Summary
The tech elite have a plan to survive the apocalypse: they want to leave us all behind.
Five mysterious billionaires summoned theorist Douglas Rushkoff to a desert resort for a private talk. The topic? How to survive the “Event”: the societal catastrophe they know is coming. Rushkoff came to understand that these men were under the influence of The Mindset, a Silicon Valley–style certainty that they and their cohort can break the laws of physics, economics, and morality to escape a disaster of their own making―as long as they have enough money and the right technology.
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.
Source: Amazon
Author Events – 26/09/2022
Acclaimed for their intersectional explorations of cyberculture, religion, currency, and politics, Douglas Rushkoff’s 20 bestselling books include Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus, Program or Be Programmed, Present Shock, and Media Virus. He also is the host of the Team Human podcast, writes a column for Medium, and created the PBS Frontline documentaries Generation Like, The Persuaders, and Merchants of Cool. A professor of media theory and digital economics at City University of New York, Queens College, he was selected as one of the world’s 10 most influential intellectuals by MIT, was the first winner of the Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity, is a recipient of the Marshall McLuhan Award, and has received many other accolades. In Survival of the Richest, Rushkoff reveals the flawed mindset that has led out-of-touch tech titans to prepare for a societal catastrophe they could simply avert through practical measures.
Chair of the Department of Legal Studies and Business Ethics at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, Ken Werbach is the author of For the Win: How Game Thinking Can Revolutionize Your Business and The Blockchain and the New Architecture of Trust. He served on the Obama administration’s presidential transition team and helped develop the Federal Communications Commission’s approach to internet policy.
About
Douglas Ruskoff
Douglas Rushkoff is an author and documentarian who studies human autonomy in a digital age.
His twenty books include the just-published Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires, as well as the recent Team Human, based on his podcast, and the bestsellers Present Shock, Throwing Rocks and the Google Bus, Program or Be Programmed, Life Inc, and Media Virus.
He also made the PBS Frontline documentaries Generation Like, The Persuaders, and Merchants of Cool. His book Coercion won the Marshall McLuhan Award, and the Media Ecology Association honored him with the first Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity.
Source: Book Website
Overview
“Survival of the Richest” by Douglas Rushkoff explores the mindset of tech billionaires who believe they can escape the consequences of societal problems, like climate change, by insulating themselves from them. The book critiques the idea of “The Mindset,” where the wealthy aim to survive catastrophes by building bunkers and escaping to isolated communities, while actively contributing to the problems they seek to avoid. Rushkoff argues that instead of focusing on individual survival, a more sustainable future lies in collective action and addressing systemic issues.
Here’s a more detailed breakdown:
- The Mindset:
Rushkoff coins the term “The Mindset” to describe the belief that with enough wealth and resources, individuals can insulate themselves from the consequences of their actions and survive global catastrophes.
- Escape Fantasies:
The book highlights how the ultra-rich are investing in projects like luxury bunkers, seasteading (floating cities), and missions to Mars, as a means to escape potential societal collapse.
- Critique of Technological Solutions:
Rushkoff questions the focus on technological solutions that benefit only the wealthy, while often exacerbating existing problems like inequality and environmental damage.
- The Importance of Interdependence:
The book argues that human survival depends on collective action, mutual aid, and recognizing our interdependence with each other and the environment.
- Call to Action:Rushkoff encourages readers to challenge “The Mindset” and work towards solutions that benefit all of humanity, rather than just a select few.
Source: Gemini AI Overview 7/8/25
Web Links
Editorial Reviews
“Dark and revealing… Rushkoff provides a powerful critique of the attitudes and technologies that enable these deceptions.”
― Washington Post
“Survival of the Richest reveals fascinating tidbits about the elite tech crowd’s postapocalyptic survival strategies and the niche solutions being marketed to them.”
― Carolyn Wong Simpkins, Science
“[H]arrowing and illuminating.”
― Chris Barsanti, PopMatters
“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
“Survival of the Richest is more than a primer on a soulless worldview pervading all aspects of life. Defying fantasies of escape―from each other, from earthliness, from Earth―Rushkoff offers something at once more realistic and more imaginative: mutual regard, responsibility, and flourishing. In so doing, he mounts an impassioned defense of everything and everyone marked expendable in the fanatical pursuit of a blank slate.”
― Jenny Odell
“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
“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
“Rushkoff gives us a sober, scathing oddsmaking on the recursive wager of the ultra-rich.”
― Cory Doctorow
“[Rushkoff’s] report is both fierce and amazed in the face of capitalism’s delusions; I for one am sharpening my pitchfork.”
― Jonathan Lethem
“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
“A scary, true and unsettling look at what happens when money causes people to lose their humanity.”
― Seth Godin
“Numbing and mind-blowing in equal measure, Survival of the Richest reveals how tech billionaires are planning to survive a global apocalypse.”
― BookPage
“[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
