Peter Thiel Funds “Seasteads” Project
Peter Thiel’s has turned Clarium Capital LP into one of the more successful Global Macro strategies by taking the road less traveled, and now he is not even taking a road.
A boat will do just fine for the die hard libertarian, who is funding another of his pet projects, which hopes to renovate an off shore oil platform known as a “spar” for people to live far away from the prying eyes and hands of the government.
If a small team of Silicon Valley millionaires get their way, in a few years, you could have a new option for global citizenship: A permanent, quasi-sovereign nation floating in international waters.
With a $500,000 donation from PayPal founder Peter Thiel, a Google engineer and a former Sun Microsystems programmer have launched The Seasteading Institute, an organization dedicated to creating experimental ocean communities “with diverse social, political, and legal systems.”
“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,” Thiel said in a statement............Instead of starting with a grand scheme worthy of a James Bond villain, the Institute is bringing an entrepreneurial, DIY mentality to creating oceanic city-states.
“There’s a history of a lot of crazy people trying this sort of thing, and the idea is to do it in a way that’s not crazy,” said Joe Lonsdale, the institute’s chairman and a principal at Clarium Capital Management, a multibillion-dollar hedge fund. Wired
If you spend a little time to get to know Peter, you would understand why he is involved. He is a big fan of Tolkien, among others, and no doubt we will continue to see him get involved in projects that at first blush appear to be a bit out there.
Last I knew Clarium was up roughly 15% YTD through the end of March, and his long energy/short financials theme has probably worked since then, despite the resurgence in some financial stocks.
And although Max Levchin has chided Peter over his support on topics like Singularity, Thiel’s views are thought provoking, and you have to give him credit for starting a hedge fund that is putting up numbers that makes the traditional players on Wall Street look like they are stuck in first gear.
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Thiel believes we have recently entered a 20 to 30 year period of turmoil, driven by the usual suspects, and hopefully will emerge into a new era in mankind?
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Peter frees his mind and lets it all flow, including his thoughts on Artificial Intelligence, and increasing life spans…
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Thats our Boy, 1440’s 2007 Man of the Year. Lets hope this works out better than Waterworld did.
Peter Thiel Makes Down Payment on Libertarian Ocean Colonies
Wired
2007 Man of the Year: Peter Thiel
1440 Wall Street
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