarce resources, scarce resources in the physical world. They don't understand scarce resources monetarily, right? They just think it was a cornucopia, a bounteous mother. Government is GOV is GOD, government is God, but the bounteous mother form of God, which can just hand out everything right. And the rightists, while more realistic often, is subject to a different but symmetrical, somewhat symmetrical version of this, where they think if the leftist thinks there's infinite money, the rightist thinks there's infinite power.
The rightist does not viscerally understand, oh, I need to work for votes. I need to get political support. Just like the leftist doesn't understand scarce resource in the physical world, the rightist doesn't understand scarce resource in the digital world. That they actually need to get all these people to agree with them that this is a good thing. And you can't just point a gun at everybody, right? And there's limits to just brute force.
Who has more power today, nations or networks? For decades, the internet has connected people across borders, creating new communities, markets, and institutions that don't neatly fit inside traditional states. At the same time, global power is shifting as China expands its industrial capacity and countries rethink alliances, supply chains, and economic strategy. The result is a growing debate about what comes next, a world organized primarily by nation states or one increasingly shaped by digital networks that operate across them. Theo Jaffe and Sofia Puccini speak with Balaji Sreenivasan and Stephen Glinnert about geopolitics, technology, and the future of global power.
We are live in the Situation Room. Today is Thursday, May 28th.
All right, so can I show some slides, or should I get started?
Go ahead. You should probably talk about where this came from and, like, why we're both— like, what the hell you've raised online the last couple days, too, right?
Oh, what's going on with you? I'm a helmet guy.
You know, the thing is, so, like— This guy actually had a decent TikTok, which I'll talk about in a second, by the way, which is funny. Basically, he has like a million followers on TikTok since 2022. He has never been a jingoistic nationalist on TikTok. In fact, I actually can't think of a single pro-American thing or anti-Chinese thing he's ever posted on TikTok, right? So all the patriotism, uber-patriot, whatever kind of thing, uber-nationalism is only on X, right? And the persona on TikTok is a completely different person. And I didn't actually understand that until actually like, you know, a few hours ago or whatever. He has like something where he's like, oh, Idi Amin did nothing wrong, basically.
Yeah, that one was crazy. It's just, you know, the problem is like, you know, and a lot of people said, why are you being so nice, blah, blah. And the way I approach things is, you know, tit for tat in game theory? Yep. Like, basically, there's a version of tit-for-tat where, like, you start out nice, right? I will basically cooperate with someone who will cooperate with me. I always start out nice. Steve, I mean, whatever. You've seen me in business over the years. I always, always start—
You're also like a genuinely nice person. Like you're not that argumentative in person.
I'm not. And I try, like basically I'm always looking for the win-win. That is to say, how can that person win, you know, like empathy. It's funny. The problem is, you know, wokes weaponize the word empathy and they use it to mean give me all your money and die or whatever, right? And you're evil, whatever. But the thing is empathy in the sense of understanding the other person's incentive structure and how they get a win. is important even if you're just a completely cold-blooded business person right right in fact the first thing i do when in any slide deck any conversation before you go and do a presentation is how does that person win right how did they get a promotion how do you know how did they how does their business make money how do they advance in life they have like three sometimes they even haven't even thought through their kpis or whatever right
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What are the shifting dynamics between nations and networks?
0:00–5:06
2
How does China's industrial rise affect global power structures?
5:06–5:34
3
What role do alliances play in a multipolar world?
5:34–20:38
4
What is the concept of the Network State and how does it relate to technology?
20:38–22:47
5
How is technological sovereignty influencing supply chains?
22:47–25:04
6
What are the implications of decentralization in global governance?
25:04–47:25
7
How do political ideologies shape responses to technological changes?
47:25–55:10
Speakers
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