Media & Press Kit

Darcy Burner is an author, technologist, and organizer whose forthcoming book examines the six forms of power — moral, economic, political, cultural, network, and enforcement — and how understanding them changes what's possible.

Darcy Burner is an author, technologist, and political organizer. She studied computer science and economics at Harvard, worked as a software engineer at Lotus and in platform strategy at Microsoft, ran for Congress in Washington's 8th District in 2006 and 2008, and built the non-profit infrastructure for the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Her forthcoming book examines the six forms of power — moral, economic, political, cultural, network, and enforcement — and offers a practical lens for understanding how structural forces shape who wins and who loses. She also leads a bootcamp training program that teaches communities to map and build power.

Darcy Burner is an author, technologist, and political organizer whose forthcoming book examines the six distinct forms of power — moral, economic, political, cultural, network, and enforcement — and offers a practical lens for understanding how structural forces shape who wins and who loses. Darcy studied computer science and economics at Harvard, then began her career as a software engineer at Lotus, where she shipped amazing products that lost in the marketplace to competitors with stronger platform dynamics. She later joined Microsoft's platform strategy group, where she came to understand how network effects, feedback loops, and structural forces determine outcomes independently of product quality. In 2006 she ran for Congress in Washington's 8th District, and again in 2008. Her campaigns became early examples of online grassroots organizing at scale. She went on to build the non-profit infrastructure for the Congressional Progressive Caucus as its first Executive Director. Through more than two decades of work in technology, campaigns, and organizing, Darcy kept recognizing the same dynamic: brilliant, committed people struggling against structural forces they couldn't fully see. Her book maps those forces, making six distinct forms of power concrete and identifiable. The companion workbook and bootcamp training program turn the framework into practice, giving communities the tools to analyze their own power landscape and build what they need.