Stoicism is huge in Silicon Valley. Check out these articles:
But is Stoicism even that big? That’s the demographic question.
The other questions are these: why is Stoicism so big (if it is) in Silicon Valley? And, judging from the article titles above, what’s wrong with Silicon Valley Stoicism?
My answers to the question are:
Stoicism is popular in tech, but we shouldn’t exaggerate.
Stoicism is big because it helps people build companies.
Silicon Valley Stoicism can be shallow, but it’s good on net.
In this article, I’ll explain why.
Demographics
First, what is Silicon Valley? Sometimes people refer to Amazon as a “Silicon Valley” company. Amazon is actually in Seattle:
These people have a point though – “Silicon Valley” means coastal tech culture now. So, to be clear, that’s what we’re talking about here.
Is Stoicism big in tech?
It’s common for people in the Bay Area to have heard of Stoicism, even if they only have surface knowledge of philosophy. Most people haven’t read any modern or ancient Stoics at all. But, at large gatherings, I often meet people who are familiar with the philosophy and apply it to their life.
Less anecdotally, Meditations is one of the most recommended books by venture capitalists:
The writer and engineer Susan Rigetti cites Seneca and Marcus Aurelius as “both accessible and unforgettable.” Tech thought leader types Naval Ravikant, Tim Ferriss and, of course, Ryan Holiday cite the Stoics. Marc Andreessen and entrepreneur David Heinemeier Hansson blurbed Bill Irvine’s most recent book The Stoic Challenge.
So, this is evidence that the Silicon Valley elite are familiar with Stoicism. Moreover, as we’ll see in the following sections, technologists reflect the philosophy in action, not only in books and blurbs.
All the same, tech culture is a messy mix of influences. Hacker culture, hippy culture, liberal progressivism, libertarianism, mindfulness, the cosmopolitan professional ethos – the list goes on. Stoicism is not at the core of Silicon Valley. In my view, the core ideology of the valley is an inconsistent mix of libertarian, progressive, startup, technological, cosmopolitan, Californian, and secular culture. Stoicism lives outside that center, along with things like hippy culture, western Buddhism, and wokeness.
Levels of Stoicism
But what do we mean when we say that Silicon Valley is Stoic? Do people walk around reciting Epictetus? No.
To answer this question, it’s useful to think of Stoicism on three levels.
First, there’s the approach to the philosophy that is merely technique oriented. This is the life hacker’s Stoicism. In this view, philosophy is a set of practices like negative visualization or concepts like the dichotomy of control. These practices are things one pulls out to be more productive or feel calm. This is the shallowest version of Stoicism.
Second, there’s Stoicism as an operating system. Tim Ferriss once described Stoicism as:
A no-nonsense system designed to produce dramatic real-world effects. Think of it as an ideal operating system for thriving in high-stress environments.
This view of Stoicism integrates the philosophy psychologically and practically into a life. It’s part of the day-to-day. Ancient Greek thought is no longer a technique in your armamentarium, but part of who you are. It’s not just a program on your computer, but the operating system.
The final form, the deepest level if you will, incorporates the ideology as a life philosophy. Here Stoicism is not only an operating system but a guide for life. The Stoic account of life says what a good life is. Stoicism is no longer an aspect of your identity, but who you aspire to be. The philosophy is not merely an operating system, but the machine itself.
When I say that Silicon Valley is Stoic I mean that it has ingredients of the first two levels. The valley does have a concentrated number of Stoics, those who self-identify and treat the worldview as their life philosophy, but so far, we’re not culturally dominant.
Ideology Context Fit
Why is Stoicism as big as it is in tech?
Silicon Valley is dominantly male and so is Stoicism. Both trends are changing, but one would be remiss to avoid mentioning this fact. But this is only a tiny part of the explanation. Not all male-dominated fields see the same penetration of Greco-roman thought.
More importantly, people have intentionally cultivated the philosophy. The Modern Stoicism team has done excellent work promoting the philosophy online. Tim Ferriss, Ryan Holiday, and others have made it part of their life projects to share the good word with the valley in particular. Check out Ryan Holiday’s earliest article on the philosophy: Stoicism 101: A Practical Guide for Entrepreneurs.
But even more centrally, there’s a reason why philosophers, marketers, and authors chose to share Stoicism with tech workers: there is a serious ideology-context fit.
Stoicism is useful for entrepreneurs. Building companies is hard. Elon Musk said:
Running a start-up is like chewing glass and staring into the abyss. After a while, you stop staring, but the glass chewing never ends.
That’s not entirely correct. It’s not that hard. But it’s a marathon – exhilarating, exhausting, painful, and at times one may wonder why one is doing it at all.
The Stoic philosophy has techniques and a framework for just these moments.
Let’s cover three. Doing so highlights the extent of ideology culture fit:
Negative Visualization
Truth orientation
The dichotomy of control
Negative visualization helps people prepare for the worst. It helps one make better plans but also steels oneself for when things go wrong. It’s now standard business practice to do premortems: before a project launches imagine if things went wrong, how that would most likely happen.
Philosophy forces one to see the world as it is. This has an ethical and strategic element to it. People who commit to pursuing knowledge over ego are more likely to win than those who do not. This attitude is consistent with extreme self-belief. The investor and CEO of Open AI, Sam Altman, writes:
Self-belief is immensely powerful. The most successful people I know believe in themselves almost to the point of delusion.
Note “almost.” Altman continues:
Self-belief must be balanced with self-awareness. I used to hate criticism of any sort and actively avoided it. Now I try to always listen to it with the assumption that it’s true, and then decide if I want to act on it or not. Truth-seeking is hard and often painful, but it is what separates self-belief from self-delusion.
The idea that one should believe what is true isn’t revolutionary. Actually possessing insatiable curiosity, vigilant open-mindedness, and a thirst for feedback however is rare. By no means is tech perfect at this, but it’s common for people outside of tech and into other fields to learn that other cultures are not as straightforward, action, or truth-oriented.
If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid with regard to external things.
– Epictetus, Handbook 13
Finally, Stoicism forces people to take responsibility for what they can control. The dichotomy of control neatly divides the world into what is up to us and what is not. From that, all responsibilities fall. We must take uncompromising responsibility for decisions and judgments. Everything else is not up to us.
The dichotomy of control creates the necessary room for agentic and willful behavior. You can decide to leave your job, think through the problem, or break the rules. No one else can judge or decide for you.
There’s the well-known line from Marcus Aurelius: “What stands in the way becomes the way.”
It’s less well-known what comes before that:
In a sense, people are our proper occupation. Our job is to do them good and put up with them. But when they obstruct our proper tasks, they become irrelevant to us–like sun, wind, and animals. Our actions may be impeded by them, but there can be no impeding our intentions or our dispositions. Because we can accommodate and adapt.
This is focused Stoicism. Our proper task is to treat people well. But when things go awry we cannot blame them in the same way we cannot blame the weather. Whenever things turn upside down, remember things must go wrong. This is one of those times. You’re chewing glass now. Be glad that you’re someone who can handle it.
What’s Wrong With $toicism
Critics don’t like Silicon Valley Stoicism either because:
It’s a misinterpretation of Stoicism and that’s bad
Silicon Valley is bad
The first position says that the Silicon Valley Stoicism is too shallow. There’s something to this. But not that much. Yes, the first level is not ideal, the second is better, but only the third takes one towards sagehood. So what? On the margin, Stoicism has made a positive influence.
Stoics never sacrifice virtue for some other gain. Some argue that the use of Stoicism for business or career advancement violates this principle. But that’s false. If you’re developing a tool that saves lives, is beautiful, or simply offers a useful service, being excellent at your job is virtuous.
Of course, competence isn’t a guarantee of virtue. If you’re great at a job that tortures animals, increases the number of drunks in the world, or slows down human progress, that’s less than ideal. Please leave the job or get worse at it.
The second argument is not about Stoicism per se, but an expression of the general concern that tech is immoral. There’s the worry that Stoic individualism lends itself to exploiting others while sitting on great wealth.
Consider the line from Mother Jones article: “Holiday is doing brand management for the amoral elite.” This critique is, on its face, wild. Holiday regularly makes pronouncements on ethics and politics, many progressive.
But there is something to it. Stoicism doesn’t have well-defined politics.
This is an advantage to the philosophy. It’s a big tent with libertarians, conservatives, progressives, Marxists and reactionaries. Thankfully, not all Stoics subscribe to the politics of Mother Jones.
As individuals, Stoics should think through under what conditions wealth is justly gained, what our attitudes towards elites should be, and what responsibilities wealth entails.
If there’s a critique of tech here I’d stand by it’s that it does have an amoral streak. Is this the fault of Stoicism? Probably not. See American finance. But an obsession with business metrics obscures questions surrounding the ends and means of modern-day professional life.
What’s Next
Stoicism shapes silicon valley. That’s one thing that makes it one of the most exciting places in the world to be.
If you want to be a top performer and shape the world, learn more about Stoicism. It will help.
Yet be careful – the criticisms have their merits. Not all business ends are good. Technology is not neutral. Watch this space – I’ll be writing more on this.
It’s worth recalling the example of Susan Regitti. She’s something like a Stoic. Each of the big 3 Roman Stoics the top 5 in her Twenty Books That Shaped My Unconventional Life list. Back in 2016, she blew the whistle on Uber’s pernicious culture. That was the right thing to do.
Listen to my conversation with Michael Tremblay on Stoicism in Silicon Valley and my conversation with Massimo Pigliucci where we touch on some of these issues as well.
Good post.