1000x Growth From Cypherpunk Ideas Into Mainstream Tech Culture
1000x Growth From Cypherpunk Ideas Into Mainstream Tech Culture
Podcast Ep. 32 with Patri Friedman
Key Insights
Interview with Patri Friedman, the foremost thinker of competitive governance, founder of the Seasteading Institute and venture capitalist
The charter city movement started from fringe cypherpunk ideas, and got supercharged 1000x+ through the internet, startup culture, and blockchain.
He talks about investing in new startup city projects and what type of founder it needs, and the institutions needed to get more projects up and running.
Episode Description
Patri Friedman is the legendary founder of The Seasteading Institute, and General Partner at Pronomos Capital, a VC fund focused on improving statecraft.
Patri is the foremost thinker behind the idea of "competitive governance". Patri has been a huge inspiration for this show, and for Infinita VC.
This makes this one of the most defining and important episodes in the history of the podcast.
We talk about Patri's life's work and the venture funding side of funding new cities or governance experiments to foster human progress and flourishing.
Patri talks about how ideas like charter cities, AI safety, internet money or life extension were part of fringe, cypherpunk-like groups.
These ideas gained adoption to millions with the expansion of the internet, Silicon Valley culture and blockchain/cryptocurrency technology.
After working on alternative governance ideas for 15+ years, including the foundation of Seasteading, Patri turned to VC as a way to realize these ideas.
In 2019, he founded Pronomos to support charter cities. Initially, with little dealflow, new projects are now more than ever reaching him.
We talk about how Balaji Srinivasan's book "The Network State" has added new fuel to the movement by innovating on a model with lower barriers to entry.
The movement is now at an inflection point.
The "zero-to-one" has been achieved with Próspera Honduras, and several dozens of projects like Praxis, Small Farm Cities or Kift are maturing rapidly.
At this inflection point, the movement needs founders and entrepreneurs.
Patri is planning to start a venture studio that is building a sales pipeline with governments open to new models for economic development and matching with founders to start them.
If you’re interested to learn about this movement - below is a list of resources that help you get started:
On Prospera, Primer here and Update here
Academic Literature on Special Jurisdictions
Tom W. Bell, “Your Next Government”
Balaji Srinivasan, “The Network State”
Pronomos Capital Portfolio
Pronomos Capital Knowledge Base
Infinita Linktree: https://linktr.ee/infinitavc