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The Start Of Startup Cities

The Age of Startup Cities: How Sovereign Individuals Will Build The Future

In 2020, I've just graduated from university. The Covid-19 pandemic fucked up my plans but it has forever changed my view of the future and introduced me to the Sovereign Individual ideology.

Before 2020, innovation was geographically concentrated to a handful of cities, most of them in the West which makes it unfair to the rest of the world.

After 2020, we learned that:

• Remote work is possible, people don't need to be tethered to a physical location
• Traditional finance is being replaced by decentralized finance
• Communities with shared values and ideals are being built on the cloud

So if you could live and work anywhere, where would you go? and why?

Enter Startup Cities.

What is a Startup City?

Here I'm going to expand on Balaji's definition:

1. A city where startups happen. A place with a thriving startup ecosystem like the good old days of San Francisco
2. A city that acts like a startup. A place where the government consists of growth-focused, highly competent individuals, whose intentions are to elevate productivity and quality of life and not bureaucrats whose sole interest is to maintain their political power
3. A city that is a startup itself. Literal startup cities like Culdasec are under construction where you're five minutes away from all of your essentials

The Economic Structure of Startup Cities

• Cryptocurrency is the future of economics and therefore, it will be the fundamental currency of startup cities
• Crypto can enable cross-border transactions at scale. Paying someone in crypto will make it a hub for sovereign individuals wishing to live in a place that aligns with their financial values
• The adoption of crypto will also implement an implicit system of fairness since all transactions are transparent on a ledger. It makes it impossible to game the system
• Startup cities could issue their own cryptocurrency and anyone with tokens have the governing rights and share all of the upsides

Singapore was basically a startup city when it was founded. Lee Kuan Yew focused on attracting foreign talent and cultivating a pro-technology society. Sadly Malaysia failed to adapt.

If things look really bad, don't give up because things might take a turn for the good overnight. Startup cities may be the solution to the plethora of problems that we are facing. 

Before you go...

• Check out issue #36 where we talked about the pseudonymous economy 👨‍💻
  
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• You could also read past issues here

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