
Cybertopia: Dreams of Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley's entrepreneurs and programmers talk about building more than companies: they describe a wholesale replacement for government, markets, and even geography. Director Marije Meerman interviews the venture capitalists and coders shaping this vision, including Kevin O'Connor, who argues that online platforms rating everything from businesses to government agencies will force transparency and let merit rise naturally to the top. The film draws a direct line from the 1960s counterculture, with its protests and peace signs, to today's Silicon Valley, where the same impulse toward transformation now takes the form of code and product launches. One strand of the argument goes further still, floating the idea that Silicon Valley might formally separate from the United States and govern itself by its own rules. Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Elon Musk appear as the movement's patron saints, proof that a good idea and enough capital can remake the world. Originally broadcast by VPRO's Backlight strand in 2015, the film treats this optimism as worth taking seriously and worth questioning at the same time.