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Malaysia’s government has ordered the closure of the Network School, a community for techno-optimists founded by entrepreneur and investor Balaji Srinivasan, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal. The shutdown, attributed to licensing problems, ends the school’s operations in an abandoned Malaysian hotel.Srinivasan, who renounced his U.S. citizenship in 2023 and now says he is a Singaporean, conceived the Network School as the first step in a seven-stage plan to build a new society, as outlined in his book “The Network State.” The program was described as “part tech incubator, part self-improvement retreat,” but some attendees complained about moldy rooms, a lack of women, and limited nightlife.After receiving questions from the Journal, Srinivasan said on X that the newspaper was preparing a “hit piece” that would make him look like “an odd duck” instead of an early adopter. Despite the setback in Malaysia, he recently announced a new campus agreement in Kazakhstan.TechCrunch has reached out to Srinivasan for comment.

The closure highlights the gap between the Network State project’s online ambitions and the local rules that govern a physical campus. The project’s own website describes a network state as a technology-enabled path from online communities toward new cities or countries. A residential school, however, still operates inside an existing jurisdiction and remains subject to licensing, accommodation, and other regulatory requirements. The reported order therefore affects the Malaysian site rather than resolving the broader debate over Srinivasan’s model.

Srinivasan’s announcement of a Kazakhstan campus suggests the organization intends to continue experimenting elsewhere. Neither the Malaysian report nor the project materials establish when that campus will open, what approvals it has secured, or how it will differ from the operation being closed. Those unanswered questions will be important for prospective attendees. The case is also a practical test of whether internet-organized communities can translate their governance ideas into durable physical institutions without encountering the legal and operational constraints faced by conventional schools and retreats.