Randa Abdel-Fattah

Peter Thiel, the don of what's become known as the PayPal Mafia.

The companies that have defined our era all share one link.

Their founders trace their origins back to PayPal.

Reporting about the PayPal Mafia can sound like a who's who of every major tech company of the past 30 years.

In the 2000s, Thiel was pushing the idea that technology was an alternative to politics that could, quote, unilaterally change the world.

His biographer described him as, quote, secretly the most important person in Silicon Valley, a place that some people consider to be... Crown zero, libertarian movement.

We reached out to Peter Thiel for this episode, but got no response.

Before he leaves, Patry casually brings up seasteading.

And the idea eventually makes its way to Peter Thiel.

So on April 15th, 2008, they co-founded the Seasteading Institute with funding from Peter Thiel.

Patry liked to say, let a thousand nations bloom.

And their logo seemed to reference the libertarian classic, Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, a man holding up the seastead above his head.

Peter Thiel gave them two marching orders.

One, push the engineering forward.

And two, market it a little.

Patry took the lead, giving TED Talks, doing the press junket, spreading the gospel of seasteading.

And our revolutions have become increasingly superficial.

I'm going to read you a quote from a story I did more than 10 years ago where Friedman said, what if Apple's genius designers build a city that's as fun to use as an iPad?

And I think that really sums up both the moment and the sort of optimism around seasteading at the time.

While saving humanity, we can also save the oceans.