Who is E. Glen Weyl?

An American economist and the main writer of the book ⿻ Plurality, which he wrote with Audrey Tang. He is one of the people behind "Quadratic Voting", which lets votes express how strongly people feel, and the founder of RadicalxChange.

This name appears on the cover of the book ⿻ Plurality, next to Audrey Tang's. He is also one of the people who devised mechanisms that come up often in discussions of Plurality, such as "Quadratic Voting" and "Quadratic Funding".

In short

E. Glen Weyl is an American economist. He wrote ⿻ Plurality with Audrey Tang and collaborators around the world [1]. He is known as one of the people who devised a way of voting that lets people express not just yes or no but how strongly they feel (Quadratic Voting), and a way of allocating donations that tops up most generously the causes that many people give a little to (Quadratic Funding) [2][3].

The book's author profile introduces Weyl as "Founder of RadicalxChange, Microsoft Research's Plural Technology Collaboratory & Plurality Institute & co-author of Radical Markets" [1]. The Japanese edition's author profile says he taught economics at the University of Chicago, Princeton University and Yale University [4].

Connection to Plurality

The book's main writer. The author credit in the sample citation (BibTeX) for the book is "Weyl, E. Glen and Tang, Audrey and {the Plurality Community}" [5]. According to an article in TIME, the book began as a blog post by Weyl. Weyl and Tang planned it, Weyl was the main writer, and more than 100 people were involved in proofreading, figures, writing chapters and more [6].

The word "Plurality". In his February 2022 essay "Why I am a Pluralist", Weyl called himself a "pluralist" and wrote that he calls the direction technology should take "Plurality". The book's chapter on voting also cites this essay [7][2].

Meeting Tang. According to TIME, it was Vitalik Buterin who introduced the two in 2018 [6]. A record also survives of Weyl meeting Tang in Taipei on November 21, 2018 [8].

Spreading the word. TIME reports that Weyl was the main force behind planning Tang's world tour [6].

Links with Japan. He gave a keynote talk in Tokyo in January 2024 [9]. In October 2024 he held a three-way conversation with Tang and Haruyuki Seki [18]. Around the publication of the Japanese edition in May 2025, he contributed articles and held a conversation with Sunji Lee [10][11].

Main ideas

Quadratic Voting. A voting method in which the cost of buying votes is the square of the number of votes. The book describes it as the "'quadratic voting' procedure one of us invented" [2]. See the articles on Quadratic Voting and ⿻ Voting.

Quadratic Funding. Its starting point is a 2018 paper Weyl co-wrote with Buterin and Zoë Hitzig [3]. Weyl and others later developed it in a direction that takes connections between participants into account, making it more resistant to collusion. → Quadratic Funding, Social Markets

Data dignity. In a 2018 article co-written with Jaron Lanier, he proposed intermediary organizations that bargain collectively on behalf of the people who provide data [12]. → Data dignity

Decentralized Society and soulbound tokens. In 2022, with Puja Ohlhaver and Buterin, he put forward a vision of representing relationships between people with tokens that cannot be transferred [13]. → Soulbound tokens, Identity and Personhood

Criticism of technocracy, and of his own earlier book. In a 2019 series of essays Weyl criticized technocracy among other things, and in 2020 he looked back on his own Radical Markets as, in substance, leaning too heavily on economics [14]. These criticisms connect with the book's discussion of the three paths and monist atomism.

Reverse alignment. In July 2026, with James Evans and others, he published a piece calling for rebuilding institutions, norms and frameworks of governance so that society can use AI safely and share its benefits widely [15]. → Reverse alignment

What is debated

His record in building a movement. TIME writes that the RadicalxChange Foundation Weyl created achieved some results, but fell far short of the goals Weyl has set for Plurality [6].
How the ideas are bundled. In his review of the book, Buterin wrote that he sometimes feels ideas of quite different kinds are gathered together under the umbrella of a general Plurality vibe. He goes on to argue that there is something to gain even if you do not share that vibe [16].
The debate with Yarvin. In September 2025, Weyl held a public debate with Curtis Yarvin about "CEO dictatorship". Sunji Lee has written a summary and commentary in Japanese [17].

Sources

Plurality, About the authors (English edition) — https://github.com/pluralitybook/plurality/blob/main/contents/english/0-1-About-the-authors.md ［CC0］
Plurality, 5-6 "⿻ Voting" — https://www.plurality.net/v/chapters/5-6/eng/ ［CC0］
Buterin, Hitzig and Weyl, "A Flexible Design for Funding Public Goods" (2018) — https://arxiv.org/abs/1809.06421
Plurality, Japanese edition, author profiles (in Japanese) — https://www.plurality.net/v/chapters/0-1/jpn/ ［CC0］
Plurality repository (how to cite the book) — https://github.com/pluralitybook/plurality
Will Henshall, "Inside Audrey Tang's Plan to Align Technology with Democracy" (TIME, 2024-05-20) — https://time.com/6979012/audrey-tang-interview-plurality-democracy/
E. Glen Weyl, "Why I am a Pluralist" (2022-02-10) — https://www.radicalxchange.org/updates/blog/why-i-am-a-pluralist/
Meeting with Glen Weyl (2018-11-21) — https://github.com/audreyt/transcript/blob/main/2018-11-21-Meeting-with-Glen-Weyl.md ［CC0］
#GleninJapan keynote (2024-01-03) — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1rccL0zKOQ
Cybozu Shiki, contributed article by Weyl, "日本にデジタル民主主義の日が昇るとき" (When the sun of digital democracy rises over Japan) (in Japanese) — https://cybozushiki.cybozu.co.jp/articles/m006261.html
Shueisha Shinsho Plus, "E・グレン・ワイル × 李舜志" (in Japanese) — https://shinsho-plus.shueisha.co.jp/interview/e_lee/30554
Lanier and Weyl, "A Blueprint for a Better Digital Society" (HBR, 2018) — https://hbr.org/2018/09/a-blueprint-for-a-better-digital-society
Ohlhaver, Weyl and Buterin, "Decentralized Society: Finding Web3's Soul" (2022) — https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4105763
E. Glen Weyl, "Why I Am not a Market Radical" (2020-12-15) — https://www.radicalxchange.org/updates/blog/why-i-am-not-a-market-radical/
Weyl, Evans and White, "What Humanity Needs to Flourish in the Next Decade" (Noema, 2026-07-21) — https://www.noemamag.com/what-humanity-needs-to-flourish-in-the-next-decade/
Vitalik Buterin, "Plurality philosophy in an incredibly oversized nutshell" (2024-08-21) — https://vitalik.eth.limo/general/2024/08/21/plurality.html
Sunji Lee, "ヤーヴィン vs ワイル" (Yarvin vs Weyl) (note, in Japanese) — https://note.com/chic_borage2648/n/ne5e7100346b9
Cybozu Shiki, "Tang × Weyl × Haruyuki Seki" (in Japanese, 2024-10-03) — https://cybozushiki.cybozu.co.jp/articles/m006211.html

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