Digital List Price:	$23.93
Print List Price:	$26.95
Kindle Price:	$12.99 Save $13.96 (52%)
Sold by:	Amazon.com Services LLC

Add Audible narration to your purchase for just $7.49

eBook features:

Highlight, take notes, and search in the book
In this edition, page numbers are just like the physical edition

You've subscribed to ! We will preorder your items within 24 hours of when they become available. When new books are released, we'll charge your default payment method for the lowest price available during the pre-order period.

Update your device or payment method, cancel individual pre-orders or your subscription at
Your Memberships & Subscriptions

There was an error. We were unable to process your subscription due to an error. Please refresh and try again.

Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires by [Douglas Rushkoff]

Follow the Author

Douglas Rushkoff

Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires Kindle Edition

by Douglas Rushkoff (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.3 266 ratings

Editors' pick Best Nonfiction

See all formats and editions

Price

New from

Used from

Kindle

"Please retry"

$12.99

—

Audible Audiobook, Unabridged

"Please retry"

$0.99

$7.95 with discounted Audible membership

Hardcover

"Please retry"

$15.99

$11.49

Paperback

"Please retry"

$17.95

—

Kindle
$12.99 Read with Our Free App
Audiobook
$0.99 with Audible Membership
Hardcover
$15.97 - $15.99

28 Used from $11.49 28 New from $15.99 1 Collectible from $25.00
Paperback
$17.95

1 New from $17.95

Great on Kindle

Great Experience. Great Value.

Enjoy a great reading experience when you buy the Kindle edition of this book. Learn more about Great on Kindle, available in select categories.

Named One of the Most Anticipated Books of 2022 by Kirkus and Literary Hub

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.

ISBN-13

978-0393881066
Sticky notes

On Kindle Scribe
Publisher

W. W. Norton & Company
Publication date

September 6, 2022
Language

English
File size

512 KB
See all details

Read with the free Kindle apps (available on iOS, Android, PC & Mac), Kindle E-readers and on Fire Tablet devices. See all supported devices

Douglas Rushkoff
372
Kindle Edition
Editors' pickBest Nonfiction
1 offer from $9.99
Douglas Rushkoff
110
Kindle Edition
1 offer from $12.99
Douglas Rushkoff
210
Kindle Edition
1 offer from $9.99
Douglas Rushkoff
280
Kindle Edition
Editors' pickBest Nonfiction
1 offer from $13.99
Douglas Rushkoff
304
Kindle Edition
1 offer from $14.99
Rebecca Giblin
60
Kindle Edition
in Antitrust Law
1 offer from $9.99

From the Publisher

Praise for Survival of the Richest from Naomi Klein

Editorial Reviews

Review

"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

"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

"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

"[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 --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

About the Author

Douglas Rushkoff is professor of media theory and digital economics at Queens/CUNY. Named one of the world’s ten most influential intellectuals by MIT, he hosts the Team Human podcast and has written many award-winning books. He lives in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B09TQ14FVK
Publisher ‏ : ‎ W. W. Norton & Company (September 6, 2022)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ September 6, 2022
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 512 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 225 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #100,784 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #29 in Media Studies (Kindle Store)
- #46 in General Technology & Reference
- #53 in Sociology of Social Theory

Customer Reviews:
4.3 266 ratings

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Videos

Help others learn more about this product by uploading a video!

Upload your video

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

Douglas Rushkoff

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Named one of the “world’s ten most influential intellectuals” by MIT, Douglas Rushkoff is an author and documentarian who studies human autonomy in a digital age. His twenty books include the upcoming Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires, Team Human, based on his podcast, as well as 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 Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity.

He coined such concepts as “viral media,” “screenagers,” and “social currency,” and has been a leading voice for applying digital media toward social and economic justice. He a research fellow of the Institute for the Future, and Professor of Media Theory and Digital Economics at CUNY/Queens. He is a columnist for Medium, and his novels and comics, Ecstasy Club, A.D.D, and Aleister & Adolf, are all being developed for the screen.

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5

266 global ratings

5 star		62%
4 star		20%
3 star		7%
2 star		6%
1 star		5%

How customer reviews and ratings work

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

B Dundore

important awakening

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 24, 2022

Verified Purchase

Well written diatribe on the hubris and arrogance of technology and Technosolutionism. Always informative and frequently depressing, a very necessary read to alert the mind about the world that is being created while we sleep.

4 people found this helpful

Helpful

John Smith

This clickbait name dropper of a book will make a lot of money on a dishonest premise.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 24, 2022

Verified Purchase

This clickbait name dropper of a book will make a lot of money on a dishonest premise.

That billionaires are a group that thinks alike and spends most of their time trying to grow their fortunes.

Actually they are people like the rest of, except they won 1000 lotteries.
Most chose their parents wisely.
Some built a business that spun off lots of value, and stock value.
But that's about all they have in common.

We are especially vulnerable to bad people controlling lots of money thanks to Citizens United, which was in fact sponsored by the oil industry and it's beneficiaries, a couple nasty billionaires, whose dad made his fortune building USSR's Stalin's oil industry, which Putin owns today. So those guys always pretend to be anti-communist, while closing giant deals with Putin, and distorting our politics to give them US Govt subsidies to do it.

The author picks a few weirdos and suggests that all rich people share their insane and heartless views.
That is as intellectually bankrupt as stereotyping races or ethnic groups.
However he gets away with it because billionaires are not a protected class.

18 people found this helpful

Helpful

Barry

Interesting book and great title

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 10, 2022

Verified Purchase

Interesting book about how billionaires are messing up the world in case you didn't already know that.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Mark Petry

Interesting but not as represented

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 31, 2022

Verified Purchase

This book was a disappointment. The content does not really cohere with the title, instead it is an indictment of the silicon valley "founder mindset" which is well thought out, but it is not what the title implies. The main idea related to "survival of the richest" is "be nice to your security team". That's it. Hollow.

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

James Jewell

Longtime fan not disappointed by a stylistic shift

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 20, 2022

Verified Purchase

It wouldn't be fair for me NOT to offer the caveat that I am a fan of Rushkoff's work, but this is both fully in the vein of and a departure from previous work. His ideas still shine through, but he reaches them more through storytelling than he has in some other books, and the result is a personal and thoughtful journey. Understanding "the mindset" becomes as powerful a lens as his observations on the viral proliferation of ideas were when I encountered them in 1995. A must for fans, but an especially accessible entry into the world of his work.

14 people found this helpful

Helpful

nadine

An important read. Eye-opening.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 22, 2023

Verified Purchase

The concerns of the one percent affect our politics and our future. Unfortunate and unfair but true.

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

Margaret Dobrowolska

Coming back to our humanity

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 25, 2022

Verified Purchase

Is the solution to problems we created by adopting “the Mindset”. Circular business practice, collective activities, closeness to the other human beings, living in the present, are the answers for woes of our civilization. Thank you Douglas Rushkoff for an idea so simple, yet brilliant and productive.

10 people found this helpful

Helpful

EF Rust

shallow

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 28, 2022

Verified Purchase

I wanted to like this book. Billionaires are, by several sane measures, sociopaths, and a satisfying target. But check out this sentence from page 2, describing his business-class flight to go meet with some rich folks at a desert convention. "They [airline staff presumably] gave me noise-canceling headphones to wear and warmed mixed nuts to eat (yes, they *heat* the nuts) as I composed a lecture on my MacBook [important brand insertion there?] about how digital businesses could foster circular economic principles rather than doubling down on extractive growth-based capitalism--painfully aware that the ethical value of my words nor the carbon offsets I had purchased along with my ticket could possibly compensate for the environmental damage I was doing." Seems to me it's not just billionaires who are being righteous and self-absorbed these days. I put it down after 10 pages. If anybody wants my copy, they can have it.

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Translate all reviews to English

R Bancroft

Pretty insubstantial

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on January 8, 2023

Verified Purchase

I saw a video talk he gave and he seemed sharp, interesting and funny, but like a number of other readers here, I found this book a BIG disappointment. TBH I didn't read it all. I skipped forward hoping that it would get more interesting. Maybe I missed his point, but his interpretation of the current political environment I thought was ill-informed and naive. His account of the 'mind-set' dominating the thinking of the rich elite is pretty insubstantial and adds nothing that's not already understood by any thinking person. But, hey, don't worry, he says, we just need to retain our humanity and create new and better ways of doing things and that will counteract their pathetic enterprises .......oh jolly good!
He writes well though it all feels a bit pretentious and frankly quite bland.

3 people found this helpful

Davina Powell

Excellent analysis

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on March 25, 2023

Verified Purchase

We only need three rules in life:
Be kind, do no harm and share nicely like your mother taught you. The insane people deliberately perpetuating a system that contravenes any of the above? Well, as my husband likes to metaphorically put it “there’s no shame in showbizz…”
Highly recommend ✌🏾❣️

susan worts

Survival of the Richest by Douglas Rushkoff

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on October 26, 2022

Verified Purchase

Beautifully written and extremely informative. I highly recommend it to others. Will purchase more by this author!

Krunos

It's a good read

Reviewed in Australia 🇦🇺 on December 29, 2022

Verified Purchase

There is so much in this book to get things started bogle your own mind with it and come up with your own conclusions.

Amazon Music Stream millions of songs	Amazon Advertising Find, attract, and engage customers	6pm Score deals on fashion brands	AbeBooks Books, art & collectibles	ACX Audiobook Publishing Made Easy	Sell on Amazon Start a Selling Account

Amazon Business Everything For Your Business	Amazon Fresh Groceries & More Right To Your Door	AmazonGlobal Ship Orders Internationally	Home Services Experienced Pros Happiness Guarantee	Amazon Ignite Sell your original Digital Educational Resources	Amazon Web Services Scalable Cloud Computing Services

Audible Listen to Books & Original Audio Performances	Book Depository Books With Free Delivery Worldwide	Box Office Mojo Find Movie Box Office Data	ComiXology Thousands of Digital Comics	DPReview Digital Photography	Fabric Sewing, Quilting & Knitting

Goodreads Book reviews & recommendations	IMDb Movies, TV & Celebrities	IMDbPro Get Info Entertainment Professionals Need	Kindle Direct Publishing Indie Digital & Print Publishing Made Easy	Amazon Photos Unlimited Photo Storage Free With Prime	Prime Video Direct Video Distribution Made Easy

Shopbop Designer Fashion Brands	Amazon Warehouse Great Deals on Quality Used Products	Whole Foods Market America’s Healthiest Grocery Store	Woot! Deals and Shenanigans	Zappos Shoes & Clothing	Ring Smart Home Security Systems

eero WiFi Stream 4K Video in Every Room	Blink Smart Security for Every Home	Neighbors App Real-Time Crime & Safety Alerts	Amazon Subscription Boxes Top subscription boxes – right to your door	PillPack Pharmacy Simplified	Amazon Renewed Like-new products you can trust

Buy for others

Buying and sending eBooks to others

Follow the Author

Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires Kindle Edition

Customers who viewed this item also viewed

From the Publisher

Editorial Reviews

Review

About the Author

Product details

Videos

About the author

Douglas Rushkoff

Customer reviews

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Top reviews from other countries