In 2024, a survey revealed a striking shift in public sentiment: more than two-thirds of Americans said they believed major tech companies had lost their moral bearings. And that was before many of Silicon Valley’s biggest figures openly aligned themselves with the Trump administration. As criticism of the industry intensifies, some observers are turning back to a book published 25 years ago for explanations of how this cultural rupture happened.

Paulina Borsook’s Cyberselfish, released at the height of the dot-com boom in 2000, argued that a once earnest and civic-minded tech community had devolved into a culture driven by elitism, anti-government hostility, and a belief that human beings could be treated like programmable systems. She labeled this ideology “techno-libertarianism,” warning that Silicon Valley’s aversion to regulation and disdain for social responsibility would become a dangerous force once it accumulated enough money and influence.

Her warnings now feel eerily prescient. In an interview, Borsook remarked that the widespread acceptance of surveillance capitalism, the dismissal of empathy as a weakness, and the refusal to acknowledge the environmental costs of artificial intelligence represent exactly the culture she feared decades ago. What she once predicted—when Silicon Valley was still a collection of brash young entrepreneurs—is now commonplace behavior for some of the world’s most powerful corporations.

Yet her accuracy came at a personal cost. Cyberselfish stalled her career so thoroughly that she jokingly refers to it as “That Damn Book.” She never published another. For years, she survived as an Airbnb superhost to avoid paying rent. Now 71, in poor health, and living precariously in the East Bay, she relies on a crowdfunded campaign created by friends.

But suddenly, Borsook is being rediscovered. Her resurgence began when Jonathan Sandhu spotlighted her work on his political commentary site, FakeSoap, describing her as “too right, too early.” Interest exploded after an appearance on The Nerd Reich, a podcast hosted by Gil Duran, a longtime political communications strategist. Their conversation drew more than 120,000 YouTube views within weeks. Writers and fans have since flooded social media praising her foresight, and secondhand copies of Cyberselfish have vanished from the market. Even libraries report that they no longer have available copies. Several international publishers have inquired about republishing the book.

Borsook’s revival comes at a moment when Silicon Valley’s longtime chroniclers are reassessing their own roles in telling the industry’s story. Steven Levy, a veteran tech journalist, wrote a widely discussed essay in Wired acknowledging that he misread the industry’s true trajectory. He noted with shock how quickly some tech leaders embraced Trump, despite their earlier rhetoric about democratization, creativity, and empowerment. Levy called Apple CEO Tim Cook’s decision to present Trump with a custom engraved statue one of the most perplexing episodes in the company’s history.

The ideals that shaped the 1990s digital revolution are now being re-examined. Back then, this new online world was hailed as a liberating, borderless realm. John Perry Barlow’s Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace boldly rejected traditional governance, proclaiming that the internet would be a sanctuary for free expression beyond the reach of state control.

But Borsook never understood the hostility toward government. She observed that no region benefited more from public investment—especially in technology, research, and defense—than Silicon Valley. She argued that early techno-utopianism masked a growing ideology that equated wealth with intelligence and dismissed collective responsibility in favor of personal gain.

Her contrarian perspective stemmed from two aspects of her life. First, she understood technology not as mystical liberation but as infrastructure—functional, powerful, but fundamentally a tool, like electricity or plumbing. Second, a traumatic childhood accident left her with lifelong cognitive challenges, making traditional academic paths difficult. She forged a career in tech journalism instead, reporting on landmark moments including Bill Gates unveiling Microsoft Windows in 1984.

Her early experience shaped her skepticism toward the mythmaking around the first internet boom. When Wired launched in 1993, the magazine celebrated technology as a cultural revolution. It glamorized the digital future, turned programmers into celebrities, and even licensed its name to a real investment fund. Borsook, one of the publication’s earliest contributors, became increasingly alienated by what she saw as uncritical enthusiasm for an ideology that overlooked social responsibility. Eventually, she left and poured her critique into Cyberselfish.

The book received praise from some reviewers—including being described as “smart” and “irreverent”—but it didn’t find commercial success. Instead, it ended her upward professional trajectory. Meanwhile, other critics of the tech industry, such as Clifford Stoll, who once argued that the internet would remain a trivial novelty, later reversed their positions. Even he now acknowledges that the promises of technology come with significant costs.

Ironically, Wired itself has shifted toward a more skeptical stance in recent years, producing investigative coverage on topics such as the rise of surveillance in the United States. Borsook welcomes the change but remains cautious, arguing that the fundamental power dynamics she wrote about have not shifted. The immense wealth of Silicon Valley still fuels the same ideological impulses she identified decades ago.

As she considers the future, Borsook has proposed an idea that is part satire and part earnest suggestion: a Silicon Valley Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Such a forum, she imagines, would allow the industry’s power brokers—journalists turned investors, executives turned cultural icons, and the originators of terms like “sharing economy” and “disruptive innovation”—to publicly reflect on how their narratives shaped the culture we live in today. Whether she intends it as humor or a genuine call for accountability remains unclear even to her.

What is certain is that Cyberselfish has reentered the conversation at a pivotal moment. As society grapples with the consequences of a tech-dominated era—from erosion of privacy to generative AI to political influence—Paulina Borsook’s once-overlooked warnings now read like a guide to the present. And for the first time in years, the world is finally listening.