Survival of the Richest

In Survival of the Richest, Rushkoff traces the origins of The Mindset in science and technology through its current expression in missions to Mars, island bunkers, AI futurism, and the metaverse. In a dozen urgent, electrifying chapters, he confronts tech utopianism, the datafication of all human interaction, and the exploitation of that data by corporations.

Through fascinating characters—master programmers who want to remake the world from scratch as if redesigning a video game and bankers who return from Burning Man convinced that incentivized capitalism is the solution to environmental disasters—Rushkoff explains why those with the most power to change our current trajectory have no interest in doing so. And he shows how recent forms of anti-mainstream rebellion—QAnon, for example, or meme stocks—reinforce the same destructive order.

This mind-blowing work of social analysis shows us how to transcend the landscape The Mindset created—a world alive with algorithms and intelligences actively rewarding our most selfish tendencies—and rediscover community, mutual aid, and human interdependency. In a thundering conclusion, Survival of the Richest argues that the only way to survive the coming catastrophe is to ensure it doesn’t happen in the first place.

"[A] thorough and authoritative condemnation of tech worship."
—Kirkus Reviews

"A shocking account of how the very wealthy prep for doomsday [and]…an eye-popping look at some outlandish visions for the future."
—Publishers Weekly

"Beyond eye-opening, this book is eye-popping. A master storyteller, Rushkoff brings to life perhaps the greatest challenge of our time. A must-read."
― Frances Moore Lappé, author or coauthor of twenty books, from Diet for a Small Planet to Daring Democracy

"A devastating portrait of the cultures and logics underlying big tech. Rushkoff is going to make you mad enough to fight back. A vital, lucid, and enraging read."
― Naomi Klein, author of This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate

"[Rushkoff’s] report is both fierce and amazed in the face of capitalism’s delusions; I for one am sharpening my pitchfork."
― Jonathan Lethem

"Rushkoff gives us a sober, scathing oddsmaking on the recursive wager of the ultra-rich."
― Cory Doctorow

"Douglas Rushkoff has always been a singular observer and thinker. Embedded near the epicenters of the digital revolution, he has never flinched from honestly delivering fresh, radical, humane critiques of the emerging world. There are plenty of books decrying the horrors of twenty-first-century monopoly capitalism, but none quite like Survival of the Richest."
― Kurt Anderson, author of Evil Geniuses

"Douglas Rushkoff’s keen eye as a seasoned media analyst, combined with his flair and wit as a writer and a performer, shine in this book."
― Marina Gorbis, executive director of Institute for the Future

"A hilarious and lacerating look at the elite sociopathy wrecking the world, and a call to arms for how the rest of us can fight it."
― Molly Crabapple, author of Drawing Blood and coauthor (with Marwan Hisham) of Brothers of the Gun

"With razor-sharp insight, Rushkoff unwraps the dazzling facade of the technological dream, revealing the alarming Mindset that underlies promises of planetary salvation."
― Jeremy Lent, author of The Patterning Instinct and The Web of Meaning