Randa Abdel-Fattah

You kind of dive into this very densely forested hillscape.

There is a big sign, a big Prospera sign.

An experiment in what the future of cities could look like if they were run by corporations.

Almost everything in Prospera happens without any oversight from the Honduran government.

It offers companies operating there a menu of laws and regulations.

There's no FDA, no HHS, taxes are low, and crypto is a preferred currency.

Over $150 million have been invested in Prospera by venture funds affiliated with tech titans like Palantir's Peter Thiel, venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, OpenAI's Sam Altman, and former Coinbase CTO Balaji Srinivasan.

Prospera is a real-world case study for a growing movement to create so-called startup nations.

The spiritual guide of this business movement is a book by Balaji Srinivasan, a close friend of Peter Thiel and fellow libertarian.

It's called The Network State, How to Start a New Country.

It outlines a vision of digitally connected, exclusive communities that design so-called states online first and then map them onto land.

then lobby existing governments for sovereignty.

Sreenivasan calls this approach Tech Zionism.

Tech Zionism.

A reference to the movement that led to the creation of the State of Israel.

To me, tech Zionism only really says one thing, which is that we only want to live with other tech Zionists and we want to choose our neighbors.

Well, who are the tech Palestinians in this situation?

I don't think that that's in the book.

By the way, this is journalist Jacob Silverman.

He writes a lot about the tech industry, focusing on the intersection of tech and politics.