The Behavioral Architect

How Nikita Bier spent a decade perfecting psychological control on teenagers—and now deploys it on everyone at X

“Rethink Democracy.”

That was the tagline for Politify back in 2011. A Berkeley student project that went viral during the election. Four million users in one month. National media coverage. A feel-good story about using technology to help voters understand how policies would affect them.

Nikita Bier was 22 years old when he discovered something profound:…