Henry Farrell

Silicon Valley’s Reading List Reveals Its Political Ambitions

In 2008, Paul Graham mused about the cultural differences between great US cities. Three years earlier, Graham had co-founded Y Combinator, a “startup accelerator” that would come to epitomize Silicon Valley — and would move there in 2009. But at the time Graham was based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which, as he saw it, sent a different message to its inhabitants than did Palo Alto.

Cambridge’s message was, “You should be smarter. You really should get around to reading all those books you’ve been meaning to.” Silicon Valley respected smarts, Graham wrote, but its message was different: “You should be more powerful.”

Read the full article in Bloomberg Weekend.

Other Writing:

Academic Article

Self-Segregation or Deliberation? Blog Readership, Participation and Polarization in American Politics – with Eric Lawrence and John Sides

March 9, 2010 Perspectives on Politics with Eric Lawrence and John Sides
Political scientists and political theorists debate the relationship between participation and deliberation among citizens with different political viewpoints. Blogs provide an important testing ground for their claims. We examine deliberation, polarization, and political participation among blog readers. We find that blog readers gravitate toward blogs that accord with their political beliefs. Few read blogs on ...
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Academic Article

Useful for What and Useful to Whom? IR and Its Public – with Jack Knight

May 13, 2021 International Studies Review with Jack Knight
Henry Farrell and Jack Knight (2021), “Useful for What and Useful to Whom? IR and Its Public,” International Studies Review, 23,4:1933-1958. The contributors to this forum all draw significantly from pragmatist philosophy and social theory for making sense of international politics. Collectively, we affirm the value of pragmatist work beyond metatheory and methodology, both politically ...
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