Wellllllllll I’m a lover girl—and currently, I’m really into my tech bro husband. And we live in the bay area. Ever since the Claudette era, his eye contact with me has been declining and I feel like the other woman in his life. So I did what a clever girl’s gotta do for some attention: make his life easier. I needed a way to cut his commute, his meal prep, and open up that calendar.

And that wasn’t happening in Silicon Valley around bots. So I typed in “optimized living and tropical tech hub” to Chat GPT. Network school popped up as an option but after researching on the rest of the internet….Network School was giving crypto, tech bro, and had me questioning “is this a cult?” 

But I’m a Sagittarius so curiosity always wins and I decided to full send it. $1500 for a month in a hotel room that was cleaned daily, laundry services, catered healthy food and access to a great gym? It’s definitely a send. AND surrounded by smart people who run tech-forward learning workshops? An easy send.

Also, selfishly, I needed to replace the sight of SF’s AI billboards with palm trees. 

Guys, look at my balcony here. I’m not even being that dramatic when I say the Bay Area billboards’ typography advertising another vibe-coded agents literally deteriorated my chakras.  But here, I finally have eye contact from tech bro hubby back— so in a way, I do feel like I’ve saved his soul too.

It’s not a school that teaches you how to network. And explaining what Network School is a long explanation. First off, it’s not any kind of school. There’s no classes or teachers. It’s kinda set up like a college campus though!

It’s a society that was set up to help builders build. Once a potential member applies and gets accepted, they can come live on an island where they don’t have to cook, clean, do laundry and gain gym access + coworking spaces to lock in. People focus on building their tech, app, community, digital product, and monetize skills or mine crypto. Or whatever big-brained thing you want to pursue.

Network School is set up to minimize the typical distractions and inefficiencies that come with adulting. It also brings together a community of futuristic thinkers and gives them the tools to support building like event spaces, robots, 3D printers etc. The simplest explanation I’ve found is: it’s a place in Malaysia where a bunch of people from around the world come to live, work, build things, work out, learn from each other, and generally exist in the same little bubble for anywhere from a month to… indefinitely.

*Side note: As of August 2026, the bubble has bounced to Kazakhstan.

It was started by Balaji Srinivasan and is connected to the ideas he writes about in The Network State. There’s a much bigger vision behind it around internet communities eventually becoming real-world communities, but you definitely don’t need to understand all of that before showing up. I didn’t.

I actually found NS because I was actively looking for something more than just a digital nomad hostel. I needed a communal space with people I’d find interesting — entrepreneurs, creatives, builders, people working on random ambitious things.

Nothing is mandatory so your day is whatever you want it to be. There was structure if you wanted it, but nothing you had to do. Some people are working full time, remote jobs while others are pivoting careers or in early retirement. There’s a wide range from founders to employed nomads. My ideal day usually flowed the same way but could sometimes depend on if I found any events I wanted to attend. They were updated daily on NS’s event page on Luma.

The best part was that everything could fit around your actual life. Work, workouts, events, creating, hanging out — you could build your day however you wanted.

Wait first, here’s some lore – The founder of Network School, Balaji Srinivasan is famous on X with crypto bros and decentralization believers. A platform I hadn’t used and only made an account since the application required it. Balaji was the former CTO of Coinbase, was early better on Bitcoin, and has built an audience that takes his ideas very seriously. Turns out he’s got major pull and a lot of the people at Network School are here because of him. I’d say around 60% of the people I met at NS were there because they believed in his Network State vision, followed his work, or basically trusted that if Balaji was building something, it was worth checking out. I didn’t read The Network State but I recommend his biography The Anthology of Balaji. It gave me an interesting view of the future (and literally convinced me to spend a month in his vision).

But the actual mix of people is kind of chaotic, in the best way. Founders, engineers, creators, agency owners, freelancers, digital nomads, people between things, people trying to start things, people who had sold companies, and people who seemed to have arrived with absolutely no plan beyond this sounds interesting.

And they come from everywhere.

**#s are roundeed

Diversity is A1 and that was probably the part I liked most. You could sit down for breakfast with someone from India, work next to someone from China, play tennis with an American and somehow end the night in a conversation with someone whose life looked nothing like yours. And unlike any other digital nomading hub, they were vetted during the application process so you knew they were smart, creative and interested in the collective’s betterment.

Personally, this place solved my imposter syndrome. There is no standard of success you had to be at – Some people were deep AF into building companies. Some were figuring out what they wanted to build. Some had normal remote jobs. Some were just taking a little detour exploring an alternative way of communal living.

More than “founders” or “tech bros” or “crypto people,” it’s honestly now just people who are curious enough to move to a half deserted city and rebuild their ideal optimized lifestyle.

All girls have tummy problems but guys – I wasn’t bloated all month. It’s the best my gut has ever felt! The ingredients were fresh, local and so healthy! Taste wise, it gets very repetitive and bland but you can sauce or season extra on your own portions. It’s based on Bryan Johnson’s Don’t Die Blueprint program and is built on improving longevity and your biomarkers. The food def gives “I eat to live, not I live to eat” vibes –  but this diet had me thriving all month long. 

The setup is basically:

• Breakfast (7 AM-10 AM): An amazing breakfast buffet that’s managed by the hotel. It has SO many options with a range of cuisines from Indian, Chinese, American etc. Egg station, French toast, fruit slices, fresh juices, DIY broth station, rotis and curry – there’s variety here. It’s the only meal of the day that doesn’t follow the strict nutrition program since it’s run by the hotel and hotel guests eat there too.
• Lunch (11:30 AM – 2 PM): Pre-packaged boxes (vegan, soy-free, beef, chicken options) with the perfect amount of macros and nutrients. Everything’s pre-portioned so that you hit your calories. Nutty pudding and Banana yogurt are available for dessert. These are coveted and run out fast because it’s the only thing people want second portions of.
• Dinner (6–8 PM): Buffet style on the terrace – always comes with a good side of conversations.

Snacking isn’t encouraged on the NS diet plan- but there are KK Marts everywhere, so you’re never actually stranded without food. There were always extra lunch boxes left over in the fridge too incase of snacking emergency! There’s tons of options via Grab too – I literally ordered a foot long tuna sandwich when I missed America for a minute lol

But major pro – following this diet had me looking skinnier, feeling healthier and even running a faster smile. It’s all that clean fuel.

Check out my girl Tyra’s insta for more insights at Network School

Having my food prepped for me freed up 8 hours/week so this was a huge win for me in productivity. Not to mention – I actually felt better eating way healthier than an American diet ever allows!

The gym is honestly so well set up — huge, spacious, solid equipment, and you’re never waiting for a treadmill. Facilities are A1. There’s even a sauna and a cold plunge! Not to mention multiple pools located at the hotel if you need to hit some laps.

Then there are Burn sessions, which are basically group fitness classes led by Tim and Sandra. Except they’re way more fun when you already know half the people sweating next to you.

NS made working out part of your day by having the gym located centrally and group fitness classes 3x a day. 

1. Streaks leads to accountability — Every workout gave you an NFT and a mark on your calendar. Once you had a streak going, breaking it felt genuinely painful.
2. Motivation — There are tons of fit people who made working out feel part of a normal routine.
3. Sandra — Great energy and vibes. She had me signing up 2x a week and down to suffer all over again.

And this is coming from someone who was never really a group-fitness person. By the end, I was lowkey addicted to Sandra’s Core + Glutes class.

The question everybody (my parents) most wanna know. Obvi everyone will have different perspectives on this.

My takeaway: I realized that the life I want is possible – just not accessible in my tax bracket in the Bay Area. Here at NS, I outsourced the cooking, cleaning, mundane life tasks and canceled out my commute to truly focus on whatever I actually want to be doing – building my business.

A major bonus ended up being all the people who also want to live the way that I want to live. Eat, play, build. It made me realize there are other options instead of the 9-5 grind. A digital nomadic lifestyle can get lonely so a community hub like this solves for that loneliness.

Heads up that you’re not actually in Singapore. It’s near Singapore in the same way that San Jose is near San Francisco – except you have to show your passport at the border crossing where you go from Singapore to Malaysia.

Yes. Even if it’s moved to Kazakstan and that’s not even my tropical aesthetic.

NS gave me the space I need to structure my life based on how I wanted to. It took away my need to cook, clean, commute and just lock in on building and spending time with people I like – other builders. It’s solid proof that there are other ways to structure a life than the 9-5 job and 5-9 routine America had me trained for.

While I was there, Network School location in Forest City is now closed and headquarters is now in Astana Kazakstan. I loved the concept so maybe we’ll visit one summer since it is sunny then and I love their efficient set up even it’s not my ideal tropical tech hub.

I’d absolutely recommend NS, but a heads up that you’lI get way more out of it if you arrive knowing what you want to get out of your month at Network School. 

It’s easy to get swept up in the social side, go to every event, meet a gazillion people and suddenly realize a month has passed. Have some kind of intention set before attending — even if that intention completely changes once you’re there. Be curious, participate, meet people you normally wouldn’t, and leave enough room for unexpected things to happen 💙