The Feedback Loop: Self-Governing Cities with Patri Friedman - Episode 7
Host Mona Hamdy is joined by self-governance advocate, political economy theorist, and three-time entrepreneur Patri Friedman in the latest episode of The Feedback Loop.
Patri is the General Partner at Pronomos Capital, the world’s first charter city VC fund. He is a serial entrepreneur, founding The Seasteading Institute and Future Cities Development before launching Pronomos.
Patri is best known for promoting the idea of “startup cities”, as part of a mission to build prosperous cities that grow to empower entire nations. The Stanford University alumni, and a self-described Transhumanist chatted about everything from the governance industry and experimental cities to seasteadings, autonomous ocean communities and even establishing a self-governing charter city in Honduras.
This episode of #TheFeedbackLoop is available for video streaming on YouTube and across all the major audio streaming platforms, which you can listen to here.
About the guest
Patri Friedman is an American libertarian, neo-reactionary, anarcho-capitalist, and political economy theorist. Patri is the son of economist and physicist David D. Friedman and the grandson of Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman and economist Rose Friedman.
In 2008, he established The Seasteading Institute with a $50,000 gift from venture investor Peter Thiel, a non-profit organization that studies the development of independent maritime communities. Friedman had the idea to create Ephemerisle as a water festival as a Seasteading experiment and Temporary Autonomous Zone after going to the Burning Man festival in 2000. James Hogan of The Seasteading Institute served as the festival's event coordinator, and Chicken John Rinaldi served as its principal builder. Through TSI, Friedman was able to launch the Ephemerisle festival in 2009. Jason Sussberg has produced a DVD that details the first Ephemerisle. The occasion has been a yearly community-run affair since 2010. In 2019, Friedman established Pronomos Capital, a venture capital company whose goal is to finance the development of experimental communities on undeveloped plots of land. Peter Thiel supports Pronomos Capital, much like he does The Seasteading Institute.