Call it the billionaire tech-bro’s dilemma. You can only buy so many mansions, jets and yachts, so what’s next? Apparently, building your own city.
Venture capitalists want to build their own tech utopias, and have been cutting deals with governments, mainly in lesser economically developed countries, to start building luxury towers and golf courses in de-regulated zones where, in some cases, they get to decide what’s legal.
It is “borne out of a dissatisfaction with the current political systems,” according to Mark Lutter, founder of the non-profit Charter Cities Institute, a non-profit which seeks to “empower new cities with better governance to lift tens of millions of people out of poverty.”
It’s easy to think the motivation is a desire to play God over one’s own kingdom, but Oliver Janssens, a bitcoin millionaire developing Destiny, a community on the Caribbean island of St Kitts, told The Post, “Playing God is the last thing I want to do. The whole point is that you don’t need a God, so to speak.”
Here are five projects, and one cautionary tale showing how wide the gap between vision and reality can be.
Prospera, Honduras
Prospera already has some 1,000 residents living in what appears to be your typical upscale gated community with its own beach and golf course. Some of the financing comes from mega-investor Peter Thiel, but it was founded by Erick Brimen, a Venezuelan money manager.
Interestingly the place has some of its own laws, including an arbitration setup where a judge in the US rules on cases over the internet. One of its major differences is leniency where longevity drugs are concerned.
Health influencer Bryan Johnson is a fan, having traveled for “gene therapy that might change the future of humanity.” Studio apartments start at $120,000 and a 3,000-square-foot villa facing the ocean will run around $850,000. No word on whether their official slogan will be “live long and Prospera” yet.
Destiny, St. Kitts and Nevis
Oliver Janssens made multiple millions out of cryptocurrency and was able to purchase 4-square-miles of property on the Caribbean island of Nevis. He hopes to sell 1,000 units per year with one ambition: Making it a family friendly retreat.
“The last thing I want is 10,000 libertarians going there,” he told The Post. “I want a safe place for medium to affluent families to live their lives.”
Still negotiating rules with the island government, Janssen says: “We are bound by the constitution [of St. Kitts and Nevis], which is sort of a safeguard. Within our own system … You can compare it to a Home Owner’s Association where it’s only property owners [who get to make decisions].
When you have property, you can decide rules. If you want to adjust the rules, you can make a proposal to adjust the rules.” He envisions crypto being the local currency and houses will cost between $500,000 and $3 million. “My dream is a circular villa with glass all around,” he said. “Wherever you are standing, you can see the ocean or the volcano.”
Alpha Cities, West Africa
Not content to put up just one city, Patri Friedman, through his Pronomos venture capital fund, is working on Alpha Cities — in the plural. However, they’re mostly still on the drawing board.
“We’re very long on renderings and very short on everything else,” admitted Friedman, who was a pro poker in the early 2000s.
“We’re working with a number of countries in West Africa and signing deals to help develop the country around industry clusters,” said Friedman.
In typical tech fashion, the industries will include “things like data centers powered by geothermal power, of which there’s a huge amount in Africa, and electric vehicle manufacturing.” From the perspectives of his host countries, said Friedman, “they want to [emulate] Singapore. Going from third world to first, that’s kind of the goal.”
California Forever
Different from other projects of its ilk, the idea is to establish a town which hews to an all American ideal, rather than its founders rallying to rejigger laws.
“It’s about restoring the California dream and the American dream,” a spokesperson with California Forever told The Post.
With a billion-dollars of funding, some 94-square-miles of land and people like LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and venture capitalist Mark Andreessen behind it, it has a lot of goodwill.
The brainchild of Jan Sramek, formerly a trader at Goldman Sachs. He hopes to break ground in 2027. “We want to do that with financially attainable housing in safe and walkable neighborhoods.
The city will have an advanced manufacturing hub for the most innovative industries like aerospace and robotics, which are designed in California.
There will be a park that is larger than Central Park, and each neighborhood will be centered around a local shopping street,” the spokesperson added.
Sherbro Island, Sierra Leone
British actor Idris Elba might not be a tech guy, but he is the force behind the modernization of Sherbro Island, in Sierra Leone, his father’s homeland.
Earlier this year, Elba and his partners received clearance from the country’s government to turn Sherbro into what has been dubbed “an eco-city project.”
Officially, it is a Special Economic Zone. According to Forbes Africa, the inspiration to develop the island came from his grandfather who asked Elba to “do something for Sierra Leone.”
It will have a wind farm at the center of what Elba called a “culturally diverse international city that blends African tradition, dynamism and pride with state-of-the-art infrastructure and service.”
Akon City, Senegal
Proving just how hard all pulling off one of these projects is, Akon City in Senegal serves as a cautionary tale. Backed by the famed R&B singer, he wanted to develop a real life Wakanda, the fictional setting of superhero movie “Black Panther.”
The renderings looked incredible, and three miles of land in the city of Mbodiène were chosen to be turned into the town of the future. It was to be powered by solar energy with cutting edge architecture, and trade in the singer’s signature Akoin cryptocurrency.
However, by 2025 the only structure half-built was a reception building, with no roads, housing or power. Akon admitted his crypto project hadn’t worked out, there wasn’t enough investment money and the entire project was abandoned. Now there are plans to build a “more realistic” endeavor according to authorities: a vacation resort.
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