Stranded Technologies Podcast

Adam is one of the most experienced technology policy analysts in the world - he was writing about the internet on day 1 in the 1990s. Now, Adam is an innovation policy analyst at the R Street Institute, and the author of several books, including Permissionless Innovation (2016) & Evasive Entrepreneurs (2020).Isn't it striking - almost all popular sci-fi movies about technology are dystopian? Not only does that warp the public perception of technology as something dangerous, but it also influences policy. Supposedly serious policymakers make arguments for increased regulation like "we don't want the Terminator, don't we?" all the time.Adam takes us through the quagmire of Washington D.C. policy through the lens of one message: permissionless innovation is key to unlock a better future.He introduces the term "evasive entrepreneurs" through case studies of Uber, Lyft and biohackers that used 3D printing for making prosthetics. These cases of "technology liberation have a few things in common: a) they operate at the borderline of legality, and b) they succeed by making consumers advocates for them.Evasive entrepreneurship describes the premise of this podcast and of Infinita VC. Special jurisdictions like Prospera in Honduras, the Catawba DEZ in North Carolina or other free zones in Africa or Latin America can be regulatory sandboxes.However, evasive entrepreneurs have moral obligations. It is also a tactic used by bad actors, such as Sam Bankman-Fried, who used an offshore jurisdiction (Bahamas) as a launchpad for a move to do regulatory capture in the United States.We concede that evasive entrepreneurship can be done for good and bad.Recently, Adam has been writing about the regulation of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. He brings bad news: Washington D.C. policymakers want to use it as an excuse to control the internet. Adam has been in the business for three decades and he's never seen more extreme proposals in a short amount of time.This should be alarming to entrepreneurs. Technology is a force for good in the world, and we need permissionless environments to thrive. The good news is that we don't need to advocate for policy in Washington, we can criticize by creating.Adam's book on Evasive Entrepreneurship contains several chapters to navigate ethical questions, and it's available for free (here). Let's build!Adam blogs at techliberation.com This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.infinitacitytimes.com

Dr. Simon Whitney is a family physician and ethicist. He taught at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas for twenty-two years. He is retired from medical practice but continues to publish and teach about medical ethics.He wrote the book From Oversight to Overkill: Inside the Broken System That Blocks Medical Breakthroughs—And How We Can Fix It (Rivertowns Books, 2023).What Simon is talking about is not the behemoth U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), one of the largest public agencies in the world.The subject of his book is the Institutional Review Board (IRB) system, an institution responsible for preventing abuse of research subjects. It is run by the Office for Human Research Protection (OHRP), a small office within the United States Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS).It is an obscure and little-known bureaucracy.Simon uncovers how a fear-driven bureaucracy frustrates scientists by delaying research from anything between months to years and sometimes preventing important research with no harm to patients, but failing to benefit untold millions.The medical history behind IRBs is fascinating and parallels many other stranded technologies stories.It starts with a flexible system and lots of innovation. Medical self-experimentation was more common. It can be gut-wrenching, but it led to heroic feats of progress.It was public health disasters that led to its demise.Most of all the Tuskegee Syphilis Study became a widely know scandal where the United States Public Health Service (PHS) withheld life-saving treatment from 400 poor African Americans with syphilis to study its effect over 40 years.A gross incidence of ethical misconduct.Yet what followed was an overcorrection. The National Research Act of 1974 led to federal oversight of IRBs, leading to frivolous lawsuits and a bureaucracy stifled in fear of not doing the wrong thing, even at the cost of doing the right thing.The incentives are again stacked against progress.The anatomy of the IRB system going awry is instructive.It teaches us again the need for regulatory innovation and for bold action to correct the excesses of bureaucratic overreach - ideas for inside reform seem feasible, and external inspiration by special jurisdictions can help accelerate this movement. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.infinitacitytimes.com

Malcolm Collins is a parent, polymath serial entrepreneur, education nerd, pronatalist and a 5x bestselling author, including the Pragmatists’ Guide series.He has a podcast and YouTube channel called Based Camp.In this episode, we talk about a wide range of topics including:Demographic Collapse: At current fertility rates in developed countries, there will be 5 grandchildren per 100 people. This demographic trend is not economically sustainable and will lead to fundamental transformations of society.Pronatalism: Pronatalism is a movement that Malcolm and his wife Susan are well, known for as the founders of Pronatalists.org. The analogy is with climate change: it's not about freezing the planet, it's about countering an unsustainable trend - population decline - by having more children.Charter Cities: Malcolm views charter cities as key for the pronatalist movements as incubators for a different culture that is not influenced by "urban monoculture".Some of Malcolm's surprising theses are:The collapse is coming when markets price in lack of population growth and divest from assets that losing money to places that grow. These shifts in market sentiments typically happen gradually, and then suddenly.The winning cultures need more than high birth rates. The Amish people have high birth rates, but little clout. The winning cultures need to have high birth rates and be technophilic and be at the forefront of technologyThe key for charter cities or special jurisdictions to attract Malcolm are: a) a guaranteed right to use reproductive technologies, and b) a harsh environment, like a space colony, that nurture a culture of hard work to surviveThis is a kaleidoscopic episode with insights into the frontiers of humanity. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.infinitacitytimes.com

Primavera De Filippi is a researcher at several institutes, including the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University.Her research focuses on the legal challenges and opportunities of blockchain technology and artificial intelligence, with a specific focus on governance and trust. Primavera is the author of the book “Blockchain and the Law,” published in 2018 by Harvard University Press (co-authored with Aaron Wright).Primavera led a collective effort during Zuzalu (Vitalik Buterin's pop-up village in Montenegro) to offer an alternative to Balaji Srinivasan's "The Network State".Her main critiques are its overreliance on market- and exit-based approaches.This conversation highlights the differences, but Primavera cautions that there are more commonalities between these different approaches than differences. Most importantly, they share the goal to experiment with governance and approaches to sovereignty to improve on failures of the private and public sectors.We start by defining the problem of the tragedy of the commons: individually rational behavior can lead to collectively worse outcomes. There are three approaches to overcome the problem: a) the Leviathan approach where a public authority manages the commonsb) the market-based approach with defined property rights and tradec) the polycentric governance approachThe last one was developed by Vincent and Elinor Ostrom (the latter receiving a Nobel Price for her work) and is the starting point of Primavera's approach.Niklas has more confidence in market-based solutions than Primavera, so a fruitful discussion ensues discussion the potential pros and cons of these approaches.Both discussants agree that pluralism is the right way forward, trying out different approaches to solve issues such as climate change, immigration, or poverty.The Coordi-Nations approach is encapsulated in a recent blog article, but it's just at the beginning of being formulated and will be discussed in future iterations of Zuzalu and within Ethereum/web3 and governance innovation circles. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.infinitacitytimes.com

Walter Patterson is the co-founder and chief science officer of Minicircle, a biotech startup that produces reversible gene therapies.Minicircle is known for some of their bold moves that include medical self-experimentation, and conducting clinical trials on Roatan, Honduras within a special economic zone led by Próspera that offers an innovative legal framework.In this episode, we learn about Minicircle, gene therapy and regulatory challenges from one of the two iconic founders behind it (the other is Mac Davis).The highlights of this episode are:Walter talks about his early fascination for science, and how it allows us to mold the environment around us to live longer, healthier and more fulfilling livesThe potential of various gene therapies (incl. CRISPR, mRNA) to edit the code of human biology, to overcome life-threatening defects and improve life qualityMinicircle key innovation of plasmid gene therapy, used to produce follistatin to reduce muscle degeneration and increase bone strength for long durationsThe advantage of Prospera as a common law legal jurisdiction: Minicircle is following the same safety protocols and research ethics oversight that are done in the United States under the FDA, the main advantage is to cut bureaucracyHow, counterintuitively, Minicircle is more regulated under common law and has stronger liability for bad outcomes than in FDA jurisdictions where companies are exempted from liability if the played the political game wellTowards the end of the episode, Walter highlights the beauty of Roatan: the perfect weather, natural beauty and overwhelming friendliness of the community.You can experience it yourself visiting Roatan during H2-2023 for various conferences and events taking place: https://lu.ma/infinita This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.infinitacitytimes.com

Bryan Caplan is a professor of economics at George Mason University and the author of several books, including Open Borders - The Science and Ethics of Immigration, The Case Against Education and the Myth of the Rational Voter.Bryan is one of the most iconoclastic contemporary thinkers, and had a major influence on the themes of this podcast. His books explain much of the emergent incentives created by the political process that stymie economic growth.In this episode, we talk about his new book "Voters as Mad Scientists - Essays on Political Rationality" and use it as a starter to talk about a variety of topics:Bryan on how the alignment of "Chaotic Good" in the world of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) fits his non-conformist style of thinking and practice of breaking bad or unethical laws, as long as you can get away with itWhy voters love to hate business and how the Stockholm Syndrome can help explain it: people like to ally with the powerful, even if they're rich, against rich people or business with less or no political power to hurt themThe politics of what sounds good vs. what is good - explained by social desirability bias, exposed by revealed preferences ("actions speak louder than words") and cemented into practice by status quo biasBryan admits that he's been wrong about cryptocurrency and Bitcoin: F. A. Hayek's idea of de-nationalizing banking has won the day against all oddsIf you're a regular listener to this podcast, you'll chuckle when Bryan compares how someone telling him about Bitcoin for the first time with someone telling him about starting a new country on an island (Prospera is not literally a country though).If starting a new jurisdiction with better laws sounds like a crazy but great idea to you, and your D&D alignment is Lawful-Neutral, Neutral-Good or Chaotic-Good, then come check it out and help us build it - the schedule for coming events is here. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.infinitacitytimes.com

Neil Chilson is a lawyer and computer scientist, he’s the former Chief Technologist at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and a current senior research fellow for technology and innovation at the Center for Growth and Opportunity, and the author of “Getting Out of Control: Emergent Leadership in a Complex World”.Neil has decades of first-hand experience in regulatory policy and introduces the distinction between outcome-based, more common law-like legal approaches to regulation vs. the more well-known statutory and preventative approach.This seemingly technical distinction is very relevant. We start by discussing the "Knowledge Problem" that F. A. Hayek raised in one of the most influential economics papers ever written, "The Use of Knowledge in Society" from 1945.Hayek's insight is that central planners cannot know the facts relevant to making their decisions, because knowledge is "tacit" and value is subjective to the individual. The system of free price-setting is necessary to create an "emergent order" that does not come about by conscious design but by adjustment and small improvements through individuals making rational decisions based on their local information. Neil's work is dedicated to applying the insight of emergent order in business, policymaking, and even personal growth - instead of rushing to ask for an authoritative "man in charge", we should instead embrace humility.Rather than making rules for new technology that is rapidly changing, we should focus on liability for bad outcomes after-the-fact. We apply these insights to debates about the existential risk of artificial intelligence (AI) and the regulatory policy of OpenAI's Sam Altman and Microsoft.While we're optimistic that software and AI are "born-free" technologies relatively unencumbered by regulatory overreach, Neil warns that policymakers in Washington and in international governmental organizations have an agenda: they see the internet as a bad thing, and AI risk is a welcome opportunity to further this agenda.Let's not let the internet and AI become stranded technologies. The future is open.Infinita Website: https://infinitavc.com/ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.infinitacitytimes.com

Michael Huemer is "the best living philosopher, possibly the best who ever lived." (Bryan Caplan)The podcast host Niklas Anzinger considers Michael Huemer to be the greatest intellectual influence on his life and work with Infinita VC to date.In fact, the name Infinita is a reference to Michael's book "Approaching Infinity".Michael is Professor for Philosophy and the University of Colorado Boulder. He is the author of more than eighty academic articles in epistemology, ethics, metaethics, metaphysics, and political philosophy - as well as the author of ten books.This conversation is intended to introduce Michael's work to the listener, particularly the books most relevant to unlocking stranded technologies.The first book we discuss is "Knowledge, Reality and Value." The book is an introduction to philosophy and a masterful one. It teaches the reader why it's important to form rational beliefs how to make clear arguments and "wake up" from a state of perpetual intellectual confusion (yes, we all are - and we don't notice it).The second book is "Justice Before the Law", a book about the ethical flaws of the legal system. Michael's key thesis is that actors in the legal system should prioritize what's just over what's the law - that means breaking the law if it's unjust and not unwise to do so. This is an explosive thesis in conflict with existing legal norms.The third book is "The Problem of Political Authority" which argues that existing governments regularly commit what we would consider atrocious violations of individual rights if they were done by any non-governmental actor, and that political philosophy fails to deliver a convincing justification for this special privilege.While all these books have surprising and radical conclusions, what is special about Michael Huemer*s work is his method. Michael clearly states his premises and chooses only those that are based on widely shared beliefs. This results in an extremely clearly written and persuasive style of reasoning.In this episode, we discuss all these books and the implications for entrepreneurs in regulated industries, such as the obligation to follow the law, how to present yourself when you innovate, and how to navigate moral questions that arise in the process.Michael blogs on a Substack called "Fake Nous". This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.infinitacitytimes.com

Today’s episode is another one in the style of episodes 10 and 25 with Niklas' thoughts, synthesizing 1 year of work with the podcast and a VC fund. First, you’ll hear a recording of Niklas's talk at Zuzalu, Vitalik Buterin’s pop-up city in Montenegro. The speech can be watched on YouTube as well.The talk shows the progress made by startup cities and network states, and argues that this is a pivotal moment to unleash a wave of new technological progress; the zero-to-ones are already out there - it's no longer a dream.Afterward, Niklas shares impressions of Zuzalu - he believes the key innovation is to prove the impact of in-person civility, bringing together a highly aligned online community in one place to live and build together. In one quote, it was "a university campus on steroids, with people that actually care and actually build."Zuzalu is already resulting in a couple of new initiatives, some led by Infinita VC taking place within the next couple of months.(1) African Regenerative Cities & Futures @ FreeFlow Eden Zanzibar July 20-23, 2023: This is an event to bring together entrepreneurs, artists, and governance innovators with a focus on African cities & technology.Sign-up & more info here: https://lu.ma/zanzibar_regen(2) ETH Latam in Honduras and Prospera BuildweeksOctober 26-28, 2023: This is the core Ethereum conference for the continent.Watch out for sign-up news here: https://mirror.xyz/ethhonduras.ethAfterward, for all of November, we plan to do a 4-week mini-Zuzalu in Prospera called “Prospera Buildweeks”. - during that time we will do two conferences: Crypto & Futurism, Longevity & Decentralised Science, as well as a Prospera General Summit.Updates on sign-ups are here: https://t.me/+xhTw-dudXBc1NmE6(3) Founders' Journey - Start a Longevity Network State in Latin America​This is a 2-month long journey for biotechnologists, renegade life scientists, and relentless entrepreneurs to radically supercharge human health and extend lifespan, by creating of a longevity-focused network state in Latin America.Sign-up & more info here: https://lu.ma/longevity-journey This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.infinitacitytimes.com

Alexander Bard is a Swedish cyber philosopher, futurologist, and the author of several books ("The Netocrats", "The Global Empire", "The Body Machines", "Syntheism - Creating God in The Internet Age", "Digital Libido - Sex, Power and Violence in The Network Society" together with Jan Söderqvist).He’s also a former music producer, artist and entrepreneur.We start with Alex' history in the music industry, and how he saw the emerging internet and Napster as a Hegelian "negation" of the status quo, leading up as the "synthesis" that Alex actively shaped as a founding contributor to Spotify.In "The Netocrats", Alex foresaw an age where data would replace capital as the source of power over assets, and a new elite it would shape - which turned out to be true in the form the tech giants of our age and the resulting impotence of politics.This old order of nation-states as the source of power is becoming replaced by an internet economy underpinned by Bitcoin and crypto-currencies, leading to perfected and pure capitalism as the source of rational transactions.However, this pure capitalism is not the be-all-end-all.The result that Alex is working towards is "Attentionalism", where sovereign individuals consciously decide what to give their attention to, with the rational-capitalist marketplace only as a basis for our income, not a source of meaning.The sources of meaning are spiritual and could come in the shape of new interpretations of the religions of the East that embrace decentralization.Alex is interested in the frontiers that the "shamanoids" or outliers of civilization gravitate towards, and he sees the new frontier in the form of city-states and special jurisdictions, like Singapore and Dubai shown to be capable stewards.Alex predicts that today's exiteers that build at the new frontiers are tomorrow's elite at these new places. A good reason to be a pioneer at the frontier right now.Infinita Website: https://infinitavc.com/ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.infinitacitytimes.com

Brian J. Robertson is a serial entrepreneur and the creator of Holacracy, a comprehensive practice for governing and running our organizations.Holacracy is an often misunderstood, massively influential social and management system. Yet it is more than that, Brian's goal with Holacracy is to give people a taste of self-governance, personal growth and empowerment to impact society.In this episode, we dive deep into the mind that has nurtured Holacracy and brought it to adoption within 10.000+ organizations worldwide.To start with, Holacracy is a modular, open-source, constitution-based management system with clear rules and management responsibilities. It is not no managers (although it aims to reduce the need for managers), and not no structure.Quite to the contrary, it is more structured. The analogy Brian uses is the emergent order market-based order vs. top-down planning. Markets come up with better, more adapted, and more fit-for-purpose sets of rules, institutions, and regulations.Brian solves for me a tension I thought about for a long time: why is it that firms in a competitive market-based system are run to a large degree by central planners?A key answer of mine we discussed is Ronald Coase's "Theory of the Firm" which talks about the planning horizon versus scale efficiency of greater size.Brian's answer is Holacracy. Organizations can be run more like markets and adapt more to tensions as they arise instead of relying too much on top-down decision-making.We discuss Marc Andreessen's reservations against Holacracy, as well as its place in the order of managerial vs. entrepreneurial capitalism, as well as how it steers organizations towards "Antifragility", a term coined by Nassim Taleb.Holacracy is more than a management system. It can be a guide to personal growth and consciousness.Not coincidentally, Brian is currently working as well on starting a psychedelic church by using some clever legal engineering in a Stranded Technologies-like fashion.This is a rich episode and will give you an appreciation for the concept of Holacracy and how it can supercharge your organization and your personal growth.Join us for upcoming events: https://lu.ma/infinitaInfinita Website: https://infinitavc.com/ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.infinitacitytimes.com

Jonathan Hillis is the founder of Cabin.Cabin is building a network city - a collection of remarkable coliving properties tied by a shared culture, community, economy, and governance.We start by talking about how a combination of science-fiction and American Wilderness romanticism inspired Jon to start Cabin in the Texas Hill Country.Neighborhood Zero is a development on 28 acres, with a creek that runs through the property, rolling hills, grasslands and forests, and pet longhorn cattle running around.Cabin is now a thriving community that has land and real estate development in multiple locations in the USA and internationally (e.g. Portugal, Italy),Jon talks about the pluralism of moral and community governance innovations that Cabin is working on, inspired by the Nobel Prize-winning economist Elinor Ostrom.These practical insights from Jon's work lead us to discuss Balaji Srinivasan's "The Network State" more, and our insights from Zuzalu, Vitalik Buterin's pop-up city.The key insights are that network state-building is a practical endeavor, and it's hard to build real-world things and deal with the day-to-day of living together.Jon recommends starting small and iteratively, just like in software and technology development - and you don't need an architecture or mechanical engineering degree for it. You can just go out there and start building.Jon has learned the value of community, and building things in the real world, and found that evolutionary adaptive processes toward governance are what's needed to rediscover the lost art of building durable and lasting structures.Join the Cabin community: https://www.cabin.city/Join us for upcoming events: https://lu.ma/infinitaInfinita Website: https://infinitavc.com/ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.infinitacitytimes.com

Erik Voorhees is the founder of Shapeshift, a decentralized crypto exchange, and one of the most important voices in crypto. Erik virtually joined for a fireside chat during Decentralizing Finance 2023 - A Prospera Builders’ Summit on the island of Roatan.We start by establishing the ethics and principles of Bitcoin, crypto, and the separation of state and money. Money is one if not the most important good for a peaceful, market-led world. It does not belong in the hands of governments.Erik has withstood more than a decade of navigating the complex legal and regulatory maze put up by governments. Governments were initially overconfident in the quality of their product - fiat money. However, Elizabeth Warren’s “crypto army” seems like state actors are realizing the threat of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies to their predominance.Crypto has survived many challenges - and Erik believes we’ve come far enough to withstand an even great amount of anti-crypto activism by governments. Bitcoin has proved resilience over and over, and hundreds of millions of people are using it.Not only are we on the verge of realizing the dream of overcoming the traditional, centralized financial system and building a more inclusive one instead. Also, new cities and special jurisdictions are experimenting in governance.While Erik is generally skeptical of legal wrappers for DAOs (decentralized autonomous organizations), he's welcoming the movement towards regulatory pluralism instead of a regulatory monopoly.The transition towards new forms of governance and finance on crypto rails may be perilous, but we have come far in expanding the frontiers.Join us for upcoming events: https://lu.ma/infinitaInfinita Website: https://infinitavc.com/ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.infinitacitytimes.com

Today is the 70th anniversary of the discovery of the structure of DNA, and the 20th anniversary of the sequencing of the human genome.A perfect day to talk to John Cumbers.John is a molecular biologist. He is the founder and CEO of SynBioBeta which promotes synthetic biology to build a more sustainable universe.This episode is a primer on "synbio", the scientific breakthroughs and commercial applications of reading, sequencing and editing DNA to engineer the built world around us by manipulating the organic process of biology. In 2012, the discovery of CRISPR technologies led to rapid progress into a field that has now $10bn in annual investment and unicorn startups such as Ginko Bioworks.The applications range from food production to materials made from microbes, space travel and human health - anything biological to organize the built world.We discuss potential regulatory challenges of synbio, the bad public perception of GMOs (genetically modified organisms) - while some regulatory challenges reduce adoption in places such as the European Union, non-human facing applications face few regulatory bottlenecks. Of course, human-facing applications have the same limitations as healthcare or pharmaceutical and face strong bottlenecks.Does synbio need a network state? There are certainly unsolved challenges, such as the application of synbio to food production in places that need it the most - something currently not possible because of unit economics.Synbio is certainly a nascent field with tremendous potential.Join us for upcoming events: https://lu.ma/infinitaInfinita Website: https://infinitavc.com/ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.infinitacitytimes.com

Ingemar Patrick Linden is a professor for philosophy and bioethics who taught for 10 years at NYU.In his book "The Case Against Death", Patrick points out that evolutionary biology explains why we age and die, but not that we must age and die, or that we ought to. “My experiences tell me that unless there is a good afterlife, death is a horrific evil and nothing is more important than preventing good people from dying. I am a death abolitionist and a life prolongevist.”As we've learned in past episodes such as Ep. 15 with Sebastian Brunemeier, scientists have achieved breakthroughs that could radically extend human lifespan.However, not only is longevity biotechnology ("LongBio") held back by numerous political and regulatory obstacles - it is up against what could be an intellectual fad or an age-old taboo of humanity: the vilification of the search for immortality.Since the Ancient Greeks, Plato, Epicurus and the Stoics, a prevalent idea is "the wise view", that it's mature and enlightened to accept death and vain to fight against it.Popular culture vilifies the search for immortality, The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter or Marvel's Doctor Strange, depict immortality-seeking as a bad thing.Patrick's view is simple: "Life is Good. Death is Bad."In this conversation, we address some of the common arguments against the view and talk about the massive potential of life-extending technologies.We concur that society would have to change.Our current political and economic choices are not made for a world with an indefinite lifespan. However, this is not a reason not to do it. This is a reason to do more experiments in human governance, such as Prospera, the modern charter city in Honduras, or Zuzalu - Vitalik Buterin's pop-up city in Montenegro.With improved governance, we can be ready for a world with a prolonged or indefinite human lifespan.Join us for upcoming events: https://lu.ma/infinitaInfinita Website: https://infinitavc.com/ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.infinitacitytimes.com

Allison Duettmann is the iconic President of The Foresight Institute, the world's premier futurist think tank enabling science & entrepreneurship at the frontiers of technology.The conversation starts with Foresight's mission and strategy to avoid hype cycles - focusing on what's next, not current.The focus areas have particular learning and development trees:Intelligent Cooperation (Economics, Crypto, Incentive Design)Molecular Machines (Programmable Nanotechnology)Neurotechnology (incl. Brain Emulation)Longevity BiotechnologySpace ExplorationExistential HopeWe'll explore Foresight's history and Allison's own thinking, why she is hopeful towards the future, while closely monitoring risks.The Foresight Institute has been central to the themes of this podcast, with affiliated scholars such as Robin Hanson, J. Storrs Hall, Eli Dourado, featured.Thus, if you like this podcast you definitely need to get involved with the Foresight Institute. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.infinitacitytimes.com

This is the recording of a webinar about Ciudad Morazán, the charter city in Choloma, Honduras - not to be confused with Prospera, another Honduran charter city.Recorded on-site, this episode is a deep dive into one of the most interesting developments in city governance in modern history.Located in one of the most dangerous regions in the world when it comes to crime, Morazán provides a beacon of stability, safety, and affordable housing.It also runs its internal economy 100% on crypto, having developed its stablecoin (eLPS), based on the Honduran currency - the lempira.Founded by the Italian industrialist Massimo Mazzone, Ciudad Morazán is located in a Honduran ZEDE, a free zone with the highest degree of legal autonomy in the world.So Mazzone: "I want to show that liberty has the most impact on poor people."We couple this deep dive into Morazán with a background in free cities and the Honduran ZEDE legal system that allows this governance innovation.Chapters:00:04:46 - 00:11:14 Introduction to Bootstrap City by Alex Ugorji00:11:29 - 00:36:49 Economist Vera Kichanova about Free Private Cities Worldwide00:37:43 - 00:57:18 Prospera Major Jorge Colindres about Honduran ZEDEs01:02:13 - 01:46:59 Ciudad Morazan's Founder Massimo Mazzone Speaks01:46:59 - 02:03:10 Biographer Joyce Brand on Spencer Heath02:14:11 - 02:52:23 Alex Ugorji on Doing Business in MorazanTelegram Group for Bootstrap City - the initiative to promote awareness about Ciudad Morazán: https://t.me/bootstrapcity This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.infinitacitytimes.com

Trey Goff is coming back on to continue the previous discussion (Episode 9) about Balaji Srinivasan's book "The Network State" (TNS).This is the right time to dig deeper for two reasons: 1) TNS has increasingly become a meme in crypto and technology circles, 2) Balaji is commanding a lot of attention for #BitSignal, a bet on US dollar hyperinflation + Bitcoin rising to 1m.Trey & Niklas have become friends through Prospera, the modern charter city on Roatan, Honduras, and the zero-to-one "network state / not a network state."In addition, Trey has a new role as Co-Founder of Learn Arena, a competitive learning platform, and we'll discuss how Learn Arena will fix a frailing education system.Here is how the discussion unfolds:Trey iterates that the Prospera model follows many of the same schools of thought that Balaji Srinivasan follows in TNS, though with one critical difference: with Prospera, Trey has first-hand experienced the role of politics as a practical matter when it comes to becoming a territorial jurisdiction. Politics is hard but unavoidable.We update some of our learnings about regulations and what we can realistically achieve by upgrading governance, e.g. in the world of medical innovation and finance.Talking finance leads us to Balaji's Bet: we think Balaji is directionally correct in his analysis of a brittle US financial system, albeit we withhold judgment on whether or not the timeline will be correct - all of us have to assign our estimated probabilities.It is certainly the leading question of the time: we think a Bitcoin Standard world is more desirable, but there are better and worse ways to get there.For example, we are skeptical about achieving Bitcoinization by top-down decree like by President Nayib Bukele in the country of El Salvador.If one thing is certain, it's that the world has a lot of uncertainty. And navigating this uncertainty in finance will have massive implications for your personal wealth.There is no better way to navigate uncertainty than self-education.We discuss the US education system and its failings: Trey presciently identifies a core problem - school and education are both too easy and too hard.By introducing gaming and competition to set young people on alternative career tracks, Trey aims to revolutionize education with Learn Arena.Trey and Niklas have a lot to talk about - this won't be the last time!Join us for upcoming events: https://lu.ma/infinitaInfinita Website: https://infinitavc.com/ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.infinitacitytimes.com

Have you wondered what Próspera is all about?Start with the founders. Gabriel Delgado Ayau is the co-founder and chief development officer (CDO) of the zero-to-one modern startup city in Honduras.This is an extensive episode where we talk about Gabriel's past in Guatemala as a serial entrepreneur that founded 17 startups, learning about the challenges for entrepreneurs in Central America, and how his grandfather's teachings showed him a better way - radically improving the institutions towards a free society.We talk about Próspera's founding history, the governance model of radical decentralization and regulatory flexibility combined with insurance risk assessment.First and foremost, Próspera's goal is to propel economic development for Honduras by providing better institutions to live, work and play.Consider this claim: if the bottom 75% of the world would implement the governance of the top 25%, the economic value created would be an additional $100 trillion (!).**In the episode, Gabriel mistakenly says $1tn, the true number is indeed $100tn.And this is not all. The famous blogger Scott Alexander once said:"To my biased eye, Próspera’s institutions aren’t just better than Honduran institutions. They might well be better than the institutions of America, Europe, and the rest of the developed world.Some of their ideas - 3D property rights, modular construction, common law regulatory options, medical reciprocity laws - are genuinely innovative, the first in the world.They’re things that intellectuals have been discussing for decades, and then suddenly some progressive-minded people get jurisdiction to try them out in and see if they work."This episode is an extended riff and deep-dive into this quote and should give any entrepreneur reason to be curious enough.It's almost hard to believe, which is why Gabriel and Niklas call on entrepreneurs to check it out for themselves, by joining the next couple of summits, taking place on the Caribbean paradise island of Roatan.Supercharging Health 2023 - A Próspera Builders’ Summit, April 21-23 on Roatan: https://infinitavc.com/healthbio2023Decentralizing Finance 2023 - A Próspera Builders’ Summit, May 5-7 on Roatan: https://infinitavc.com/defi2023Legal Engineering 2023 - A Próspera Builders’ Summit, May 10-11 on Roatan: https://lu.ma/legalengineering2023 This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.infinitacitytimes.com

Joey Krug is the co-CIO at Pantera Capital, the first U.S. institutional asset manager focused exclusively on blockchain technology, with 4.1bn assets under management.Joey is also the co-founder of the Forecast Foundation, contributing to the development of Augur (a decentralized oracle and prediction market protocol).Joey is a pioneer in the world of blockchain finance, and I want to take this opportunity to discuss two leading questions: how might the final takeover of defi (decentralized finance) over tradfi (traditional finance) look like?What are the barriers we need to overcome?As the co-CIO of the largest institutional crypto investor in the world and a private angel investor, few people have traversed the two worlds more than Joey.This gives Joey a unique set of sometimes surprising insights.For example, the liquidity of token investments is a double-edged sword. Token investments provide investors with more flexibility but investments with more extended holdup periods tend to perform better.Pantera's most successful investments were from their venture fund.The big win for defi would be to do away with the bloat of large banks: real estate footprint, manual transaction processing, and regulatory compliance.We discuss regulatory compliance extensively. The problem in tradfi is that legal norms evolve around the assumption of centralized entities developing regulations, but many of the necessary guardrails can instead be written in code.The problem with tradfi is not lack of financial products. Many traditional financial products, like mortgages or stock market exchanges, do make sense to Joey.What defi can instead do is participation in the system can be more global, more 24/7 (although that's not only an advantage), and more efficient.One of the key things to get right to make defi more available is to make it more user-friendly to the average consumer - a lot of work remains to be done.Infinita Website: https://infinitavc.com/Upcoming Conferences in Prospera: https://lu.ma/infinita This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.infinitacitytimes.com

Alex Tabarrok is a professor of economics at George Mason University, and a research fellow with the Mercatus Center.Alex is one of the world’s best teachers of economics and reaching a large, worldwide audience as the cofounder of Marginal Revolution University and the popular Marginal Revolution blog together with Tyler Cowen.This episode is an intellectual journey that discovers insights that can be used by entrepreneurs and city developers.Alex has been teaching economics for decades, so we start the episodes with our favorite concepts.We talk about the Baumol effect that Alex uses to explain the now infamous price chart: why is it that some goods have become much cheaper (e.g. consumer electronics), while housing, education and healthcare have increased?This informs the thesis of the podcast, which assumes regulatory and political sclerosis are the key obstacles.The Baumol effect pushes back against this explanation.The Baumol effect instead offers a more long-run focused macroeconomic explanation: the success of technology adoption in some areas must necessarily correspond to relatively higher costs in other sectors.The discovery of this effect, however, could be a necessary, not a sufficient explanation. Niklas points at the non-linearity and the many examples of regulation being specific, non-macro factors with a large impact.Alex and Niklas end up agreeing that overregulation is a large part of the problem.We further talk about economic insights such as prediction markets or dominant assurance contracts that entrepreneurs can apply in practice.A problem in the governance of public goods and regulation, however, is that the laws of society are hundreds of years old, and little new innovation is taking place.However, private cities and special economic zones such as Hong Kong, Shenzhen, and Dubai have shaken up the field in the second half of the 20th century. Alex talks especially about the lessons of Gurgaon, a private city in India.Gurgaon has been in many ways remarkably successful, but it also had experienced problems funding large public goods such as sewage and electricity.Alex’s recommendation to new city or governance startups like Prospera, Ciudad Morazan or the Catawba DEZ is to think of city development as a “dance between centralization and decentralization”.Towards the end, we take a deep dive into dominant assurance contracts as a mechanism for public goods funding - an idea we could use in city development, but also for venture capital and startup funding.You can help us apply these insights in practice, check out the upcoming builder-focused conferences in Prospera:Supercharging Health 2023 - A Próspera Builders’ Summit, April 21-23 on Roatan: https://infinitavc.com/healthbio2023Decentralizing Finance 2023 - A Próspera Builders’ Summit, May 5-7 on Roatan: https://infinitavc.com/defi2023 This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.infinitacitytimes.com

Alicia Nahmad is a born entrepreneur, starting in the construction industry before doing her PhD. Now with The Circular Factory, she is translating advanced technology into real-world progress in the built environment.The Circular Factory is a kaleidoscopic and ambitious startup that aims to fix the construction industry through on-site construction mini-factories with software-driven robotic arms, 3D printing and sourcing local material and labor.Alicia talks to Niklas about how the construction industry has turned from a proud profession of highly skilled craftspeople into an old-fashioned industry that lost its reputation and missing on advances in the digital world.Construction has lots of problems, from a prevalent waterfall model of construction leading to cost overruns and time delays, lack of skilled talent, lengthy permitting, and regulations that make introducing technology harder.Alicia is set out to disrupt this industry with The Circular Factory. The first near-shoring mini-factory is based on the Caribbean island of Roatan, in the modern charter city of Prospera, where Niklas and Alicia will be neighbors.We talk about how having an audacious goal such as building a new city that creates shared prosperity can be a catalyst for change by invigorating an entrepreneurial spirit and community, as well attract a local labor pool for upskilling.The Circular Factory will open in mid-2023, and Infinita VC will soon announce a conference to invite builders, architects, and entrepreneurs to visit Prospera, celebrate the soft opening, and help us build a modern city.Follow Infinita VC to stay tuned: https://linktr.ee/infinitavcIf you are an entrepreneur and seek a community of techno-optimists, join us for upcoming conferences in Prospera, the startup city:Supercharging Health 2023 - A Próspera Builders’ Summit, April 21-23 on Roatan.Decentralizing Finance 2023 - A Próspera Builders’ Summit, May 5-7 on Roatan. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.infinitacitytimes.com

Does this sound straight out of a science-fiction novel? That's because it is.In "Termination Shock", Neil Stephenson described a near-future earth where climate change has significantly altered human society and follows the attempts of a businessman using solar geoengineering to cool the planet.Luke Iseman, a hardware entrepreneur and solarpunk, read the book and dug into Stephenson's research on solar geoengineering.To his amazement, he found that it was possible and nobody is trying it out!Luke founded make sunsets to experiment with balloons sending sulfur dioxide particles that reflect sunlight into the stratosphere, effectively replicating the process that volcanoes have done for millions of years to cool the planet.In this episode, we're joined by regulatory hacker Eli Dourado to better understand this powerful technology that could help humanity achieve climate mastery.Major innovations often start with hobbyists, tinkerers, and true believers, as Clayton Christenson's "The Innovator's Dilemma" found out. They are not taken seriously by the mainstream for a long time. While starting on a small scale, Luke's experiments have nevertheless engendered controversy in the scientific community.We talk about why science is disconnected from promoting real-world innovation by focusing too much on analysis instead of action and real-world experimentation.The episode is a fascinating journey that helps us better understand the challenges faced by entrepreneurs on the frontiers of science and technology.They are not hailed while they are doing the work, they instead face skepticism often from powerful groups - partly for good reasons as new technology never comes in a mature form, but also partly because incumbents fear for their status.As a result, we learn that entrepreneurs need to build a community of true believers around them on a mission against a hostile mainstream culture.If you are an entrepreneur and seek a community of techno-optimists, join us for upcoming conferences in Prospera, the startup city:Supercharging Health 2023 - A Próspera Builders’ Summit, April 21-23 on Roatan.Decentralizing Finance 2023 - A Próspera Builders’ Summit, May 5-7 on Roatan. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.infinitacitytimes.com

David A. Johnston is the Chief Strategy Officer at DLTx, the first public tech company run by decentralists who believe the future will be built on open public blockchains, owned and operated by their users.David is a major crypto OG, he was the chairman of the board of Mastercoin and facilitated the world’s first ICO (initial coin offering), he was one of the first people to analyze the Ethereum white paper.This episode is to understand the thinking that leads David to his current beliefs, to give us a better sense of how we can build a more decentralized financial system, a more decentralized “web3” or decentralized everything for that matter.David explains the "tokenization of everything" logic, and how it comes from his insights into economics and libertarian philosophy.One of his core insights in 2013 was that the network effects of technology companies are specialized. Arguing against others who believed Bitcoin would become the be-all-end-all, David foresaw and shaped the emergence of decentralized applications (dApps), before Ethereum even launched.The train of decentralization is now in motion and unstoppable. It will eventually lead to all assets having an on-chain record of transactions and ownership.This new decentralized finance system is orders of magnitude cheaper, faster, and more efficient than the traditional system that requires lawyers and intermediaries.Governments and legislators, consequently, fight against this new system that is threatening to upend their privileges. The United States has become a hostile environment for crypto, which is why David moved to Puerto Rico 3 years ago.Special jurisdictions have been forward-thinking, like Estonia, Switzerland, Portugal or Singapore, and especially Puerto Rico, in attracting the crypto community.Adoption of cryptocurrencies is highest in Nigeria, Vietnam or Argentina.David is quite open that the blockchain movement is on a collision course with nation states, and he would like to see a separation of nation and state.The future might be network nations that are globally distributed, but share an identity, a membership or residency, or a common culture.That is the ultimate end of the decentralization of everything.Join us on May 5-7 the Caribbean island of Roatan for a summit in Prospera and help us build exactly that decentralized future: https://infinitafund.com/defi2023For more information about Infinita, check this Linktree: https://linktr.ee/infinitavc This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.infinitacitytimes.com

Bret is an entrepreneur on a big mission as the CEO of Last Energy, a vertically integrated nuclear-powered electricity provider.Bret aims to create energy superabundance, fix climate change and elevate human potential to unimaginable heights and sees nuclear as the solution.Few if any people in the world have talked to more experts. Bret hosts the "Titans of Nuclear" Podcast, which has a whopping 380 episodes!Bret and Niklas talk about why nuclear has become such a stagnant industry.The history of the industry is, surprisingly, not one mainly driven by fear or public perception. Bret uncovered that the problems of the industry started before Chernobyl and Three-Mile Island were catalyzing fear.Instead, it was utility regulation in the US that incentivized the industry to build bigger and bigger nuclear power plants.The industry itself was selling the argument that nuclear power is dangerous and needs massive amounts of safety, and regulation needs to ensure that.The process known as "regulatory capture" is responsible for nuclear stagnation.Bret systematically debunks misconceptions about nuclear: meltdowns and nuclear radiation are not dangerous at all. Uranium is not a scarce resource - in fact it could power the planet for up to a billion years.However, nuclear energy does have a cost problem. The cost problem is the result of industry stagnation and overregulation, and it needs to be solved.With Last Energy, Bret is super-modularising and vertically integrating the value-creation process. It's not a technical innovation, but a business model innovation: Last energy takes responsibility for all aspects of project development, from conceptual design through operation and maintenance, selling electricity directly to customers through power purchase agreements.Bret expects the first nuclear power plant in 2025 in either the UK, Poland or Romania - European countries with high energy costs or dependence on Russia.If we can solve the energy problem, we can supercharge human progress.Infinita Linktree: https://linktr.ee/infinitavc This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.infinitacitytimes.com

Eche Emole is the co-founder of Afropolitan, a digital nation aimed at empowering Africans to lead abundant lives. With a background as a lawyer, technology executive, and community organizer, Eche has extensive experience in his field. He has successfully organized events for over 200,000 diaspora Africans, including the 2019 Year of Return in Ghana, which generated $1.9 billion in economic activity. Eche's vision for Afropolitan was further solidified after reading "The Network State" by Balaji Srinivasan, which inspired him to create a "cloud nation." Recognizing the problem of poor governance affecting the African people, Eche saw an opportunity to create a solution through Afropolitan, now recognized by the New York Stock Exchange. This is just the start for Eche, who has big plans for the future of Afropolitan, including gaining diplomatic recognition and establishing embassies, known as "Afrotowns," worldwide. The ultimate goal is to make Wakanda a reality. Infinita Linktree: https://linktr.ee/infinitavc This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.infinitacitytimes.com

Scott A. Beyer. is a journalist and consultant, and owner of the Market Urbanism Report, a think tank that advocates for free-market city policy. Scott is currently on a 1.5-year-long trip to document how Market Urbanism can apply to developing world cities in Latin America, Africa and Asia.Scott has just arrived in Africa after 6 months in Latin America.Niklas and Scott talk about what's wrong with cities, how can we improve them and colorful insights from Scott's travels to existing and new cities in Latin America.Cities in the USA are suffering from institutional sclerosis and favoritism when it comes to housing and transportation policy. What's the predominant cause for rising housing prices and shortages is land-use zoning regulations.It's one of the core policy sins of city development in the USA. It makes land development a process driven by often intransigent local politics and NIMBYism (not-in-my-backyard). This policy favors the status quo over dynamic change.Scott has grown frustrated with US city politics. As an investor looking for new areas to invest in, and as a free market thinker he is now looking toward developing countries for better opportunities.This sounds counterintuitive. Don't migration flows go from developing to developed countries in search for better opportunities? Scott and Niklas both have discovered a contrarian insight: cities in Latin America are cheaper, more pleasant and safe than commonly assumed. Places like Mexico City, Rio, Santiago, Medellin or Buenos Aires are bustling with life and opportunity, rich cultural experiences and wonderful people.Also, Latin America harbors some of the most forward-thinking new city developments in the world, such as Prospera and Cuidad Morazan in Honduras.Scott is continuing his trip to Africa - and we're looking forward to re-interview him in 6 months about his next wave of colorful insights into city development.Infinita Linktree: https://linktr.ee/infinitavc This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.infinitacitytimes.com

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.There is no better time to build!Infinita Linktree: https://linktr.ee/infinitavc This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.infinitacitytimes.com

Max Borders is an author and public intellectual. He wrote books like "The Social Singularity" and "After Collapse". He is also Executive Director at Social Evolution, a non-profit organization dedicated to solving social problems through innovation.We start the conversation by discussing competitive governance and using "exit" to improve existing institutions. Max views existing institutions as increasingly ossifying due to their monopolistic nature coupled with high switching costs.This DOS operating system is holding back humans from technological and spiritual progress. For example, the "welfare-warfare" state has increasingly replaced mutual aid organizations and thereby outsourced community care.We further talk about how both centralizing and decentralizing pressures influence how large organizations become (Ronald Coase's "theory of the firm"), the concept of holacracy, and how alternative forms of governance such as DAOs (digital autonomous organizations) provide a useful avenue for experimentation. Towards the end, Max talks about his new project of a "Shadow Constitution" that's taking the work of Balaji Srinivasan's "The Network State" further. Max plans to provide the "ought" to Balaji's "is".Infinita Linktree: https://linktr.ee/infinitavc This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.infinitacitytimes.com

Adeo Ressi is an iconic entrepreneur, investor, and teacher. He is the CEO of VC Lab, which runs the leading venture capital accelerator. He is also the Executive Chairman of the Founder Institute, the world's largest pre-seed accelerator.Adeo has launched more than 14 venture capital funds and founded 11 startups, having nearly $2 billion in exits before the age of 30.Adeo speaks about his mission with VC Lab. VC Lab has to date accelerated 236 new VC firms and reduced the time to start a fund from 18-24 months down to 5.8 months.VC Lab is designed to turn venture capital into a force for good in the world.Traditionally, VC is an exclusive club and accessible only in select locations like Silicon Valley, New York, London, Berlin, etc.Regions like Latam or Africa need entrepreneurship the most to solve local problems, but the locally available capital is predatory.It is no accident that venture capital has not yet scaled globally: as so often, the barriers are regulatory. The "dinosaurs of the industry" have set up moats.Starting a VC fund is a black box, and requires a significant amount of upfront capital for legal fees to comply with a set of onerous laws.VC Lab is solving the problem by creating a full-stack: a free acceleration program, standardized legal advice in three domiciles, and fund management software.VC Lab is doing more than anyone to globalize access to VC by reducing the barriers to starting a fund for managers committed to the ethical principles of the Mensarius Oath, thereby unleashing a new wave of innovation through entrepreneurship.Towards the end of the episode, Niklas comments on why he chose VC Lab and how it helped him start Infinita VC.Check out VC Lab if you're thinking of starting a VC fund (applications for Cohort 10 are open): https://govclab.com/Infinita Linktree: https://linktr.ee/infinitavc This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.infinitacitytimes.com

Dan Epstein is Director at Trust Ventures, a VC fund helping entrepreneurs overcome regulatory challenges.As a political economist and regulatory litigator, Dan is uniquely positioned to understand the politics, law, and economics of regulation and how it affects entrepreneurs at the forefront of technology.Studying and practicing regulatory litigation on both the government side, and the entrepreneurs' side led Dan to surprising and important insights.Insights that are essential for any entrepreneur.You may not think of yourself as a regulatory entrepreneur yet, but maybe you are.According to Dan, entrepreneurship is about redefining an industry. Uber or Lyft is not a taxi company but invented the ride-sharing business.It's important for regulatory entrepreneurs to think about this because the existing industry is regulated not to fend off competitors and get a ticket to survival.Dan and Niklas develop some nuanced views about regulation and charter important territory for how to navigate the complex regulatory landscape.While the U.S. regulatory state is sclerotic, we do see hope for sustained activism, "right to try" regulations, and sunset clauses, as well as using the playbooks that are increasingly being developed for regulatory entrepreneurs.As VCs, we also see increasing international competition for jurisdiction, and entrepreneurs have the opportunity to choose.There are challenges, but there are exciting opportunities on the horizon for regulatory entrepreneurs.Infinita Discord: https://discord.gg/dwbNh7NKNiklas on Twitter: https://twitter.com/NiklasAnzingerInfinita Website: https://infinitavc.com/ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.infinitacitytimes.com

Niklas speaks with Thibault Serlet, the Director of Research at the Adrianopole Group, a firm providing intelligence on special economic zones (SEZs)Thibault is one of the world's leading thinkers on the past, present and future of governance innovation through SEZs.SEZs are business parks that are geographically walled off from the countries that they're in, and they have their own laws.The most famous examples are Shenzhen, China and Dubai, UAE, which both were growing into modern megacities and hubs of technology & prosperity.With the Open Zone Map Project, Thibault found more than 5.000 SEZs worldwide, a fact that is little known in the Western world.SEZs have a fascinating history, including the trade and export hubs of Europe starting in Champagne, France, proto-venture funding of city captures by crusaders, and as a tool to modernize an economy of 1bn+ people in post-Mao China.What makes SEZs so interesting is that they make governance innovation possible on a small scale, something that is not possible on a large scale due to entrenched interests. Successful innovations can then scale.That makes SEZs a laboratory for the future, both when it comes to governance innovation, and when it comes to harboring innovative firms or individuals.We talk about the pitfalls of governance innovation, such as the failed libertarian attempts since the 1960s Operation Atlantis.Also like anything, SEZs can be used for horrible things like human trafficking in the Golden Triangle in Laos.SEZs are a tool and can be used for good and bad.To illustrate their potential, Thibault talks how they could be used to test policies to combat climate change, such as a carbon tax or a biodiversity futures market.SEZs and governance innovation are at the heart of unleashing the potential of stranded technologies and start a new wave of technological progress.Infinita Discord: https://discord.gg/dwbNh7NKNiklas on Twitter: https://twitter.com/NiklasAnzingerInfinita Website: https://infinitavc.com/ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.infinitacitytimes.com

Niklas speaks with Eli Dourado, a senior research fellow at the Center for Growth and Opportunity at Utah State University.Eli is also a blogger, investor, and self-described "regulatory hacker".Eli and Niklas have a conversation about many things technology, innovation, and regulatory bottlenecks. His breadth of knowledge includes aviation, energy, housing, cryptocurrency, biotech, cybersecurity, and many more areas.Eli has a background in regulatory and technology policy. He was involved in initiatives such as saving the internet from UN regulation and the debate about noise limits in civil aviation, in his role as a public policy specialist at Boom Supersonic.Energy is the key to a better future. The major regulatory mistake was the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which led to a major slowdown in the adoption of nuclear energy and hampered America's ability to build new infrastructure.Eli sees potential for modular and small-scale nuclear power. He also sees geothermal energy as a major potential source of clean energy, made possible by better drilling techniques developed during the hydraulic fracturing boom.Generally, Eli sees the pro-progress camp aligned with the environmental movement. The major disagreement he has is with the de-growth camp. Instead, to solve environmental challenges more economic growth is needed.Economic growth is at the heart of improving society in all areas and developing better solutions for problems such as climate change.After a Tour de France through many promising areas in technology, Eli is optimistic that entrepreneurs can overcome the regulatory challenges that often come with adoption. It's hard, but it can be fun, and come with a moat for your businesses.Infinita Discord: https://discord.gg/dwbNh7NKNiklas on Twitter: https://twitter.com/NiklasAnzingerInfinita Website: https://infinitavc.com/ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.infinitacitytimes.com

Niklas speaks with Mark Lutter. Mark is the Founder and Chairman of the Charter Cities Institute, a non-profit which is building the ecosystem for charter cities. Mark has a PhD in economics from George Mason University.Mark also has a podcast called the Charter Cities Podcast, a fantastic listen to learn about this fascinating movement.Mark and Niklas start by talking about how they both became more motivated to pursue experimentation to fix or build alternatives to government institutions as a result of the covid-19 pandemic, and how they hope charter cities can propel new technology development such as biotech and longevity or drone delivery.Mark talks about charter cities, how to finance them and the many other challenges involved in building them. First and foremost, charter cities are a political challenge and require local partnerships and buy-in from national governments.Mark believes an optimistic scenario could lead to charter cities having 3 million residents in ten years with growth rates 1-2 percentage points higher than the surrounding region. Charter cities have a very long time horizon and are up against the inherent stability of existing institutions: people typically don't move unless there is a really strong motivation such as political or religious persecution, or instability.This stickiness of existing institutions is something Mark believes is often underestimated by proponents of "network states" such as Balaji Srinivasan. While charter cities have overlaps with network states, Mark believes there is not enough migration flow out of developed countries with bad institutions - the much stronger force pressure to migrate is from developed to developing countries.Mark cautions against claiming the sacred concept of political sovereignty and instead opts for partnerships with governments. He sees the biggest potential for charter cities in Africa, because of the strong urbanization ratesMark is a key thought leader in the charter cities space, and achieved tremendous success in increasing awareness and developing the right templates through the Charter Cities Institute - it was fascinating to have Mark on to share his learnings!Infinita Discord: https://discord.gg/dwbNh7NKNiklas on Twitter: https://twitter.com/NiklasAnzingerInfinita Website: https://infinitavc.com/ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.infinitacitytimes.com

Niklas synthesizes insights after thinking about regulation & innovation by talking to experts and practitioners for more than 8 months.Why are regulations important?John Maynard Keynes observed that capital accumulation and technical improvements enabled economic growth.Keynes calculated that with 2% growth per year, the economic pie increased by 7.5x in 100 years. If it would be 5%, it’s 130x our current level of wealth.That would lead to an age of superabundance.Regulations have a much larger impact on those than immediately obvious. They directly affect Keynes' factors of capital accumulation and technical improvements.If we want to reach an age of superabundance, we need to look at our process for making rules that impact hundreds of millions of peopleThe 10 theses are:(1) Our knowledge of the multi-layer effects of government regulation is comparable with medieval doctors' knowledge about the human body.(2) It is an obfuscation to equate regulation with government regulation. There are many more ways for achieving the same effects.(3) Our association of regulation with stability is influenced by pro-authority bias.(4) Regulation mostly targets groups that are unpopular with the majority.(5) Government regulation mostly follows as an overreaction to public events.(6) We regulate seen consequences and disregard unseen consequences.(7) In the absence of binding obligations, public officials have a herd mentality.(8) Most business regulations fail because they don’t address the Safety Paradox.(9) The main problem with regulation is the process of how we make decisions.(10) Bad regulations are hard to get rid of (Machiavelli Effect).Towards the end, Niklas discusses different solutions such as ethical exit, jurisdictional shopping, competition, and experimentation in governance.Over the coming episodes of this podcast, we'll get more in-depth about solutions, entrepreneurs that achieved the impossible, what promising governance experiments are underway and how to achieve 100x growth for humanity.Please send feedback and guest wishes to Niklas:Discord: https://discord.gg/dwbNh7NKTwitter: https://twitter.com/NiklasAnzingerEmail: [email protected] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.infinitacitytimes.com

Niklas speaks with Santiago Pinzon, the founder and CEO of ORKID.ORKID aims to revolutionize healthcare in Latin America through autonomous drone delivery. In this episode, we talk about technological and regulatory challenges in the aviation industry, and how to unlock a future of rapid logistics.Aviation is a fascinating industry that has developed high safety standards and technology that leads to extremely safe passenger flights.However, we note something we call the "safety paradox". High safety standards lock in old technology to the detriment of experimentation with new technology, which could, inadvertently be even safe and have massive benefits.The developed world has made it very hard for the commercial drone industry. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) applies the same standards to non-passenger drones as to passenger aircraft, i.e. drone delivery is regulated like an airline.Standards developed by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) are not mandatory, but most countries abide by them because they lack the knowledge to assess new technologies or the willingness to try something new.However, there are good news. A company named Zipline has been invited by a forward-thinking government administration in Rwanda to trial healthcare deliveries via drones. The success was amazing: reduced maternity mortality by 50-60%.ORKID is close to a breakthrough with the regulator in Brazil, a country proud of its aviation industry, to start operations in Sao Paolo. Special jurisdictions like Prospera are similarly promising for drone adoption, and islands are a great use case.The future of rapid logistics is coming, and ORKID is on the forefront!Niklas on Twitter: https://twitter.com/NiklasAnzingerInfinita Website: https://infinitafund.com/Discord: https://discord.gg/Z4H6UjbubK This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.infinitacitytimes.com

Niklas talks with Joshua Scigala, the Co-Founder and CEO of TheStandard.io, which offers over-collateralized stablecoins backed by Gold, Bitcoin and Ethereum.Josh and Niklas talk about the recent events surrounding the collapse of FTX, the crypto trading platform. Josh has been in the industry since 2010 and has seen many collapses and creative destruction over the years. He believes the industry has a way of overcoming failed experiments and bad ideas by writing better code.Better code instead of laws and regulation is at the heart of the ethos of DeFi.Secondly, we talk about stablecoins and Josh's mission to create a privatized and decentralized Gold Standard for the 21st century.Stablecoins create access to the financial innovation of the crypto ecosystem while allowing a host of important everyday transactions. Unlike algorithmic stablecoins, TheStandard.io is backed by rare assets, i.e. Gold, Bitcoin and Ethereum.The Standard aims to solve inflation by leveraging devaluation to work for savers, not against them. Besides leveraging rare assets, TheStandard.io also aims to innovate when it comes to decentralized governance through prediction markets.The pace of financial innovation in DeFi is mesmerizing, but the industry is threatened on multiple fronts by bad PR and regulatory overreach. However, they survived multiple crises and came out stronger by building antifragile systems.Join us on the mission to create a better, decentralized financial system for the Prospera Fintech & DeFi Summit 2022 (Nov 18-20).Niklas on Twitter: https://twitter.com/NiklasAnzingerInfinita VC Website: https://infinitavc.com/Discord: https://discord.gg/Z4H6UjbubK This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.infinitacitytimes.com

David K. Levine is an economist at the European University Institute and at Washington University in St. Louis. He is the author of Michele Boldrin of "Against Intellectual Monopoly", an empirical study of the economics of intellectual property (available for free here) that concludes that IP is not necessary for innovation and as a practical matter is damaging to growth, prosperity, and liberty.IP law allegedly offers protection of innovation, most importantly in the form of patents and copyright. Most economists see IP protection as a "necessary evil". However, David believes they are in fact an unnecessary evil.While IP laws do increase the reward for the innovator through a legally granted monopoly to produce and sell a unique product, they also have perverse effects such as making it costly and cumbersome to use other inventions, and they reward the inventor with better lawyers over the inventor with the better innovation.So-called "patent trolls", for example, deliberately patent everything they can and sue other people to extract money. Surprisingly, many of the most famed inventors in history such as James Watts (steam engine) and the Wright Brothers (airplanes) turn out to be patent trolls. James Watts' predatory use of patent laws against his competitors had possibly delayed the Industrial Revolution by two decades.David uses multiple examples from the music industry to the pharma industry to show that the alleged benefits of IP law are in fact empirically not demonstrated.IP law is, therefore, a great example of a pernicious regulation that is holding back innovation not only in one but in many different industries across the board from media production, software, and financial markets all the way to pharma.This episode offers deep insights into the history and mechanics of innovation. We learn about the so-called "lifecycle of innovation". Innovation typically starts with tinkerers and hobbyists, becomes a professional industry, and develops wide use of patents only late in its development to sustain the privilege of incumbents.It shows that we need to develop a much better understanding of innovation as a process that requires permissionless tinkering.Niklas on Twitter: https://twitter.com/NiklasAnzingerInfinita Website: https://infinitavc,com/Discord: https://discord.gg/Z4H6UjbubK This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.infinitacitytimes.com

Niklas speaks with Caroline Cochran, the COO and co-founder of Oklo, joined by special guest Mac Davis, the CEO of Minicircle.Oklo is revolutionizing nuclear energy to create a clean energy future.Nuclear energy is probably the best example of a stranded technology. It has the potential to give us a low-to-no-cost, low-to-no-carbon future economy - but it is held back by industry stagnation, political obstacles and regulatory strangulation.In this episode, we'll learn about Oklo and Caroline's mission, and how so-called "powerhouses", micro-scale advanced fission power plants that are orders of magnitude safer than old nuclear power plans, can disrupt the energy industry.The safety of these micro-plants is by design, using metal fuels. If the fuel expands through heat, the metal expands to shut down the reaction.Caroline explains the process of convincing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), a regulatory agency that has not licensed a single commercial nuclear power plant from application to start of operations since its beginnings in 1974.While the process can be slow and expensive, Caroline also observes that their path has been one of much faster iteration and that nuclear is increasingly on a path to greater acceptance.Oklo is on track to build the first NRC-licensed nuclear reactors, paving the way for a nuclear revival to produce cheap and clean electricity that is advancing humanity in the fight again climate change and accelerating technological progress.Niklas on Twitter: https://twitter.com/NiklasAnzingerInfinita Website: https://infinitafund.com/Discord: https://discord.gg/Z4H6UjbubK This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.infinitacitytimes.com

J. Storrs Hall or "Josh" is an independent researcher and author.He was the founding Chief Scientist of Nanorex, which is developing a CAD system for nanomechanical engineering.His research interests include molecular nanotechnology and the design of useful macroscopic machines using the capabilities of molecular manufacturing. His background is in computer science, particularly parallel processor architectures, artificial intelligence, particularly agoric and genetic algorithms.This episode is filled with techno-optimist verve.Josh wrote an epic book called "Where is My Flying Car - A Memoir of Future Past".The book is the subject of the conversation, for which we're joined by Trey Goff - the CMO of the startup city Prospera, who sees the book as his ideology.The book starts as an examination of the technical limitations of building flying cars and evolves into an investigation of the scientific, technological, and social roots of the economic stagnation that started in the 1970s.The period from 1880 to 1940 brought major technological advances: electricity, electric lights, powerful motors, automobiles, airplanes, household appliances, the telephone, indoor plumbing, pharmaceuticals, mass production, the typewriter, the tape recorder, the phonograph, and radio, and television.Today, in contrast, apart from the seemingly magical internet, life in broad material terms isn’t so different from what it was in 1953.Scholars like Tyler Cowen and Robert J. Gordon spoke of "The Great Stagnation".Josh has explosive insights into the history of regulation and technology that show how different our lives could be.At the center of losing out on major new innovations in the world of atoms is nuclear energy. The world not producing enough clean energy at scale to advance in energy-intensive areas such as nanotechnology, air & space travel, and advanced materials.We learn that flying cars are a real possibility, even right now.It's just due to policy changes and a culture of "safetyism" that sometimes deliberately, sometimes inadvertently holds back progress.Is humanity ending up like the "Eloi" in H.G. Well's novel "The Time Machine": lazy, stupid and timid due to the coddling effect of advanced technology?Josh says "No"! Humanity can do better.Human ingenuity is endless, and we can invigorate our passions to reach to the frontiers into new and hostile environments, master the elements through the scientific method and engineer our environments for human flourishing.This episode is a rallying cry to build a better future now!J. Storrs Hall's website: https://autogeny.org/Prospera's website: https://prospera.hn/Niklas on Twitter: https://twitter.com/NiklasAnzingerInfinita Fund Website: https://infinitafund.com/Discord: https://discord.gg/Z4H6UjbubK This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.infinitacitytimes.com

Dusan is the Founder and CEO of the AmityAge Academy, a Bitcoin Education Center based in the startup city of Prospera on the island of Roatan, Honduras.The mission of the academy is to accelerate bitcoinization.Dusan and Niklas share a special history.Dusan heard about the paradise island of Roatan, Honduras from a friend. While he was visiting in April, he heard about the "Build Prospera Summit 2022".The conference was organized as an "unconference", so it was very open for every participant to engage and bring their ideas.On the last day, we had a pitch competition. Dusan spontaneously pitched a long-held idea: a Bitcoin Education Center.Dusan gave a fantastic presentation, where he talked about his goal to "educate 100m people about bitcoin by 2030".After the talk, Prospera CEO Erick A. Brimen told Dusan: "Come with me, I show you a place where you can do it."The rest is history.In this episode, you'll hear more about Dusan's journey to becoming a Bitcoin educator, how he teaches children bout Bitcoin, living in and working with the communities in Roatan, and why Dusan is a Bitcoin Maximalist.Dusan and Niklas debate the maximalist thesis, talking about competition vs. efficiency when it comes to creating a store of value, the risk of default of governments & fiat currencies vs. Bitcoin, and the path to broad adoption.The AmityAge Academy will have its grand opening on November 18, in the wake of the Prospera Fintech & DeFi Summit 2022 (Nov 18-20). Join us on this dreamy island to build the future of money together: https://infinitafund.com/fintech2022Niklas on Twitter: https://twitter.com/NiklasAnzingerInfinita Fund Website: https://infinitafund.com/Discord: https://discord.gg/Z4H6UjbubK This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.infinitacitytimes.com

Savva is the Founder and CEO of Crowd Funded Cures, a New Zealand-based charity and Open Source Pharma De-Sci Organisation.Savva and Niklas talk about the pharmaceutical market, and how the interplay of clinical trials and the patent system disincentivize pharma companies from producing widely available drugs that could significantly improve people's lives.This is another deep dive into one of the largest markets in the world, healthcare, and into the possible future using blockchain technology to disrupt it.Savva describes three core concepts: a Health Impact Fund, Pay-For-Success Contracts and intellectual property (IP) NFTs (non-fungible tokens).Together, these legal and technological innovations can create the right incentives and create a scalable business model to fund clinical trials for off-patent, generic drugs such as ketamine to treat depression, which is only $2 a dose compared to expensive patented drugs such as esketamine for over $850 a dose.This is important because the pharmaceutical industry is disincentivized from conducting clinical trials, if they can't enforce a monopoly price. Because people can buy generic drugs cheaply from multiple sources, they can't create a business model by charging a monopoly price and suing other companies. This is why we need new "pay-for-success" contracts to fix this market failure under the traditional IP system.There are over 7500 off-patent drugs and 50,000 supplements that could be repurposed to treat new diseases at up to 1/100th of the cost and 5-10x faster than new patented drugs.Savva offers deep insights into the broken incentives of the pharmaceutical system, but he is describing key innovations enabled by blockchain technology that has the potential to create an open-source, decentralized science ecosystem.Niklas on Twitter: https://twitter.com/NiklasAnzingerInfinita Fund Website: https://infinitafund.com/Discord: https://discord.gg/Z4H6UjbubK This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.infinitacitytimes.com

Niklas speaks with Silicon Valley-based serial entrepreneur John Chisholm.Over the last 35 years, John has founded, grown, or sold four companies in Silicon Valley, including Decisive Technology, now part of Google; and CustomerSat, now part of FocusVision. He has served as president and chair of the worldwide MIT Alumni Association, and as trustee of MIT and the Santa Fe Institute. Today, John is CEO of John Chisholm Ventures, a startup advisory, and angel investment firm. He is the author of “Unleash Your Inner Company: 10 Steps to Discover, Launch, and Scale Your Ideal Business.”Among much else, Niklas & John explore the thesis of entrepreneurship as a stranded technology. Technology can be stranded by failing to attract sufficient investment to compete, such as automobiles propelled by steam as compared to internal combustion engines in the early 20th century; or by being superseded by other technologies, such as fax has been replaced by email and messaging; or by regulation, such as nuclear energy today. Similarly, entrepreneurship is increasingly being stranded. Across the United States, entrepreneurship is on the decline. According to the Kauffman Foundation, as a percentage of all businesses, new firms have dropped from 16% in 1977 to fewer than 8% in 2010. This encompasses all new businesses – sole proprietorships, retail stores, service providers, restaurants, consultants – not just high-tech.In this session with John Chisholm, we’ll see how a combination of factors, both external & regulatory, on the one hand, and internal & psychological on the other, is holding back entrepreneurs today. John offers recommendations both for aspiring entrepreneurs on how to discover, launch and scale a business ideal for them, and also for lawmakers and regulators on how to make their jurisdictions more economically resilient, humane, and friendly to startups and innovation, via such techniques as localism, sunset clauses, and special economic zones. Niklas on Twitter: https://twitter.com/NiklasAnzingerInfinita Fund Website: https://infinitafund.com/Discord: https://discord.gg/Z4H6UjbubK This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.infinitacitytimes.com

Niklas speaks with Zina Sarif, the Founder and Managing Director of Yendou, a company on a mission to accelerate clinical research and make it universally accessible to patients, clinicians, and scientists.Zina starts by talking about her familial experiences with cancer during her upbringing in Morocco, and how it motivated her to dedicate her life to combating cancer.During her career as.a cancer scientist in Germany, Zina experienced the inefficiencies and bureaucratic obstacles to bringing solutions from the science to market.It takes 12 years and $800m in cost to bring a new treatment to market, and the shortened patent life cycle pushes for non-patient-centric incentives."We are currently not winning the war against cancer," so Zina.However, Zina has identified hope for patients.Clinical trials contain the most innovative treatments for cancer, and they typically take place in large hospitals with great infrastructure and care options for patients,Yet only 8% of cancer patients globally are participating in clinical trials, and it takes 18 months to get access - often too long to have a chance at survivalWith Yendou, Zina aims to reduce the time to access new treatments from 18 to 4 months and enable more patients to access them.But this is only the beginning. Long-term, Yendou aims to reduce the time for clinical trials from 12 to 7 years and reduce costs from $800m to $300m.We learn in the conversation how medical innovation in oncology is held back by a Kafkaesque bureaucracy, a frustrating reality that takes a toll on innovators.Yet, Zina is bent on overcoming seemingly insurmountable obstacles and encouraging hope that the war against cancer is not over.Niklas on Twitter: https://twitter.com/NiklasAnzingerInfinita Fund Website: https://infinitafund.com/Discord: https://discord.gg/Z4H6UjbubK This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.infinitacitytimes.com

Niklas speaks with Sebastian A. Brunemeier.Sebastian is the Co-Founder and General Partner at Healthspan Capital, a venture fund focused on longevity biotech ("LongBio") & geroscience.He is also the Co-Founder and CEO at ImmuneAGE Pharma, a drug discovery platform for immune system rejuvenation.He holds an advisor and board member position at multiple companies and organizations, such as VitaDAO and Molecule AG.This episode is recorded as a primer to the "Prospera Healthtech Summit 2022", a conference taking place September 23-25 on the island of Roatan, Honduras.Sebastian talks about the scientific breakthroughs of the past decades that show the path to end or at least significantly slow human aging.What remains is an engineering challenge.What follows is a wide-ranging conversation about the regulatory, policy, and business challenges when it comes to producing scientific innovations in the field of geroscience to result in drugs and therapies to treat humans.Sebastian argues that the mainstream legal and financial guardrails of the medical system are broken, and instead we need alternative guardrails built on-chain.Sebastian and the longevity movement are building these alternative guardrails such as decentralized science (de-sci) funding, decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), and intellectual property (IP) on non-fungible tokens (NFTs).Sounds science-fiction? It is already science-fact. LongBio has attracted close to $5bn in funding in recent years.Sebastian introduces us to this emerging ecosystem that develops the powers to unleash a new wave of human progress through better health and longer age.We close the episode by talking about network states, and how Puerto Rico is creating the perfect conditions for a longevity hub.Niklas on Twitter: https://twitter.com/NiklasAnzingerInfinita Fund Website: https://infinitafund.com/Discord: https://discord.gg/Z4H6UjbubK This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.infinitacitytimes.com

Niklas speaks with Grant Taylor. Grant is the Founder & CEO of Quotanda, a company that is digitising financial aid for educational institutions and students.Over the past 40 years, college has developed from an offering for an elite of knowledge workers to a job entry requirement for a majority of the population.Grant argues that college is overutilised in developed countries such as the United States, but underutilized in less developed countries such as Mexico.The higher education system he knows intimately from his experience in the USA, Spain and Mexico is massively mismatching students with jobs.A couple of key innovations can help overcome that gap: 1) bootcamps of 3-6 months that teach job-relevant skills quickly. Students in Mexico can earn 5x more with a coding BootCamp compared to working in a call center. 2) Income share agreements (ISAs) between universities or financial institutions and students.Grant talks about how ISAs have gained a bad reputation and regulatory attention in the USA after some flawed marketing messages. Yet Grant sees lots of opportunities for ISAs to become widespread. There are no regulatory barriers in many countries in Latin America, allowing an underserved market to access higher education.We invite you to join us at the frontier to build the education system of the future together on Roatan, Honduras, a beautiful Caribbean island:Prospera Edtech Summit, October 28-30, 2022Niklas on Twitter: https://twitter.com/NiklasAnzingerInfinita Fund Website: https://infinitafund.com/Discord: https://discord.gg/Z4H6UjbubK This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.infinitacitytimes.com

Niklas speaks with Cameron Sorsby, the CEO of Praxis, a college alternative that builds your skills, your network, and leads to a full-time job at a growing business.Over the past 40 years, college has developed from an offering for an elite of knowledge workers to a job entry requirement for a majority of the population.However, during the past 2 years enrollment rates have been dropping rapidly.During covid-19, students and parents were comparing "Zoom University" with free, or better alternatives to a 4-6 year commitment with potentially $100ks in student debt.Covid-19 supercharged college alternatives such as Praxis.Cameron talks about the benefits of "a vocational MBA" when it comes to costs and time spent. He also shares insights as an entrepreneur starting in a small niche, growing through word-of-mouth and becoming a premier talent pool for fast-growing tech companies that value tenacity and skills over the signal of a college degree.We invite you to join us at the frontier to build the education system of the future together on Roatan, Honduras, a beautiful Caribbean island:Prospera Edtech Summit, October 28-30, 2022Niklas on Twitter: https://twitter.com/NiklasAnzingerInfinita Fund Website: https://infinitafund.com/Discord: https://discord.gg/Z4H6UjbubK This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.infinitacitytimes.com

Niklas speaks with Michael Gibson, co-founder and General Partner at 1517, a VC firm that backs dropouts, renegade students & deep tech scientists at the earliest stages.Michael is the author of the book “Paper Belt on Fire - The Fight for Progress in an Age of Ashes”, coming out on November 8, 2022 (pre-order on Amazon).Michael dropped out of his philosophy PhD program and was then picked by Peter Thiel to run the now legendary Thiel Fellowship Program from Day 1. With no traditional VC background, Michael then founded 1517 to find young entrepreneurs willing to leave the traditional paths to build the next great thing.One such renegade entrepreneur Michael backed early was Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin, whom he noticed early to be a voracious self-learner who taught himself not only the necessary coding and math but also to speak Mandarin Chinese.In this wide-ranging conversation, we learn about the failures of the higher education model and science funding ("the paper belt" from NYC, Washington to Boston), and "The Great Stagnation" in technological progress starting in 1971.Michael talks about the notion of the "frontier", a place where you can go to if the established institutions are corrupt and favor insiders over outsides, to do it all differently. In American History, the frontier was the West.The new frontiers now seem to be the internet, the crypto/blockchain movement, and charter cities. We invite you to join us at the frontier to build the industries of the future together on Roatan, Honduras, a beautiful Caribbean island:Prospera Healthtech Summit, September 23-25, 2022Prospera Edtech Summit, October 28-30, 2022Prospera Fintech Summit, November 18-20, 2022Niklas on Twitter: https://twitter.com/NiklasAnzingerInfinita Fund Website: https://infinitafund.com/Discord: https://discord.gg/Z4H6UjbubK This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.infinitacitytimes.com

Niklas speaks with Sandra Carillo, the Professor in charge of Cannabis Research and Education, Faculty of Medicine at the University of Panama.Sandra has been advocating and promoting the use of medical cannabis as an educator, advisor to policymakers, and a medical doctor treating 1.500 patients in Colombia.Cannabis for medical use is a great example of a stranded technology. It's prohibited by many governments and faces cultural resistance, even though the benefits have been proven for a long time in epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, and as a pain reliever.Sandra talks about the endogenous cannabinoid system, or "endocannabinoid system" —named for the plant that led to its discovery—one of the most important physiologic systems involved in establishing and maintaining human health.We learn that both the scientific and political establishments have long resisted change coming from these insights, and the regulations have been blocking progress in developing better treatments for patients for decades.Sandra is at the forefront of the campaign to legalize medical cannabis in Latin America and all over the world, and her journey provides insightful lessons into what's required to unleash the potential of a stranded technology.We invite you to join us to build the industries of the future together on Roatan, Honduras, a beautiful Caribbean island:Prospera Healthtech Summit, September 23-25, 2022Prospera Edtech Summit, October 28-30, 2022Prospera Fintech Summit, November 18-20, 2022Niklas on Twitter: https://twitter.com/NiklasAnzingerInfinita Fund Website: https://infinitafund.com/Discord: https://discord.gg/Z4H6UjbubK This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.infinitacitytimes.com

Niklas speaks with Joseph McKinney, the CEO of the Catawba Digital Economic Zone (CDEZ).The CDEZ is the Is the first jurisdiction within the United States created for fintech and digital asset growth.Governance is possibly the most stranded technology imaginable. The governance industry, typically run by state governments around the world, is roughly 40% of global GDP and has gotten more expensive and lower quality over time.The CDEZ is one of the most exciting and ambitious startups set to disrupt the governance-as-a-service industry. by using blockchain technology.The ambition of CDEZ is no less than to disrupt Delaware by providing better company incorporation laws than any jurisdiction in the world.The fundamental problem they are solving first is the lack of regulatory clarity around digital assets, including NFTs, DAOs, and cryptocurrencies.Joseph walks Niklas through how the Catawba have a unique opportunity as a sovereign Native American tribe within the United States to make their own laws, how they can be much faster in developing better laws and regulations than any US state, and the thought process leading up to the forthcoming comprehensive set of incorporation laws for crypto/web3 companies.We invite you to join us to build the industries of the future together on Roatan, Honduras, a beautiful Caribbean island:Prospera Healthtech Summit, September 23-25, 2022Prospera Edtech Summit, October 28-30, 2022Prospera Fintech Summit, November 18-20, 2022Niklas on Twitter: https://twitter.com/NiklasAnzingerInfinita Fund Website: https://infinitafund.com/Discord: https://discord.gg/Z4H6UjbubK This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.infinitacitytimes.com