Praxis: A New Nation for the Post-AGI Age

Transcript

I've been at Token for many, many, many years, moderating, doing panels, that sort of thing, on a variety of topics, and I can say without a shadow of a doubt that even the conversations about, like, psychedelics and BCIs and all that stuff, pales in comparison to I think the most interesting conversation, which is: how does the foundation of a new country work? You know, a lot of the principles that you know, originated in Singapore, how do we bring that back in a way that can actually work? And it's with the someone that is pioneering the space. He's a very controversial person. A lot of people love him.

And you know, I've personally been super charmed by Dryden, but without further ado, I want to introduce Dryden Brown, the founder of Praxis. >> Thank you, man. It's great to be here with you. Um I'm happy to be here. It's my first time in Singapore. It is cool to be here having read, you know, so much about Lee Kuan Yew and the city he built and this place is basically like a swamp, right? It's like not like the most geographically blessed place, but you know, we're in this like amazing big, beautiful building and there are many big, beautiful buildings here and so it's uh it's cool to see all the sort of economic activity that they were able to generate.

>> I think Singapore is a very good example of what is possible even under the most extreme circumstances of a country that, like you said, might not might not have not have had the most ideal geographical location, but can turn something from nothing. Uh when you kind of started the whole journey of Praxis, this was like 6, 7 years ago and you ideated you worked in a bunch of different fields in the financial sector before. How did you come into the world thinking like I want to go do this crazy ambitious idea. You have the best investors in the world with Paradigm, Fred Ehrsam, you know, a bunch of people from you know, the the the big crypto and AI space backing you.

How did you think about wanting to build this? >> Um Well, so my my family came here in Well, not here. My family came to America in the early early 18th century from Ireland. Um and I was really interested as a kid in like early colonial history, the founding of America. It was really sort of exciting to me. I went to, you know, Monticello and to DC and so on. And I I thought that um you know, the idea of being in Europe and crossing the ocean in a super kind of gnarly hazardous way, getting to this totally wild continent, and then like conquering it, settling it, building a civilization. That kind of founding to

me was the most exciting thing to to pursue, basically. And so this sort of interest in the founding of America, this sort of personal connection to that story, I think um propelled me to spend a lot of time thinking about how one might do something analogous today. Um I basically I started to learn about master-planned communities, like sort of new city developments. They're kind of boring from like you know, like a cultural and and sort of historical perspective. They're they're kind of like the most they're sort of like the most boring thing, you know, it's like the suburbs or whatever. It's like you know, they're sort of stereotypically boring sort of social organism. But um but nonetheless you can learn from master-planned communities how to build

scaled you know, infrastructure for cities, how to finance the development of new cities so on and so forth. And so I I had this opportunity to go work for for Pershing Square for for Bill Ackman when I was a pretty young person, when I was like 18. And he had invested a like kind of a lot of money in the development of new cities, these master-planned communities through a company called Howard Hughes. We built cities in in Texas and Nevada and Maryland and so on. And so through that experience at Pershing working for Bill, um, I learned a lot about the sort of practical steps that went into, you know, the development of new cities basically. And that that was sort of one piece. And then on the other hand, I was I was thinking a lot about how like crypto was able to sort of function

as a coordination mechanism to engage people from sort of like, you know, vastly different parts of the world towards shared aims using the internet. And I thought somehow that basically they there was going to be some role for crypto to play. I mean, like really, the sort of ultimate vision of of Bitcoin is the creation of alternate institutions, alternate social institutions, you know currency being the first. But I think bringing a new society into existence is like a, like a sort of a whole society, is the ultimate sort of conclusion, the ultimate destiny perhaps of of Bitcoin and of, you know, this industry. And so thinking about how you know, basically we can use tokens as a coordination mechanism to bring into, uh, into reality a new society

physically instantiated in a new city, that was the the sort of exciting thing for me. >> And how did you think about actualizing this goal? How did you think about, well, it's a great idea. Everyone loves like the kind of history, broader, like, you know, there's aspects of theology, there's aspects of, you know, philosophy, there's aspects of history. How did you think about what's the first step to take when you wanted to go undertake this project? >> Well, cities all start with people. It's really about people and and network effects and culture. And so thinking about how we could create a really differentiated culture. Like all cultures start as as cults. You know, cult is used typically in a pejorative way, but really what it means is like you have a group of people who have a different frame as to how the world

works. They're they're inhabiting a different frame. Um, and you know, if you, if you're able to create, um, basically like a community around a set of ideas that are really differentiated and contain some core insight into how the world works or how to live a better life, then you can start to build a lot of energy around this idea. Um and so for us, you know, starting practice during COVID, it was a really like manic insane time. You know, this sort of the the woke stuff is is, you know, perhaps over discussed, but it really was completely insane. And the responses to COVID were insane and so on. And so, there is this sort of um intuition that we needed to be more in touch with, uh,

you know, with our, with our, like, you know, sense of sort of intuitive health; that we needed to live more vital, sort of, uh, intense lives and not, like, wear the mask and, you know, sit inside all day on our computers and so on, and get out and, you know, be really active and. And I think that there, there are, like, you know, deeper philosophical ideas that we could, sort of, you know, get into that that connect to really the core and the birthplace of Western civilization. But, but basically, building a community around a set of ideas allowed us to coalesce a really talented, kind of special group of people that functioned as the, the sort of, demand for this new city. So that was that was the sort of practical first step. It was set of ideas that attracted a bunch of people from around the world

that then, you know, were excited about moving. >> Yeah, I I I suppose in curating even the kind of society that you want to build in a way where you get to pick your earliest adopters, the earliest people that can go in and, you know, be a part of the society. I I I good friends with uh Christian Ungermeyer, who Yeah, I I I I know you know as well. And he always talks to me about this kind of golden age period that he believes is coming up again where people want to live longer lives, healthier lives, uh more fulfilling lives. And they're usually people who might drift towards a techno-optimist kind of uh point of view. How did How did the framing of your, you know, kind of collective group end up

I guess shaping the the cultural identity of Praxis? >> Wait, sorry. Like how Was he Is he techno-optimist or what was the question? >> Yeah, so like how how you think about you know, kind of the the broader landscape that that you know, your kind of group of people, your cohort of people, you know, why them? Why did you want to build something for these guys? Why did you know, as opposed to you know, a different kind of like cult following that that that you had in mind? >> That's an interesting question. I mean, I guess I I think we we really started with the ideas not the people. We started with a set of convictions that we had about what the future should look like and then there were people who just gravitated towards those ideas. So, I

would say like in in a totally like earnest like non- sort of cynical way we we approached this problem. We just thought about what we thought was like interesting and exciting and the way we wanted the future to look and then we just met people who agreed. >> That that totally makes sense. And now, I mean, we've gotten to the point where you know, you recently announced you know, the location of where Praxis will be headquartered, where the new kind of civilization will start. The New York Times covered it.

How do you think about you know, where you wanted to locate? How did you end up convincing this government? I mean, there's so many questions I want to get into. >> Yeah, right. Um Well, I mean, so you know, as you mentioned, we started the project, you know, a few years ago now and so over that period of time we were able to build a really intense sort of loyal community. Um I I think a lot of communities in in crypto tend to be fairly, you know, mercenary, but you know, our project is about you know, an action that takes like a really deep level of commitment like uprooting yourself, moving to the other side of the world. Um and and so >> It's not a four-year lockup.

>> Yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So, we you know, we have this really kind of hardcore group of people who like just happened to have I I think done pretty well over the last years. Many people um, you know, in AI and in in the labs and you know, in the deep tech companies and so on. And I think that's like it's sort of not a not a coincidence. I think these are like really sharp kind of switched on people who are thinking about big, you know, big problems and how the world should be. And um, and so in any case, we have a very large number of people that 160,000 people, many of whom are some of the, you know, most successful, you know, if people in the world um, who all want to start a new city together. And so, if you're, if you're

a, you know, a government, if you're a country, if you're a, you know, head of state, it's really quite attractive to you to, to get that talent and to get, you know, billions, potentially tens of billions of dollars of foreign direct investment. We've raised quite a bit of money already, so we're able to deploy, you know, cash pretty immediately into these economies. And so I think the other thing is too, the the countries that, you know, that we're spending time in, we really have like a deep affinity for and we and we just like a lot, you know. And so, you know, in in Uruguay, where you know, we've spent like a huge amount of time, there's an amazing existing art and culture scene. It's just like incredibly beautiful, the natural beauty is awesome. And so I I think like our sort of genuine like affection for

this place gives us the ability to promote it on on you know, maybe on the world stage to like a new set of people. Probably the people that are the most valuable to any country in the world, the people that are going to be the economic beneficiaries of of this big like AI wealth creation event. So, >> Right. I mean, Peter Thiel recently announced that he's also considering, you know, the southern part of you know, the southern continent in South America. How do you think about, I suppose, you know, this migration that's going to end up happening now with maybe the first you know, pilgrims, if you want to call them that, that are moving down to to to Praxis in you know, what's now known as Uruguay.

Um, how do you think about the next kind of trend? Like what what do you see in terms of the gradual shift of people moving to to practice over the next coming years. >> Yeah. Um Well, I mean, to like super big picture, like zooming out, we're really hardcore AGI pilled, and we think that AI is actually going to take a a pretty huge number of jobs like more quickly than people appreciate. And there's a few there are few things that'll happen as a consequence of that if that happens. One is, you know, the sort of K-shaped economy story is really going to play out, and there are going to be these just enormous uh sort of like winners in this story.

Some people, the people who, you know, own the AI stack are going to make an insane amount of money. Um at the same time, you know, people on the other side of that equation are are, you know, probably going to lose their jobs, and it's going to be fairly difficult for them. And what that means is that places like New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, cities that primarily function as liquid labor markets are going to basically disintegrate and be not very pleasant places to live. And so, if you're doing super well, you know, then then you're probably going to want to move to somewhere like safe and beautiful and and and frankly, like, you're going to want to move somewhere that um that basically can be reconstructed socially and economically around that new reality. Another thing that that means that we're fairly excited about is

basically there there are all these people who are the most talented creative people in the world who make New York, who make LA, who make Paris amazing places to live. And so, the thing that we're excited about beyond, you know, merely attracting, you know, the sort of wealthiest AI people in the world is getting the most talented creative people in the world into our city to make it like a rich, culturally awesome, fun place to live. And so, And so, anyway, we have a bunch of those people that are moving, basically. We have a bunch of like young, talented, creative people, some of whom are starting very interesting companies, some like hard tech companies, crypto companies, AI companies. Um but also super talented artists, musicians, painters, fashion designers, so on and so forth, that are going to participate

in a a practice fellowship and be the first people who move to the city. Um and then we have a bunch of our sort of wealthier people that are going to be the first home buyers over the next year. So, >> Yeah, and and I suppose like what what what what is the cadence that you're thinking about maybe across the next 5 10 years of the amount of people that you you know, want to get on you know, in in you know, the Southern America. >> Yeah, I mean so concretely we have we have a group of people moving as part of the Praxis Fellowship in the summer of 2027. >> Huge.

>> Yeah, so it's it's coming up very soon. They're moving into our first buildings that you know, we built with our development partner. So, those are going to be completed in July. People will move in in in August. We'll do a little bit of furnishing and so on. And then we're going to start selling homes shortly thereafter. So, soon. >> Gradually. I mean it's so crazy. I mean, you know, we're, we're, we're out time now, but it's so crazy that, you know, when, when, when I first started this idea, we were in New York, you know, hanging out and a lot of naysayers, a lot of people saying like, you know what, like this is a crazy idea.

>> Yeah. >> How's it going to materialize? It did not take that much time for this to actually materialize, which is the craziest part. Like realistically, you know, how long like you ask anyone in the world how long it would take to do this, they'd say under a decade is like an unbelievable feat. So, you know, huge hats off to you. Honestly, I can't I can't say enough how much of a fun experiment it's been to watch so far and how much interest it's going to get you know, both good and bad in the next coming years.

>> Yeah, I mean I think sometimes ideas are really big and they're hard for people to think about concretely, but you know, if you want to work on something really big and you think really hard about it, sometimes there are ways to make you know, make these things happen. So, >> Fully. Fully. Well, thank you so much Ryan for having you know, coming here and you know, showing the audience and explaining everything that you've been working on. It's a huge pleasure. Thank you guys for listening. Please check out practice. It's a huge, huge, huge undertaking. Cool. Thank you all.