Today’s most powerful technology companies could very well be tomorrow’s greatest nations.
The idea may sound like something from a dystopian science fiction novel, but the prospect of corporations governing entire cities of people isn’t as far-fetched as many might think.
Late last week, the Seasteading Institute announced it’s consulting with a major cable network to create a reality television show about the world’s very first floating city.
The Seasteading Institute is backed by PayPal founder and billionaire Peter Thiel, along with some of the most forward-looking minds in tech. It was founded on the idea that by building floating cities in international waters, it would be possible to create entirely new, freestanding nations.
For the time being, the Seasteading Institute is taking baby steps to ensure proof of concept. It intends to operate under a host nation at first, with completion of its first floating city within as few as five years from now.
As it stands, the city would look something like this:
According to Thiel:
Decades from now, those looking back at the start of the century will understand that Seasteading was an obvious step towards encouraging the development of more efficient, practical public sector models around the world… We’re at a fascinating juncture: the nature of government is about to change at a very fundamental level.
No doubt, that’s a pretty bold statement, but Peter is hardly alone in his thinking.
The Startup City
Back in 2013, Google CEO Larry Page shared a similar sentiment regarding so-called “startup cities,” having made a series of comments that had journalists from The Verge, Wired, and Tech Crunch all toying with the idea of a “Google Island.”
Here’s some of what Larry said:
We don’t want our world to change too fast. But maybe we could set apart a piece of the world… An environment where people can try new things. I think as technologists we should have some safe places where we can try out new things and figure out the effect on society. What’s the effect on people, without having to deploy it to the whole world.
And in a way, this is actually what some of Silicon Valley’s biggest tech companies are already doing — setting apart a piece of the world for themselves.
Google, for one, has already taken over 7.3 million square feet of office space in Mountain View, California. That’s roughly equivalent to three Empire State Buildings and includes most of the property surrounding Google’s headquarters.
According to the New York Times, Google recently told Mountain View’s City Council that it “wants housing, and lots of it.” From the looks of it, the company wants to build a total of 5,000 new homes for its employees and their families.
Further, Google purchased its very own airfield last year from the U.S. government and now has plans to expand another 1.2 million square feet with its proposed Bay Area campus.
Perhaps even more compelling is Facebook’s “Zee Town,” a planned 200-acre plot of land that will soon become the company’s own miniature city.
According to multiple sources, Zee Town will house up to 10,000 employees and their families. It will be complete with supermarkets, hotels, villas, and recreation centers. Here’s Zuckerberg getting excited over the ambitious project:
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Google and Facebook weren’t the first to dream up building entire company cities, either. Back in 2011, Steve Jobs announced Apple’s plan to build a 100-acre “Apple City” in Cupertino.
Today, the project is called “Apple Campus 2,” and it’s even bigger than what Jobs had first dreamt up. At this very moment, the company is building a 150-acre, 12,000-employee town.
Here’s a bird’s eye view of the project taken late last year:
Of course, none of these cities operates in international waters beyond government regulation, but it goes to show that tech companies are becoming increasingly self-sufficient.
From an economic standpoint, it’s not far-fetched at all to believe these tech companies could operate as stand-alone nations. After all, Apple now makes more money annually than the GDP of over 50 of the world’s nations.
The ultimate benefit for these companies becoming seasteading nations, in case you were wondering, would be none other than tax avoidance. That, and it could offer some major leverage on the recruitment end.
After all, what techie wouldn’t want to live on a floating sea nation?
Until next time,
Jason Stutman
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