THE GUARDIAN: Former Lib Dem leader and Meta strategist writes in new book that power in tech capital is interlaced with ‘self pity’
Silicon Valley is full of hubris and hugely wealthy and macho men who think they are victims, the former politician and Facebook executive Nick Clegg has said.
The former leader of the Liberal Democrats makes the claim in a new book chronicling his three careers as an MEP in Brussels, an MP and deputy prime minister in Westminster and as a communications and public policy strategist in San Francisco.
In an interview with the Guardian, Clegg heaped praise on his former boss, Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and chief executive of Meta, but was scathing of the culture fostered in the tech capital of the world where he said wealth and power was interlaced with “self pity”.
“In Silicon Valley, far from thinking they’re lucky, they think they’re hard done by, [that] they’re victims. I couldn’t, and still can’t, understand this deeply unattractive combination of machismo and self-pity.
He said: “It is a cultural thing, through from Elon Musk’s chainsaw-wielding stuff to any Silicon Valley podcast. If you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.”
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His new book, How to Save the Internet, goes behind the scenes at Meta and provides insight into how Silicon Valley’s insularity has blinded it to its missteps. “Everyone wears the same clothes, drives the same cars, listens to the same podcasts, follows the same fads,” Clegg said. “It’s a place born of immense sort of herd-like behaviour.” » | Lisa O’Carroll and Gaby Hinsliff | Saturday, August 23, 2025
‘If the people who ran Facebook were monsters, I wouldn’t have worked there’: Nick Clegg on tech bros, Trump and leaving Silicon Valley »
