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.strandedtechnologies.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.strandedtechnologies.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.strandedtechnologies.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.strandedtechnologies.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.strandedtechnologies.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.strandedtechnologies.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.strandedtechnologies.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.strandedtechnologies.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.strandedtechnologies.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.strandedtechnologies.com