The air is thick with the lingering aromas of garlic, rosemary, and freshly baked bread—a compilation of scents that tell stories older than any of us gathered here. Silverware rests lazily on empty plates, their work finished, bearing traces of sauces and crumbs like residual memories. Soft murmurs punctuate the space, a natural lull following the indulgence of a shared meal. Faces, flushed with the glow of satiety and kinship, look toward one another and away, lost in private reveries, yet united in a collective experience.

When was the last time you you felt nourished deep in your bones? How did it feel to laugh and learn something new about someone else and yourself? What kind of residue was left on your soul when you forgot about looming deadlines and let yourself be consumed by the present moment?

The scene above is a fundamentally simple human thing in its need for connection, for shared stories, for the quenching of both bodily and soulful hunger. This timeless tradition serves as a means to nourish the body, fortify relationships, and enrich the collective spirit.

Think back to a time when you met someone or learned something that you previously had no reference to but now can’t imagine your life without. What kind of nourishment lives inside of this memory? The lapse with most network state efforts is the consideration of the physical realities humans continue to be fortunate enough to experience. Some may view the need for nourishment and calories as an inconvenience, something we can engineer our lives away from. Modern technology is developing at unparalleled speeds. Daniel Schmachtenberger often talks about how technological innovations can outpace societal wisdom, potentially leading to unforeseen challenges and risks. He is a proponent of a more holistic and integrated approach to technology development, ensuring that the potential negative consequences are considered and addressed. His work emphasizes the importance of aligning technology with human values and ensuring that our advancements lead to positive, sustainable outcomes for civilization. To attempt to build a modern day village or network city of the future, we have to implement small practices of compassion in community and ethical actions.

It is an experience that adds texture to our lives, providing an irreplaceable medium for human connection, learning, and cultural exchange. In today's world, dominated by digital interactions and fast-paced lifestyles, there's a growing tendency to prioritize convenience over genuine human connection. The rapid rise of technology and the digital realm often means that we opt for quicker, more isolated experiences, overshadowing the age-old customs that foster deeper interpersonal bonds, such as sharing a meal.

In her transformative work, "The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters," Priya Parker delves deep into the intricacies of how we come together. She poignantly observes, that in an era where screen-time often supersedes face-time, the act of physically gathering around a table becomes a rebellion against the norm, a testament to the human spirit's undying need for genuine connection. Parker's insights remind us of the potency of shared experiences. It is not just about the act of eating, but about the deliberate choices we make in coming together, setting aside our screens and distractions to truly be present with one another.

Why it matters. What’s unique. We don’t have to recreate the wheel.

At its core, sharing a meal is about nurturing relationships. Whether it's among family members, (internet) friends, or neighbors, eating together offers a space for conversations to flow and bonds to strengthen. In contrast to isolated dining or grab-and-go meals, communal eating encourages interaction. It allows time for catching up, discussing topics of mutual interest, and sharing stories that enrich our understanding of each other. In this way, the dinner table acts as a microcosm of community life, where connections are not just maintained but actively cultivated. It’s not just what we eat but how we eat that affects our well-being.

I’ve been privileged to host and participate in dozens of dinners with the Cabin Community over the last two years. Without ever placing foot in Italy, I’ve learned how to make pasta from scratch and experience the art of storytelling through recipe sharing while preparing a meal together. Once I flew with a dozen farm fresh eggs from my parent’s house in Montana to a Cabin gathering in California where homemade pasta was on menu. This act was based on a learning that the creation of a meal begins long before the food ingredients are prepared. Community meals are often a platform for cultural exchange and understanding. Sharing recipes that were passed down generations or teaching cooking methods you learned during the pandemic, co-creating a meal brings people together and acts as a window into different worlds. A simple dish can carry a rich history, laden with stories, customs, and values from another time and space. When shared, it provides an opportunity for education and broadening horizons, and cultivating community.

The act of gathering around a table creates a shared experience that is both symbolic and tangible, allowing individuals to feel part of a larger whole. This fosters a sense of belonging, a fundamental human need that contributes to mental and emotional well-being. It provides a context where individuals can feel seen, heard, and valued. Communal eating often has a spiritual dimension, irrespective of one's religious beliefs. For some, saying grace or giving thanks before a meal turns the act of eating into a spiritual experience, enhancing mindfulness and a sense of connection to something greater than ourselves. When we can implement ritual into our collective experience, we set into motion the intention behind the actions to follow. In this space, the meal becomes more than just a physical necessity—it turns into an act of shared reverence for life.

Cabin Supper Club is an offline extension of our online community, designed to spark connections and forge friendships. The idea was born out of need and interest for creating space for folks in the Cabin community to come together, break bread, and create the future way of living we all aspire to make a reality.

When you attend a Supper Club you are actively participating in small moments of Cabin history. To find out about the upcoming Supper Clubs go here. If you’re a Cabin Citizen and interested hosting a Supper Club yourself, go here to our forum and follow the guidelines for hosting.

Each Supper Club offers our community a chance to put into practice the rituals and traditions that nourish not just the body but also the soul. It is a sanctuary for building relationships, a stage for cultural and spiritual exchange, and a foundation for social cohesion. As modern life continues to evolve, the importance of maintaining this tradition only grows, reminding us to prioritize meaningful interactions and the integrity of our human connections.

#34 Stranded Technologies with Infinita VC's Niklas Anzinger

Niklas Anzinger runs a fund called Infinita VC which is dedicated to creating more regulatory sandboxes and special jurisdictions by investing in startup societies, network states, and more. We discuss how venture capital can be ethically deployed to create more "base layer innovations."

https://simplecast.com

#34 Stranded Technologies with Infinita VC's Niklas Anzinger

Niklas Anzinger runs a fund called Infinita VC which is dedicated to creating more regulatory sandboxes and special jurisdictions by investing in startup societ

https://podcasts.apple.com

Transcript:

[00:00:00] Jackson Steger: Hey there, you're listening to Campfire, a podcast where we interview leaders that are building new cities and other new ways to connect for digital nomads, creators, and remote workers. My name is Jackson Steger, and I work with Cabin to build a network city of beautiful coliving properties for remote workers who love nature.

[00:00:29] We've been busy getting that city up and off the ground, which is why we've been lacking on recent podcast episodes, but not to worry, we're back with one today, and I'm excited to refocus on the pod again soon. In the meantime, Cabin is open for co living. Our members, which we call citizens, are able to reserve stays at beautiful neighborhoods around the world through our city directory on Cabin.city

[00:00:49] Citizens also receive a number of perks with many of our newest partnership with WeWork. So, listeners to this episode, in fact, receive 20% Off of an All Access WeWork membership by using the Code CabinAA20, but citizens can receive a full 25% off through your profile on Cabin.city. I use WeWork myself.

[00:01:13] There's no one else that offers reliable spaces to perform quality work and take calls, make podcasts, especially while traveling. I'm recording this introduction from Amsterdam where I go to one of the 500 beautifully designed coworking spaces that WeWork offers around the world. Now if you're interested in becoming a citizen, or you'd like to try a taste of coliving, you should check out a Cabin Week.

[00:01:38] At a Cabin Week, you'll join 6 to 10 other prospective citizens for 1 to 2 weeks at flagship cabin neighborhoods. You'll get a taste of curated coliving with group dinners, local adventures, intentional co creation, and free time baked in. They're compatible with remote workers busy schedules, so you won't even have to take time off.

[00:01:58] And upon successful completion of a Cabin Week, you'll be granted citizenship. This is the best and most streamlined path to Cabin citizenship currently available. Now today's episode features Niklas Anzinger, General Partner at Infinita Ventures and host of the Stranded Technologies podcast.

[00:02:14] Infinita supports founders overcoming regulatory bottlenecks through startup cities, network states and crypto rails to unleash a new wave of technological progress. More in the episode. I brought Niklas on the show to discuss what it means for technology to be stranded, what his general thesis is at Infinita, what base layer innovations are, how to determine which founders have sound moral compasses, and how venture capital might be the right way to grow this startup space that we both operate in. Hope you enjoy.

[00:02:44] Niklas Onsinger, welcome to Campfire

[00:02:46] Niklas Anzinger: Hi Jackson, great to be here.

[00:02:50] Jackson Steger: Great to see you again. You and I grabbed lunch about a year ago now in Los Angeles, and so much has happened in this space. I think we were doing kind of like a comparing notes back then, and I think today we'll do more of the same, but would love for you to maybe give the 60 second arc of your career, especially like what you were doing before you were doing what you're doing now, and I'd love to just kind of connect those dots.

[00:03:16] Niklas Anzinger: Yeah, for sure. I started kind of as a researcher and policy analyst and went into Washington, D. C. think tanks and learned that this is not a very dynamic environment and change that I want to see is unlikely to happen there. Then I went to technology and entrepreneurship as a startup operator that excited me much more.

[00:03:33] I found that very dynamic and I learned the methodology of starting small, building a product that's better than the existing product. Start with a small team and eventually catalyze very large scale change. So now the transition to be an investor is really driven by the fact that I see this big trend happening right now with startup cities and network states and that I see myself as an entrepreneur that's using a fund to catalyze that change to bring what's going on to the attention of entrepreneurs that have just better options or optionality of having better legal guardrails in areas in overregulated technology areas where we need a lot of innovation to make the world a better place.

[00:04:16] Jackson Steger: Sure. Yeah. Let's talk about Infinita. So, if you were to articulate your core thesis, how would you describe what the fund does?

[00:04:25] Niklas Anzinger: Yeah. So, it's helping founders in these over regulated sectors— so health care and biotech, hardware and digital assets — and helps them utilize startup cities and Network States.

[00:04:37] So that can come in multiple different ways. They can go there physically as a launchpad, which is relevant in the hardware and then biotech. They can use it just as a jurisdiction where to incorporate a business that can be very relevant in the financial space, or they just have a community of early adopters there, like early customers.

[00:04:53] So I know Kevin, for example, in Prospera and I have been talking about doing things together. So, there's just a lot of, that's what you need as a business. When you start, you need a community of early adopters, and the residents, the leaders in this space are very pro-progress and pro-technology. So, it's just a very good field to get adoption and traction for your startup.

[00:05:14] Jackson Steger: Sure. Yeah. You, so you mentioned for the non hard tech folks, like the advantage of playing around with different jurisdictions and you write in folks get, I'll link it in the show notes, but you have a manifesto for your fund about base layer innovation. So, for the audience, could you describe what a base layer innovation is and how that relates to this broader regulatory environment that you're referring to?

[00:05:37] Niklas Anzinger: Yeah, yeah. And to set up at the context, if you look at the example of Dubai, Singapore, Hong Kong, Shenzhen, China, why did these places grow from poor hinterlands into wealthy megacities in a short amount of time? So, there's a consensus among economists that the difference is in rules and institutions.

[00:05:57] And these are like the legal base layer of society, right? So ,Hong Kong, did like a common law based legal system and Singapore and Dubai and Shenzhen, they had like legal and regulatory autonomy on a small space. And that is the difference between the poor and the wealthier parts of the world. Sort of getting that base layer right.

[00:06:17] That's the idea. The base layer contains things like the way to arbitrate disputes, for example, the legal system, how you treat businesses, how friendly your environment is to do business, and just how much constraints. There are on power, on like the governing bodies, like the worst cases of, of course, a dictator or like just a government that's abusing their power.

[00:06:39] So the base layer of society just mitigates or reduces the risk of abuse of power while maximizing the upside of people fulfilling their full potential.

[00:06:51] Jackson Steger: In this pursuit of Infinita to help uncover these base layer innovations. I know that you're very interested in things that we've talked about a lot on this podcast, startup cities, network cities, network states.

[00:07:05] So could you connect those two? What is it about like new versions of cities that you find especially appealing in the context of Infinita and in the context of stranded technologies?

[00:07:17] Niklas Anzinger: Yeah, I mean, just to give you an example, Zipline, which is the biggest drone technology startup in the world, I think they're valued at several billions right now.

[00:07:25] They didn't start, or their headquarters is in the United States, but they had their first commercial operations in Rwanda. Why is that? It's because drones are regulated like airlines in the United States, and it's very hard to obtain a license. So, it's a classic example of an industry under regulatory capture.

[00:07:43] The rules are made to benefit kind of entrenched interests and existing companies and incumbents have usually sided with the regulators to create rules that make it harder for competitors and for startups to enter. And that's something that even very developed countries with very sophisticated and good legal systems like the United States or Western European countries are vulnerable to regulatory capture.

[00:08:06] And that's why the new jurisdictions, including places like Estonia, Singapore, Malta, Portugal, they're trying to attract the kinds of like founders or businesses or like digital nomads that don't get from their jurisdictions, what they want or what they need. And I think that's a good thing. That's a healthy thing.

[00:08:28] Competition is something that has spawned a lot of innovation in the governance fields, Estonia being like a very good example as providing a better service to the government and digitizing the service and things like that. So, with Infinita, or with the movement of competitive governance, we want to create more competition.

[00:08:48] We don't necessarily have one libertarian utopia or something like that. The goal is more to create dozens, maybe even hundreds of new special jurisdictions, special economic zones, regulatory sandboxes that just put pressure on existing governments and jurisdictions to do a better job for their citizens. Otherwise they go somewhere else.

[00:09:08] Jackson Steger: I remember being in lockdown at the beginning of the pandemic and seeing the news about Estonia launching its new digital nomad program. And that's now about three years ago. Do you have a sense of like how that program has benefited Estonia, like in tangible ways, has there been analysis on its effect on the country?

[00:09:30] Niklas Anzinger: I don't know about that law specifically, no. I know that Estonia has massively benefited from tapping into that gap of the sort of digital nomads, digital residencies. So, I think that was hugely successful. I think it has like a hundred thousand people that using it. It's a very good source of revenue of income position.

[00:09:47] Estonia as a leader in innovation has spawned a tech and startup ecosystem. I think Estonia has now the highest VC investment per capita of any country in the world. Right. So that just shows you what's possible when you're willing to innovate on that front.

[00:10:02] Jackson Steger: Yeah. That also perfectly segues into my next question, which is specifically in the context of new kinds of cities.

[00:10:09] And you and I both chatted with founders doing different kinds of cities. There's folks like in Talent City Lagos that are doing actual new cities. And then there's things like Cabin and Afropolitan that are doing these sort of distributed neighborhoods or ideas across the world and others still.

[00:10:27] And we'll get to how you characterize the landscape in a second. But for these new city models in particular, is venture capital the best way to grow that space and why?

[00:10:38] Niklas Anzinger: Yeah, so that's something that comes from insights from Patrick Friedman, the founder of Seasteading and now Pronomos VC, which is a venture capital fund that was based on the insight.

[00:10:49] Yes, in the early stages, many of these projects do or need has like venture capital-like returns. So, the first couple of years when you need to build a team, when you build a legal system or build a community. When you follow the more network state like strategy, when you want funding and like the couple of hundreds of K's to the higher one digit millions just to develop that kind of traction and are able to get the kinds of agreements in place that you need to successfully start a city.

[00:11:18] He was admitting that there's a gap afterwards, right? So. There's not much happening in the growth financing space when it comes to new cities, there is much more of a black box on the one hand, you definitely need to utilize or get access to mainstream patient capital that's using real estate returns or pension or mortgage funds or something like that.

[00:11:39] So that's something that needs to happen later stage when you build a city. And there's probably a bit of a gap between sort of the early stage of venture financing side and that side that are right now, the projects that we're already familiar with will eventually face the challenge of crossing, but there's definitely something to be said that it seems broadly correct that the early stage to zero to one for many of these new projects seem to have a venture like profile.

[00:12:06] Jackson Steger: Gotcha. And, as a part of that manifesto, you also described several components to how you think about potential investments. And one thing you highlight is that you want to have an ethical exit, especially because you're betting on entrepreneurs that are existing in these strange new legal spaces with traditional legal constraints, that you want to bet on founders whose vision is guided by a sound moral compass and a path to legitimacy. Given that sort of like pioneering effort that you're trying to do there— how do you gauge a sound moral compass when you're having conversations with these kinds of builders?

[00:12:47] Niklas Anzinger: Yeah, I mean, to pick up why that's important again, it's a kind of a very new space. It's coming very from the fringes, from the cypher punk kind of spaces, right?

[00:12:56] Like many of the great new ideas that eventually became mainstream. So, like any new space, it's a bit more wild west. So that attracts also people who want to kind of abuse that. There's something to be said that exists, that happens in existing or mainstream places on a larger scale as well, because it's a very interesting book by Dan Davies.

[00:13:17] That's basically arguing when you have a high trust society, that's good. We need that for a higher volume of economic transactions and growth, but with higher trusts comes more opportunity to fraud and to scam people. So, there is a very high amount or higher absolute amount of frauds and of scams in existing high trust societies like the United States or developed countries.

[00:13:37] And that can often like protect themselves through like an air of legitimacy and following the law and malicious compliance. On the one hand, I'm a bit, you know, would it be a bit cautious to give like special attention to the new kid on the block, right? So crypto, for example, of course, you have a lot of scams, a lot of bad stuff there.

[00:13:55] But is it an absolute magnitude really better or worse than the existing mainstream system that produced something like Bernie Madoff? Or the financial crisis and the institutional sclerosis that sort of created much of it in the first place, as you could argue. So, on the one hand, I'm a bit hesitant to call out the new kids, the crypto and the network state crowd as in, oh, this is like especially dangerous for like scammers.

[00:14:19] That might not be entirely true, but at the same time, we just are de facto, there's a stronger looking glass on us. So, anything that's going wrong, any like medical treatment where someone dies and or like a financial fraud or scam or anything that bad actors are causing, it's just has a much higher impact on the— or can damage the reputation and perception of many of these projects, right? That's just a fact of life that any startups or new challenger is just held to higher standards. And we got to break through that by delivering a better product just to make sure it's actually safer and better than existing products or alternatives, which just means that we just have to be very diligent in sort of actually just making sure that mostly ethical actors are entering the space. And what they're doing is defensible. And we have clear idea and think about what happens if something goes wrong, just in the same way or better than existing jurisdictions. So that's the only way to develop a competitive enough product that eventually can get mainstream recognition, which is, should be the ultimate goal of the movement. I think. So, how do you guard that in people by spending a lot of time with them despite being alert and diligent saying what they do? It's in some ways obvious people have something to hide or not very open about what they do and don't want to tell you much about it.

[00:15:42] And people who want to gain your trust, they're very open and very transparent with you and think that's something affect also startup life or technology life, or just generally very good life advice is to just work with people who are like even painfully ethical that are making extra sure or have very strong moral convictions that they just follow, right, that they stick to the word, for example.

[00:16:05] So I think that's the precondition for us, again, for much technology and startups and new movements to succeed in general is to have higher ethical standards.

[00:16:14] Jackson Steger: Sure. Yeah. You mentioned crypto. As we record this, the Coinbase faces a hefty lawsuit from the SEC. Other exchanges throughout last year plus have been folding or cutting back their U.S. operations left and right. So, a lot of the projects in this space are built on or plan to be built on Crypto Rails. What makes you confident that Crypto Rails will continue to be relevant in the Startup City space? And how would you maybe contrast its future in the U. S. versus other parts of the world?

[00:16:46] Niklas Anzinger: The future is always over determined, right? So... Right now, I'm very worried about what's happening in the United States, which seems like a coordinated operation against crypto that seems to reflect the mentality of many legislatures, lawmakers, and policymakers in Washington, D.C. And I think that can do a lot of damage to crypto.

[00:17:08] That is not good. And I think that is a good reason for the start of cities or new jurisdictions to exist, right? And I think that's something that happened also throughout history when existing jurisdictions or governments or mess up, then you have somewhere else to go is like a disciplining or regulating force on the amount of abuse.

[00:17:30] So if there's enough other opportunities to go to, I think crypto is just a more efficient way to do money. It's an insurance against government abuse. They can print their own money. Like I think all the arguments are, most of the arguments are just very correct. I think we should run our financial system on crypto.

[00:17:47] We could just build better and more security features into it in a more decentralized way and not rely on centralized organizations. So, I buy that critique. So, it needs to exist and to make it exist, we need to well ensure adoption and ensure that there are places that accept the use of crypto as this legal tender who provide a safe space or a safe haven for people who want to transact in crypto and for innovators and entrepreneurs and builders to, to work on their projects, not being worried that they're shut down due to the capricious behavior by regulators or to like individual power mongers like Gary Gensler, who wants to use the mandate that they've given to advance themselves politically.

[00:18:36] Jackson Steger: All right. Thank you for the answer. I want to now start speaking about some specific projects that you've touched. So, we've had Prospera Dave Delgado on the show, who you introduced to me. And so the audience is familiar with what Prospera is doing. You are based in Prospera. And I'd love for you to explain what that means.

[00:18:55] What does it mean to be based in Prospera? What do you like about it? And do you own property there? I've been to Roatan, but it was 15 years ago. And so, what's it like?

[00:19:06] Niklas Anzinger: Yeah. So, right now the plan is, so my wife and I, we're buying an apartment in a new building called Duña. That's being built right now, expected to be finished in like late August or September.

[00:19:17] So it's a large condominium, it will have a pool, a co working space, and a gym. And it's very beautiful, it has fantastic ocean views, it's on this beautiful Caribbean island. And just coming to Prospera for the first time, I organized six conferences there this year, was to give people the experience, it's almost like entering the promised land.

[00:19:38] Like that's how I usually introduce it to people just because it's reality of it is almost just so visceral, like I, I read this like Scott Alexander article before and all these like new ideas when it comes to medical reciprocity and like common law and regulatory flexibility and wow, that's what this looks like.

[00:19:56] It's just stunning. And there's already really cool entrepreneurs hanging out and living there. It's very strongly populated by entrepreneurs from Honduras. So, both from the mainland, the educated ones, but also local Islanders who work there mostly as service workers. So, it's just a fantastic experience to go there for the first time.

[00:20:15] Really attracts me about it is also be among the pioneers in a new space, right? Imagine you could be when Hong Kong was getting started, like on day one. And like with many of the other entrepreneurs that want to build the place, that's just absolutely fantastic. I'm planning to spend four to six months in a year there last year and this year and next year together with my wife.

[00:20:36] The rest I'm nomadic just because there are so many places and communities that I want to spend time with and help create or spawn a larger movement. Next week I will be in a Cabin by the way. For three days, I'm also becoming a Cabin member and sort of my life is also quite diversified in this way with Prospera as a base.

[00:20:56] Jackson Steger: Awesome. So, like on the episode with Gabe Delgado, we talked about Dubai and Hong Kong as these analogs for what Prospera is trying to do. So, we get a sense of like the goal of Prospera, the ambition there. How do you think that we've reached that from a legal standpoint? Prospera's made its special economic zone, like it's in the constitution, they're waging the legal battles they have to wage, but for the most part, they've started.

[00:21:21] So now how do they grow? How do they see that rapid ascension to like their ambitions? And if you were to give them advice, how would you advise them?

[00:21:33] Niklas Anzinger: Yeah, something that I think many projects in this space learn is that it's very important to tap into local talent and demand because it's just the lowest switching cost with the highest upside for people in the same country.

[00:21:48] So for the kinds of like digital nomads like us, there's a couple of million and we're just not very. And also, for us, it's just a lower upside to move to some of these places, like compared to you're from Honduras, where GDP per capita per year is about 2000 and then Prospera, you can earn something like 20,000 or 30,000.

[00:22:10] This is much more to gain for that coupled with higher upsides. He has a couple of. Like really frontier minded entrepreneurs like myself or like the mini circles, the circular factories, the Seshat banks were also like international entrepreneurs from like the United States or Mexico. So that's also for that, but primarily I think you need to build demand and tap into local talent and labor pools.

[00:22:32] So that's the, I think the strongest requirement also for future network state and start up city projects. The digital nomads, whatever are not enough, they're a useful component and part of the ecosystem. They bring diversity, they bring talent, they bring capital into the space where they go. I'm a venture capital fund.

[00:22:49] I'm going to do the first ever VC investment in a Honduran startup. That's my contribution. I want to give to the country, so showing that through Prospera, we can create economic externalities and growth for the country. That's the ultimate test for us to succeed is that we're able to deliver on that.

[00:23:06] And nothing else matters even close to that, right? So even if we fail on the super most innovative biotech or whatever component, that's super core to us. And that's what I want to do, and we want to do. But if we fail at generating the spurring economic growth for Hondurans and providing opportunity for them, then we can't do the other thing as well. So that's like the basis where every project should start from to think about what's the positive economic externalities they create for the country that they're in. Right. Could you finally find that product market fit with that? Great answer.

[00:23:41] Jackson Steger: Great answer. Hopping over the Atlantic Ocean, let's talk about Zuzalu.

[00:23:45] So we've not mentioned Zuzalu on the show before. Could you just give the audience an overview of what Zuzalu is? What your intention was in going? How the event was executed and just general reflections so far.

[00:24:00] Niklas Anzinger: Yeah, sure. I talked with my friends from BetaDAO, which is a DAO that's funding basic science and longevity research.

[00:24:10] And I knew it was funded by Vitalik Buterin, the creator and founder of Ethereum and probably the second most important name in crypto after Satoshi Nakamoto, who nobody knows who he is. And he was saying Vitalik is very interested in like network stated set up cities. So, he wants to start an experiment, like a pop-up city in Montenegro.

[00:24:32] I was like, what? And like for two months, that sounds interesting. And I didn't know what to expect. Probably many people that went there ended up being really fascinated, both by his personality himself, by the theory movement as a whole, like I got to learn a whole lot about how they are using decentralized ways of organizing themselves and just by the quality and the density of the people that are attracted, right?

[00:25:01] So it was basically, if you'll summarize it, a pop up city for the duration of two months in a resort in Montenegro. And during those two months, we organized several conferences and workshops on like very deep tech crypto, like ZK proofs on public goods funding, but also on charter cities and network states or on longevity and biotech or synthetic biology.

[00:25:26] So that was just intellectually and personally very fruitful exchange of like a high density of talent and great people within a short amount of time. And it's hopefully, and on the verge of also spawning out to become something more permanent, not necessarily in one jurisdiction, although that's also an option, but have Zuzalu like camps or experiments in co living with a highly aligned community in several different locations around the world. And that was something that you're also very attracted to co living Jackson. Not sure what you've learned so far, heard about it, but I think it can teach us a lot in that space.

[00:26:09] Jackson Steger: Awesome. And then, so next I'm curious what is happening in Zanzibar related to everything we've been talking about and what you're doing there.

[00:26:16] Niklas Anzinger: Yeah. So, Zanzibar is like an autonomous government, right? It's literally called the revolutionary government of Zanzibar, but at the same time, it has friendly relations with Tanzania, the host country, and. I honestly don't know yet the history behind them. Curious to find out, but now there's two charter cities slash free zone projects there.

[00:26:39] There one is called Fumba town, which is kind of a more traditional charter city, just focused on real estate. The other one is called Free Flow Eden. And that's been started by the Threefold Foundation, which is a technology company that's creating the infrastructure for a new and for a decentralized internet.

[00:27:00] It's a massively ambitious, big project by a really visionary founder. I'm going to have my podcast soon. And he's getting a free zone in Tanzania on Zanzibar in a very beautiful location to have certain legal advantages arousing like trading digital twins and things like that. That's just a new addition to the movement.

[00:27:20] I didn't know about them. They didn't know much about network states and charter cities. I bumped into them. I was introduced by someone and we're like, wow. How does it that we didn't know about all of this? So, I want to introduce these new projects to the rest of the world, to others in the city building space, but also to the wider technology community, Web3 community in Africa, because charter cities and new jurisdictions, the Charter Institute is focusing a lot on Africa.

[00:27:50] So I think that's a good opportunity to invite people to see what's going on there and just, um, see to create, if you can create more spark to do more of these projects and bring it to the attention of tech founders to utilize these jurisdictions and see if we can replicate some of these successes and lessons learned from Prospera in Zanzibar as well.

[00:28:09] And again, I told them we need to make sure that we develop a very strong foothold of Tanzanians and Zanzibarians who benefit from these zones, who are finding employment there and has a product market fit with like local entrepreneurs and the tech community and things like that. I really hope this is like the next step in continuing or replicating the success of Prosper elsewhere and create more of these, more prosperous around the world.

[00:28:36] Jackson Steger: Great.As we approach close here. I want to give you a chance to just plug Stranded Technologies, plug Infinita Fund, or just otherwise give folks the call to action that you want to provide, but also you gave this great example of Zipline as just a situation where the jurisdiction change was necessary for Zipline to really innovate its product and develop a commercial opportunity in its earlier days.

[00:29:02] So any other examples, maybe in, in healthcare, education or energy that you want to highlight and then yeah, just however you want to frame a stranded technology or Infinita

[00:29:11] Niklas Anzinger: Yes. So, the stranded technologies podcast, Jackson Steger will be on one future episode. So, if you want to hear more from your host, then come to my podcast as well.

[00:29:23] The Stranded Technologies podcast is basically talking about the thesis that I have with Infinita. That's having better regulatory guardrails can create better innovation. So Zipline is a good example. I would just also add to that, that within existing jurisdictions, there's tons of regulatory arbitrage opportunities.

[00:29:41] So Airbnb and Uber are the best examples. Uber had to develop a very sophisticated regulatory strategy to become adopted and to get adoption. Also similarly tap into local beneficiaries and talent pools. So, it's not something that's only extra jurisdictional also within existing jurisdictions. There is a jurisdictional competition as many U.S. states, and as we also learned on this podcast from policy makers and from former regulators, there is ways to also innovate within the United States and sort of other jurisdictions that is just an additional optionality for founders and jurisdictions. I am going very deep into things like nuclear power, for example, and energy and drones on the hardware side.

[00:30:22] So drones, we already talked about the example, I invested in two drone companies, Orchid and Aerial Loop, and they're a bet on Latin America as the place where drone technology takes off, because they basically on top of using Prospera as a jurisdiction, Aerial Loop, at least not Orchid, they also got approvals and commercial licenses and have operations in Quito, Ecuador.

[00:30:44] And in Sao Paulo, Brazil. So that also shows that regulatory innovation is scalable, right? So, you can develop a regulation in Prospera there and have like operational and safety data to pick it up, just like Zipline has in Rwanda, and then go to other regulators and show them what you did. Which so the thesis make adoptions easier and more likely the same thing can happen, even though it hasn't yet happened yet with special jurisdictions with nuclear power.

[00:31:08] But I know from many of the project from the several guests, Brett Kugelmass and Carolyn Corcoran from Oklo and from Last Energy, they're looking at other jurisdictions. They are forced to just because it's too hard and takes too long in the United States. So, they're going outside of the United States in Brett's case to Poland, to Romania, and to the UK to get the first kind of next generation nuclear power plant approved.

[00:31:34] So similar to Orchid, they're talking to other jurisdictions around the world. So again, all of these are very deep rabbit holes. So, in healthcare, you could also talk for hours. There's already an existing system where, so clinical trials are often done offshore. I heard some statistics where it's 80 or 90% even of early stage clinical trials are done offshore.

[00:31:54] Just because the bureaucracy of the cost is just way too high in the United States. So that's already an existing market. We can innovate even further and add on top things like medical tourism. So, in Prospera, for example, we're building a regenerative medicine hub led by a very successful biotech entrepreneur, Greg Nakagawa.

[00:32:14] He’s building like manufacturing capability, we have a stem cell clinic, there is building surgical capacity, and it just has direct flights from the United States. So ideal for like very high end longevity, modern therapies. So that's just the option space that we're providing just in all these overregulated areas or industries, we talked about crypto hardware and biotech and healthcare just because we need it, right? The science and the technology allows us to do so many great things. So, it needs that base layer innovation to set that innovation free and benefit all of humanity.

[00:32:49] Jackson Steger: Awesome. Niklas, really appreciate you coming on the show. Can't wait to have this conversation again soon on yours.

[00:32:54] I'm sure I'll see you at a Cabin neighborhood or other pop up city soon.

[00:32:59] Niklas Anzinger: Fantastic. Thanks so much for having me on the show, Jackson.

1. Live in Community

   1. We are our best selves when we live with people we admire

   2. We can find our people online and gather in person

2. Integrate with Nature

   1. Touching grass is good for our wellbeing

   2. Regenerative local communities are the best store of value

3. Create Together

   1. Creating means doing

   2. Co-creation grows culture

Live in Community

We are our best selves when we live with people we admire.

Spend any time in a well-organized coliving community and it's immediately evident how different of a lifestyle it can be for human connection, novelty, and happiness. Living together in community is a deeply natural thing for humans to do; it’s how most people who have ever existed have lived. If you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with, then you should choose to live around the kind of people that you aspire to be.

At Cabin, you can choose who is around your campfire. We choose to surround ourselves with kind, thoughtful, creative, open-minded, playful, generous people. We are a mix of creators, builders, gatherers, naturalists, entrepreneurs, thinkers, and doers. We are highly motivated, easy-going people who want to do good in the world and have fun doing it. We connect, root for, and learn from one another. We build squad wealth when the whole squad is winning. We help each other set and achieve ambitious goals.

We can find our people online and gather in person.

People used to meet in person and then become “friends” on Facebook. But it makes more sense to do the opposite: find values and vibe-aligned friends online and then meet up IRL. There are 100x more people to choose from online than in the largest cities, and they gather into easily identifiable tribes. Once you find your tribe, you can colocate to break bread, build relationships, and experience the world together. This is possible because cities no longer have all of the best jobs—those have moved online too. Remote work has increased 5x in the past 5 years and this has enabled more people to explore flexible lifestyles.

At Cabin, we work remotely and live intentionally. It used to be the case that we spent our days with coworkers from the same company, and lived near wherever the office happened to be. Now, we can spend our days surrounded by a community of our choosing, cross-pollinating our work and lives alongside other creative professionals.

Integrate with Nature

Touching grass is good for our wellbeing.

Spending time in nature is crucial for mental, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing. You probably don’t need science to tell you this, but the evidence is there if you want it. Spending your life in front of screens in a concrete jungle doesn’t feel good.

At Cabin, we live in places with nature out the front door so that we can easily unplug and spend time touching grass. Billions of years of evolution have created interconnected systems of emergent beauty. We draw inspiration from nature’s long time horizons, peaceful tranquility, cooperative ecosystems, biodiversity, and evolutionary progress.

Regenerative local communities are the best store of value.

Regenerative systems grow sustainable capacity and resilience. Natural ecosystems regenerate through feedback loops that improve the soil and water, recycle nutrients, and increase biodiversity. Small communities can practice regeneration by providing for human needs in close collaboration with the local environment. We can build a globally resilient network of these local communities.

At Cabin, we believe that the best compounding store of value is a regenerative local community. Our neighborhoods aim to build housing, grow food, produce energy, regenerate natural resources, develop relationships, and make meaning together. By growing these systems from the ground up, we can create better homes in less time using fewer resources. Regenerative practices, off-grid renewable energy, satellite internet, low rural land costs and regulation, solarpunk development, and coliving make it feasible for our community to create better and cheaper lifestyles for ourselves—while contributing positive externalities to the environment.

Create Together

Creating means doing.

Creation is the feedback loop between ideas and actions. If you really want to understand ideas, you have to try them. Mental models are misleading, and the real world is always more complicated than the version in your head. Great creation happens when you can figure out how to translate big ideas into small practices. This means developing habits of consistent experimentation, starting at small scales — Gall’s law states that complex systems can only work when they evolve from working simple systems.

At Cabin, we value actions over abstract ideas. We make, test, build, and create things. We practice do-ocracy: the art of being the change you want to see. We enjoy philosophy, but we value people and processes that make positive tangible changes in the real world.

Co-creation grows culture.

Co-creation builds trust among collaborators through transparency and empowerment. Co-creating culture naturally happens at small, local scales where people can interact directly and develop trust. Humans have developed coordination technologies like shared language, culture, economies, governance, and cities to more effectively coordinate at the scale of civilization. It’s now possible to coordinate and co-create globally using a new type of leviathan that puts capture-resistant governance directly in the hands of a community.

At Cabin, we practice co-creation, cooperation, and reciprocity to promote a culture of positive-sum coordination. This culture is co-created at gatherings where we come together to build connections, coherence, practices, traditions, memes, and lore. We practice “Yes, and” by taking others’ contributions and helping make them better. We self-govern autonomously and transparently to make organizational decisions without the need for a trusted central authority. This starts with the smallest and most important questions, like “how are we doing the dishes?”

If you also find these truths to be obvious, we invite you to join us in living in accordance with our guiding principles. We do this at Cabin neighborhoods: coliving properties in nature where remote workers co-create the future we want to live in.

You can find out more at cabin.city. We’ll see you on the trail.

There are four Cabin Weeks scheduled for Fall 2023 - you can sign up for one here.

At a Cabin Week, you’ll join 6-10 other prospective community members and organizers for 1-2 weeks at flagship Cabin Neighborhoods. You will get a taste of curated coliving, with group dinners, local adventures, intentional co-creation, and free time baked in. Upon successful completion of a Cabin Week, you’ll be granted Citizenship.

Cabin Citizenship is a subscription membership to Cabin’s network city (a set of coliving neighborhoods in nature with fast internet and strong community). Citizenship includes access to our global properties, year-round coliving options, signature experiences (including Cabin Camp), and dozens of perks that you can access through cabin.city. You can read more about Citizenship perks on Twitter or on our Community Wiki.

Previously, prospective Citizens could participate in a Build Week to earn Citizenship for free. We decided to take the best parts of our former Build Week concept and expand on them to offer a new short-term experience called Cabin Weeks.

What’s a Cabin Week?

Cabin Weeks are an 1-2 week long introductions to Cabin coliving and culture. Some people want to try coliving but aren’t ready to immediately dive into a multi-month living experience in a new place. Cabin Weeks provide a lower barrier entry point for community members. They are a themed coliving experience at a Neighborhood where we:

• Help participants learn about coliving before their first long-term Cabin experience.

• Orient people to Cabin culture, lifestyle, values, wellness practices, and traditions.

• Allow new and existing community members to connect and explore Cabin neighborhoods.

• Co-create something together. Usually this will consist of building a structure, stewarding a land improvement project, or otherwise helping to improve neighborhoods.

• Ensure that Citizenship is a good fit for both Cabin and Cabin Week participants

• Allow focused time for folks to still complete work for remote jobs or work on personal creative projects.

What’s included?

Each Cabin Week includes food, housing, special programming and transportation to/from the nearest airport. Participants who complete a full Cabin Week and align with Cabin’s values will be granted a free first year of Citizenship ($400 value).

Who is it for?

Cabin Weeks are for remote workers curious to try out coliving and get to know Cabin’s culture before committing to living in the network for a longer period of time. Both prospective Citizens or existing Citizens can join.

When are Cabin Weeks?

There are four Cabin Weeks scheduled this fall. They’re either 7 or 14 days long and typically begin with a Sunday arrival and end with a Saturday departure. Each Cabin Week has a different theme and focus.

These flagship neighborhoods will host our first four Cabin Weeks:

Elkenmist (Washington 🇺🇸) from September 24 - October 1

Description: Elkenmist is 125 acres of lush pastures and forests at the end of the road in Skamokawa Valley, WA, with nothing but wilderness behind it. This property shares the land with elk, deer, otters, coyotes, countless birds and beavers who build dams on two different creeks.

During this Cabin Week, participants will get a firsthand peak into what it takes to cultivate a regenerative neighborhood. Learn about rotational grazing, sustainable farming, and how introducing pioneer species to an ecosystem prepares the soil for long term abundance. Enjoy nature walks, hike an “experiential trail” and learn more about mushroom inoculation.

Cost: A Cabin Week at Elkenmist includes Cabin Citizenship, food, housing, unique programming, and transportation to/from the Portland airport. This week has two levels of cost, depending on your chosen accommodations:

• Private Suite with bathroom and kitchenette: $800

• Glamping: $500

Neighborhood Zero (Texas 🇺🇸) from October 1 - 14

Description: Neighborhood Zero includes 8 bedrooms across 3 cabins, an outdoor spa, and many co-created community gathering spaces. It sits on 28-acres of Texas Hill Country, 45 min west of Austin and is home to a rotating dinner party of Cabin Citizens (and longhorn cattle).

During this Cabin Week, we’ll collaborate on a build project that will give you the chance to leave your mark on Cabin’s original neighborhood. Past build projects at Neighborhood Zero include a gym, a tiny cabin, a sauna, and more. It’s a great opportunity to step away from laptop work for a few hours to get your hands dirty. No experience with building is required — we love to help people learn new skills.

Cost: A Cabin Week at Neighborhood Zero includes Cabin Citizenship, food, housing, your own bathroom, special programming and transportation to/from ATX. It costs $1,000 total for two weeks.

Mana Retreat Center (Puerto Rico 🇵🇷) from October 15 - 28

Description: This is a 5 acre, tech-enabled eco-lodge in a tropical forest outside of San Juan with 3 kitchens and 7 bedrooms, hidden in mountains and jungle.

The Cabin Week in Puerto Rico is an opportunity to have a hands-on experience that celebrates the power of creativity and community. Enjoy morning journaling and meditation sessions, collaborate on building projects, share meals, relax around the campfire and reserve time for creative work. Whether you're a seasoned builder or a novice, there's something for everyone to learn and contribute. Some projects we may collectively work on:

• Pergola with climbing vines

• Outdoor shower

• Mosaics, murals, and painting

• Off-grid water cistern

Got other ideas? Folks are able to propose their own side quests.

Cost: A Cabin Week at Mana Retreat Center includes Cabin Citizenship, food, housing, special programming and transportation to/from the San Juan airport. This two-week period has two levels of cost, depending on your chosen accommodations:

• Private: $1,000

• Shared: $750

Traditional Dream Factory (Portugal 🇵🇹) from November 5 - 12

Description: 90 minutes south of Lisbon, this property is in a small Portuguese village of 400 people. It's pioneering a model for regenerative co-living that creates positive loops in all interactions between stakeholders, including nature.

Experience firsthand what it is like to implement ritual and contemplative practice in a community setting. Enjoy free time to cowork or get your hands dirty with volunteer opportunities in the blossoming food forest, market garden, or in their reforestation and building projects.

Cost: A Cabin Week at Traditional Dream Factory includes Cabin Citizenship, food, housing, special programming and transportation to/from the nearest airport. This week has two levels of cost, depending on your chosen accommodations:

• Private glamping: $750

• Shared glamping: $500

See you on the trail!

Cabin offers regular month-to-month coliving at beautiful neighborhoods in nature with great internet. Cabin Weeks are great way for prospective Citizens to get a taste of what coliving in nature is like. We’ve designed a coliving and coworking experience centered around connection, collaboration, and contribution. Can’t wait for you to join us!

There are limited spots for Cabin Weeks this Fall - secure yours by applying here.

Want to learn more from a team member? Schedule a 1-on-1 call here.

#33 The Nearness: Spirituality in Community-Building with Casper ter Kuile

Host Jackson Steger interviews leaders that are building new cities and other new models of living for digital nomads, creators and remote workers. Campfire is produced by Cabin, which is building a new kind of city for creators called a network city. Our community is developing a global coliving network of physical locations that we call neighborhoods.

https://simplecast.com

#33 The Nearness: Spirituality in Community-Building with Casper ter Kuile

On this episode of Campfire, Jackson is joined by Casper ter Kuile: CEO and Co-Founder of The Nearness. The Nearness is a company that allows people to explore

https://podcasts.apple.com

Transcript:

[00:00:00] Jackson Steger: Hey there, you're listening to Campfire, the podcast where we interview leaders that are building new cities and other ways to connect with digital nomads, creators, and remote workers. My name is Jackson Stegerm, and I work with Cabin to develop a network city of beautiful co-living properties for remote workers who love nature.

[00:00:19] Today's interview features Casper ter Kuile. Casper has a Master's from Harvard’s Divinity School, and also a Master's from the Harvard Kennedy School of Public Policy. He's now CEO of The Nearness, which facilitates eight-week guided journeys to nurture one's spirituality. Cabin citizens can get a discount to The Nearness through the citizenship page of your profile on cabin.city.

[00:00:46] My conversation with Casper today answers the question, “how can communities build a tradition of spirituality?” Campfires produced by Cabin, which is building a new kind of city for creators called a network city. Our community is developing a global co-living network of physical locations that we call neighborhoods.

[00:01:06] Last time you heard from us, we laid out our vision for building a network city, and since then, we have launched said network city with 22 properties in nature across the world: from Slovenia and France and Portugal to Bali, Japan, and a dozen locations across the US. Our network city is governed and accessed by Cabin citizens.

[00:01:28] And Cabin citizens are issued digital and physical passports that give them access to our community's global network of properties, experiences, perks, and members. If you want to live or create cool things near nature with other thoughtful people nearby, you can learn more about us and Cabin citizenship by visiting cabin.city. Enjoy the episode. 

[00:01:50] Casper ter Kuile: welcome to Campfire. 

[00:01:53] Casper ter Kuile: Thank you so much for having me, Jackson. Great to be here. 

[00:01:57] Jackson Steger: Really excited to talk about The Nearness, talk about spirituality in 2023, and community, and how those things intersect, and a whole bunch of other fun themes that I'm sure we'll get into, including how Cabin citizens can maybe engage with some of the things that you will speak about today.

[00:02:15] But before we do any of that, would love if you could just give the audience sort of your 60 second background. What has your path been and how  did you get involved with what you're working on today? 

[00:02:26] Casper ter Kuile: Yeah, I mean maybe the five second story would be like gay atheist goes to divinity school. Um, but a little longer one is that I grew up in England, my parents at Dutch. I think Holland with Denmark is the most secular country in the world. And I didn't grow up with any sort of religious background, but I went to a Waldorf school and I'm assuming that the kind of intersection of Cabin and people familiar with alternative education or kind of organic farming— this kind of subculture—is pretty strong, and so I grew up with a lot of ritual and a lot of community, even though it was outside of a kind of traditional religious. Community and definitely as a queer kid, my response to institutional religions was like, screw you. Like it was either cruel or irrelevant. But I became a climate activist in my late teens and then early twenties and was really passionate about justice and the transformation of the economy and sustainability, and I noticed that the leaders I most respected who were able to sustain their kind of like visionary activism nearly always had something spiritual going on, like they had a meditation practice or they were part of a Quaker community: there was just something going on and I felt I'd always had an instinct for bringing people together and eating together and singing together, and there was just like a natural community builder vibe and that's all down to my mother who like organized the village festival and created bike safety campaigns and just ran the village.

[00:03:51] So I inherited that in a big way. And I had a wonderful mentor who sat me down in my kind of early, mid twenties and said, Casper, I'm gonna coach you because you're never gonna ask for help.

[00:04:03] And she was right, and she just encouraged me to explore those. Things that I was naturally interested in, and I ended up going to graduate school in the US to go to divinity school and really discovered kind of the joy of the traditions of engaging with the world, kind of through the language of religion, to see communities and rituals and economies through a different angle, through this kind of religious worldview.

[00:04:31] And it, it just opened up so many creative doors for me. And so, I've spent the last 10 years really thinking about what is the future spiritual infrastructure like, how do we. Form deep, meaningful relationships with each other? How do we center the values that matter most? How do we live lives of beauty and justice in, a profoundly transformed world?

[00:04:51] And those themes of community and spirituality have really been at the heart of my work as a writer, as a scholar, as an entrepreneur, and all sorts of different ways since then. 

[00:05:00] Jackson Steger: I think that’s a perfect overview and context on you for the audience to have as we talk about some of these questions in the rest of the episode.

[00:05:08] Also in that vein of just having common language to speak to each other with, could you help distinguish spirituality with religion for, you know, I'm sure they're not the same, but I can't think of a better person to help make that distinction. 

[00:05:22] Casper ter Kuile: There's a reason we're all confused, which is that no one really agrees on this, so it's helpful to define our terms.

[00:05:28] That's a great start. I would say there's all sorts of academic answers to that question, but maybe the most helpful one is frankly how I hear people use it, and that is that religion is something institutional and spirituality is something that's personal. Now, I don't think it's a perfect definition.

[00:05:45] I think there's challenges with it because spirituality is inherently relational. And I think one of the challenges of the kind of capitalist world that we live in and the way in which spirituality is productized is that it's becoming increasingly isolated. And so, it's you do this just for you when a healthy spirituality inherently pulls us out of ourselves into relationship with the world and the places that we live and the broader systems that we're part of. So, it's not a perfect definition, but that role of the institution, I think is the kind of common street meaning. But one other thing that I would say is that I have become, even though I was deeply suspicious, for good reason, because, and I hope we can swear on this show, like, you know, religion has fucked a lot of things up.

[00:06:29] It's important that we start with a real acknowledgement of the deeply, you know, homophobic, sexist, racist, imperialist foundations that, that so many religious institutions are based on. But there's a difference between the religious institutions and the kind of living, generative, beautiful heart that is often true, whether it's Catholicism or Buddhism or Judaism or whatever it is, that there is always wisdom there.

[00:06:56] And so distinguishing between the kind of manmade institutions and the perhaps eternal wisdom that those institutions are supposed to care for and serve is also a helpful one. So, I don't, I'm not sure I gave us any simplicity there, but at least we developed the smorgasbord of options. 

[00:07:13] Jackson Steger: Yeah, and I'd love to take that and just narrow in on our current moment in time.

[00:07:18] There's, I think, many centuries of history of spirituality manifesting in institutions, like you've said, and with these churches, and yet now, like our generation is very much not affiliated with traditional churches, and yet there's still certainly communities out there where spirituality does play a cornerstone role.

[00:07:39] So how would you characterize the role of spirituality in  communities in 2023?

[00:07:44] Casper ter Kuile: Yeah, you're absolutely right. We are in a profound shift. If you look at this sociologically, more and more people are less and less traditionally religious. That is absolutely the headline. If you're looking at whether people are attending services, how they identify, if you ask them questions of what tradition are you part of? All of those metrics are down, the amount of giving to religious institutions. Everything is in decline, and not just young people. Literally in every generational boundary that you look at, they're all down. But it's especially true of young people. And for the first time in the United States, and this has of course been true in Western Europe for much longer, but in the US for the first time in recorded history, fewer than half the population are now members of a congregation.

[00:08:26] So it's a real kind of epoch shift. Now, my work has always started from the assumption that whether people are members or not, or identify with particular language or not, there are inherent human longings for connection, for the kind of, I'll use a traditional word here, but for formation, for the process of becoming who we want to be in the world and for being part of something bigger than ourselves.

[00:08:49] So feeling part of something beyond. And so, whether you find that through a synagogue or a temple or a church, or you find it in Burning Man, or you find it in a nature hike, or you find it in a silent meditation retreat, or you find it in art or music, like there are so many ways to access those elements.

[00:09:09] That, for me, is the real creative challenge, which is how do we realign these things that we know matter more than anything? The relationships that we have, the values that we espouse, the things that people live and die for. How do we put that at the center of our daily life and not just the inbox and the  nine to five grind and the hustle for status, money and fame and all of these other things that are given to us on a plate? Although the hunger for them is given to us through a screen, maybe I should put it that way.

[00:09:37] And so that's the creative challenge and that's what I love seeing what you're doing with Cabin is you're building a new social infrastructure. And I think focusing on how we live specifically is so interesting because if you think about religious traditions, the home is so often the sight of ritual and of relationship, you know, you think of the Jewish Shabbat ceremony, right?

[00:09:58] That's a home-based Friday night ritual. You think about grace before dinner in a Christian family, or so many ways in which the home is at the center. And so, finding ways in which we can ground ourselves and the things that are most important is so often about who we live with and how.

[00:10:13] Jackson Steger: Couldn’t agree more. So just to give a skeleton of where I think we might wanna take this conversation, is I wanna ask about The Nearness and then from there learn about like what makes a good world class spiritual teacher? How can someone develop these practices and traditions that you just referenced? And, how can someone define spiritual principles for themselves?

[00:10:34] So we'll get to all of that. But maybe first you mentioned all of these different ways that today people not affiliated in congregations might find spirituality. You mentioned art, music, Burning Man, to name a few. If someone's listening to this episode right now and they feel spiritually empty and they're looking for some sort of channel to get started, how would you advise that person to seek out spirituality or to fill that hole they may feel?

[00:11:03] Casper ter Kuile: Yeah, I think one of the big entry points. Well, I'll mention two. You know, one is the kind of conscious seeking, and this might feel right, might be that sense of we or that emptiness or that that feeling of, is this all there is? Right. And that can be kind of, there are certain ages, I think where you hit some of those points of, wait, I thought professional success was gonna answer all my longings and wait, it doesn't quite, or I did all the things right and I still feel this yearning.

[00:11:30] So that is certainly one entry point and I think often, there discovering texts that tell the truth about human experience or practices that help us sit with a tenderness amidst discomfort or building relationships where we get to talk honestly about our experience, that can be so profoundly powerful.

[00:11:51] So there, there's a way in which is about questing, but there's also a way in through suffering, right? When we lose someone we love and we are grief stricken and nothing will ever make it better, or we're struggling with addiction, or there's someone we love— mental health challenges, right? There's so many ways in which we feel just deeply lonely.

[00:12:11] There's so many ways in which that the kind of rough edge of life often opens up spirituality and for me, I think it's because spirituality tells the truth. It opens up this paradoxical awareness of my friend Caroline puts it that life is full of beauty and shit. And it's like both are true.

[00:12:29] And so, now how are we going to live? And for me, a spirituality that engages with the reality of our experience, that doesn't shy away. It is not clouds and floating in Nirvana states, right? It's about we live in a world that is profoundly broken. And so what does that ask of me? What are the responsibilities and the gifts I might share with neighbors and those who are suffering and how can I receive from the world and the people around me?

[00:12:55] One way to think about it is through the three Bs that Sociologists of religion will talk about, and they'll talk about believing, behaving, and belonging. It can be about the relationships that we have, the practices that we learn, and the stories or the beliefs that we hold about who we are and whose we are, right?

[00:13:12] Like how do I fit into the world around me? So, I think whether it's through practices, through stories and myths or ideas or through the relationships we have, those are all ways into it to a spiritual life. 

[00:13:25] Jackson Steger: I love that. Cool. I think that's great background for this to then ask the question, what is The Nearness and what is a Nearness journey?

[00:13:33] Yeah. For a lot of us who no longer fit within a traditional religious institution or never did, right, I didn't grow up with one. So, it's not like I left anything. It's just absent. I think a lot of us start out when we start that spiritual journey kind of by ourselves, maybe reading a book or. Listening to a podcast or following someone on Instagram or using a meditation app.

[00:13:51] And so The Nearness is really designed to help people who are taking those first steps to explore life's big questions with other people. And you'll sign up for an eight-week Nearness journey and we'll match you into a small group with four or five other people with whom you'll meet each week at the same time online.

[00:14:08] And it really is the most wonderful experience seeing strangers sign up and after these conversations leave as spiritual friends because it's very rare that we get to spend time talking about these big questions of, we just had an eight-week journey on the theme of letting go. So, we talked about grief and death.

[00:14:27] We talked about the frustration and anger that comes with letting go. We did somatic practices, we talked about poems. We shared our own stories, and so we had all of these different ways to get into this topic, and the next journey is gonna be around being part of something more. So, what are the things that we're part of and how do we move from a place of kind of, individualism and isolation to a place of wholeness, to a place of connection with the natural world, with our neighborhoods, the places where we live, our families, and sense of ancestry and even the divine, however we explore that.

[00:15:00] So it, it's just this wonderful opportunity to explore those questions in a bounded way where, you know, everyone's gonna show up. Everyone's gonna show up in a particular open and generous way, and you get to learn from each other. That's the basic setup. 

[00:15:14] Jackson Steger: What's the week to week structure there that enables this sort of openness and yeah, just the broader frameworks that, that you're alluding to.

[00:15:22] Casper ter Kuile: Yeah, so it's really key. There's a couple of kind of key design elements and, for anyone thinking about community or designing experiences, we'll get to nerd out on this together. One of them is that I think one of the big challenges for a lot of institutions is they have this static version of membership.

[00:15:38] So you are outside. And now you're a member and you're inside forever. And for a lot of people that's way too big a step. And so, we explicitly make a journey time-bound. More than half the people sign up for another journey cuz they loved it so much. But by making that invitation time-bound, all of us feel much more comfortable making that kind of commitment.

[00:15:55] So each weekly meeting is 90 minutes long, and the structure of those gatherings are very consistent. We always open with a very simple body and breath awareness practice. Just taking some shared breaths, paying attention to our body, paying attention to our thoughts and feelings, and settling into a different, yeah, just different level of intentionality as we show up for the conversation.

[00:16:17] Then, and this is my favorite design piece, we read aloud, the community Covenant, and now all of us will probably have been part of workshops where everyone shares like, okay, what are the rules of engagement? What are the commitments? But for me, the language of covenant is so important because it isn't just a list of values or commitments, it's a living spiritual practice of relationship. And so, not only does someone read it aloud each time, different volunteer, different voice reads it aloud, but we then tend to it. So halfway through the eight weeks, we'll spend some time just reflecting what can we celebrate? What are we doing well, and where are we falling short?

[00:16:54] What can we adapt and do better at? And so, in the Covenant, is a poetic writing up of things like welcoming silence when it arises between us: listening to our innermost intuitions and we can share a link maybe in the show notes to the covenant for anyone who's interested. And we light a little candle.

[00:17:08] Everyone lights a candle when we read aloud the covenant. So, there's this kind of ritual moment of stepping into a way of being together. That just is different from the rest of our conversations. Not that one is bad, or one is good, but it's a different way of being. And then at the end of each conversation, we have the same simple breath and blessing practice to, to help us move out of this time into back, back, into our normal lives. So the structure is really, really key. 

[00:17:36] Jackson Steger: So many perspective follow-ups, but I'll go with this. One friend of mine who I've met through this work has this great phrase, which is, don't over salt the food, and don't over cult the community 

[00:17:48] Casper ter Kuile: Haha. That's great. 

[00:17:50] Jackson Steger: When you, when you start thinking about these structures and calling things something like the covenant, how do you navigate that fine line between cult and community?

[00:18:00] Casper ter Kuile: There's two really central elements to this. The difference between a cult and a community. They may both be easy to walk in of, but the cult is hard to leave. And so, there's absolutely no, no difficulty at stepping back from a healthy community. And that's true from The Nearness too. The other thing is, what is put at the center of The Nearness is not its leadership, it's its participants.

[00:18:21] So each small group is peer facilitated. So, I'm not in every small group. I, I don't know what happens unless someone tells me. What's beautiful is that really my job is to invite people in and help people love each other. And that's what happens over time as you share stories and you, if you are hearing someone talk about their experience and you are showing up with an openness and an empathy, you cannot help but be transformed by it.

[00:18:48] And one of my favorite stories was he had a participant who, for the purposes of the story, it's important to mention she's a black woman who's progressive politically. She said, okay. In week five, I realized one of the guys in my small group might be a Republican, but it's too late because I loved him already.

[00:19:05] And that makes me so happy because I think in a world where we have so much content, And it's wonderful. There's so much great stuff out there. What we are missing are the containers of connection, the places where what we're centering our relationships, and so that's what I hope The Nearness can be as part of this kind of relational infrastructure, without which we're living in a world where loneliness and isolation are escalating, mental health and suicide are skyrocketing. We know that relationships are fundamental to human health and thriving. And yet so many of the world systems and what demands our attention pulls us into an isolated experience.

[00:19:44] And so, The Nearness, hopefully, is one of many wonderful projects that that's seeking to center relationships, not to an individual, but to one another. 

[00:19:53] Jackson Steger: I love that so much. One of my personal, most deeply held beliefs is that we have more in common than not, which is informed by, I was born in Missouri, but have spent most of my life in big cities and have, have grown up just around the world and seen that most people all like to eat good food and laugh and dance and that so many of our current institutions are driving us apart when we need these small groups to bring us together.

[00:20:19] Casper ter Kuile: And I should say Jackson, that's not to make invisible the differences, right? But it's to say how do we create the context in which our fondness for one another is stronger than the differences?

[00:20:34] And I think about as a gay person, I think about how has the gay rights movement made so much progress within one generation, and I think it's because straight people have gay children and it's much less likely that rich people have poor children, or white people have black children and the family for all of its problems, and so many people don't have this experience, and I don't want to ignore that, but for the culture, what's happened is that these families were strong enough to sustain relationships, even when someone came out and was so different, and that ultimately the desire to stay in relationship was more important than the differences that were there, and people have learned to actually build a new culture because of that.

[00:21:13] I don't want to paint a brush of, oh no, there's no difference, right? That that's always there, but it's about how do we have the relationships that can sustain discomfort for long enough? 

[00:21:23] Jackson Steger: Yeah. And so, to the point of nurturing those relationships, facilitating this kind of conversation, part of what makes The Nearness great, part of what we're really starting to think about at Cabin is how do we have those world-class spiritual teachers?

[00:21:38] How do we make good gathering happen? And so, I suppose my question for you with a little bit of context is that one of the roles within the Cabin ecosystem is the role of the gatherer. So, we also have builders, we have creators, we have naturalists. But the gatherer is meant to help foster a warm, inclusive environment, someone who does everything from logistics, like picking someone up from the airport and giving them a tour upon arrival to a Cabin neighborhood, but also helping to repeat week-in and week-out traditions, like house meetings, that may happen at any particular Cabin location. And I'm curious, in your experience, what makes someone a good gatherer or facilitator of these more intimate conversations? 

[00:22:28] Casper ter Kuile: I'll start with the assumption that we work from, which is that we all have the capacity to accompany one another, and so that's why we've designed the inner circles to be peer facilitated.

[00:22:38] We give a very clear structure. I want to stress that each week everyone receives a guide sheet, which literally maps out the conversation in terms of time, and we'll even give little bits that are scripted so people know what to say. But really what it comes down to is an open. Generous, welcoming heart, and with that, you can go a very long way.

[00:22:57] So I would say a good gatherer is someone who pays attention to that inequality that already exists within them. And who seeks to connect, who's interested in other people's stories, who is perhaps always just paying attention to, “huh? This person's sitting by themselves,” or “we haven't heard from that person in a little while.”

[00:23:16] Let me seek them out or seek out their perspective. So, I think it's about paying attention to the quality of relationships. I mentioned the covenant earlier because for me it's a way to practice that. So, if we know that, “Okay. By being in this Cabin neighborhood together, or being in this Nearness group or whatever, being colleagues on this team, if we all know the intentions we have it, it's really a spiritual practice to pay attention to those things.”

[00:23:40] One of my favorite definitions of prayer is that it's sustained attention. If anyone's a fan of Mary Oliver's poetry or just the way in which she describes geese or flowers, or an owl at night. That kind of sustained attention has a prayerful quality to it. So, I guess what makes a good gatherer is someone who has a sustained attention for the quality of relationships.

[00:24:02] Jackson Steger: That’s great. Is there any training, or beyond the like giving folks the guided set of questions, is there any training that you offer spiritual teachers or if not, or even if there is, say there's someone listening to this podcast who's like in college or just tr at an inflection point in their career, and they'd like to become more of a gatherer or spiritual leader. How would you advise them? Would you recommend they follow your path to divinity school or just how otherwise might someone become a good spiritual leader or a gatherer? 

[00:24:37] Casper ter Kuile: I'll definitely say that my experience at Divinity School was extremely positive, and if someone is interested in a kind of professional direction to explore it, you could do a lot worse than that.

[00:24:47] And partly because what I was given in that context was not just the academic study of religious communities across time and tradition, but also the invitation to practice it. And so, learning from other traditions, participating in people's community rituals, doing: a lot of my classmates worked as chaplains in a hospital or in a prison, or really putting it to the test.

[00:25:10] It's a wonderful training ground. So certainly, if people are in the deep end and like, yes, this is my life's work. You know, I was lucky enough to go to Harvard Divinity School, which has a very pluralistic approach. That's not always true in every divinity school. So read the brochure carefully before, before you sign up.

[00:25:25] But that's one route. The other thing I would say is, A way to practice is by asking really good questions, and I think of two people in my mind. One is David Sedaris, the comedian, who really tries never to ask a boring question. So, if he gets in a cab, he'll ask the cabbie, not “how long have you been driving for Uber?” But “when did you last touch a monkey?” And just absurd questions, which, not, that's the best way always to gather people, but to it, it gets you into interesting conversations. And I try and practice that when I'm meeting new people instead of asking, what do you do? Or how are you, you know, just, just trying to ask just something a little bit more interesting.

[00:26:03] And the other one is an incredible guy in Indianapolis called De’Amon Harges, who has the title of the Roving Listener. And his job became just to walk around his neighborhood and notice what people were gifted at, even if they didn't necessarily realize it themselves. So, they might be good at repairing a bicycle or cooking a meal for 10 people, or they knew where you could pick the best flowers from the community garden or, whatever it was, and he tries to find one of those gifts and match it with a different neighbor's need.

[00:26:37] So if you know how to do some carpentry, here's someone who has a back deck that just needs a little bit of work and it would make it usable again. And it's this sort of asset-based community developed model. But it's really noticing even in neighborhoods that are often seen as poor or deprived, what are the gifts that are here that, that we can give one another?

[00:26:56] And so thinking about if you're in a gathering role, if you wanna step into that, just noticing what introductions might I make that might be mutually beneficial? Who is about to go to Canada for the first time, and who's from Canada? You know, like just little things like that is something you can pay attention to.

[00:27:12] Of course, the Art of Gathering, Priya Parker's book is a wonderful resource. The other place I might look to is Peter Block's work, who has a great book called Community. He's done incredible work in Cincinnati over the years,  and it's very practical, so hopefully that's a good primer for someone who's just getting started. My mom's gonna love this episode. 

[00:27:32] Casper ter Kuile: Tell me about her. Why will she resonate with it? 

[00:27:34] Jackson Steger: I think, so I was raised in a Catholic household, I wouldn't say like overly devout. We went to church every Sunday, and by the time I was in late middle school, early high school was definitely showing consistent resistance to this practice, and my parents eventually understood and stopped forcing me to go.

[00:27:56] But my mom never gave up on helping me become more spiritual, and over the years has done a great job of sending me the books or the articles or the quotes that she comes across that she thinks might help me retain some of that spirituality. So,now at 27, I think, do embrace that and have my own ways to be spiritual and I thank her for that, so she'll appreciate that. 

[00:28:24] Casper ter Kuile: That's beautiful. 

[00:28:25] I think some of the broad themes of this episode so far. 

[00:28:29] Casper ter Kuile: Oh, thanks for sharing. 

[00:28:30] Jackson Steger: I wanna switch over now to, we've talked about it a little bit, but the, just the importance of practice and rituals, and I don’t just wanna speak about this in the context of The Nearness, but more broadly and also for Cabin, how should communities create their own meaningful rituals and, and how should individuals too, but really wanna start with communities, and I'll give a little bit of context, which is this week with the core Cabin team, I was mapping out a funnel of how someone might learn about cabin and go all the way through becoming one of our citizens.

[00:29:04] And there's a lot of different ways they become aware. There's a lot of different places to gain further education and context. And then there's several different avenues for connection as well. And this framework probably was not true for any single one person but was true for how many people move through, and they all have their own paths down this funnel. And we as an organization probably need to better highlight a few of these pathways and are starting to think like, which traditions that we already have are the ones that we want to better focus on? Which rituals are the ones that our members get the most out of?

[00:29:45] So again, I'll just repeat the question, but yeah. How do you cultivate those meaningful rituals and traditions and how you know which ones are the ones that you should keep? 

[00:29:54] Casper ter Kuile: Yeah, I think immediately of a wonderful West African ritual teacher called Maladome Patricesome, who says a community without rituals cannot exist.

[00:30:04] So rituals help us often know who we are and whose we are. And so, they are necessary for communities because even if you're not in direct personal relationship with everyone, think of a football supporting. Like I, I'm a big Leeds United fan in the English Premier League. We just got relegated, so that's too bad.

[00:30:22] Jackson Steger: Oof. Tough.

[00:30:22] Like I, I know other Leeds fans by the songs that we know and by the symbols and by the, for the stories that we tell about the great people and all that, right? All of those things are ritualistic moments. And same with nation states, same with all sorts of communities. Rituals often communicate or embody the invisible values, in visible ways, so through music, or think of the five different senses through movement, through smell, through taste, through touch, through sight.

[00:30:50] They're always in which we get to act out the values that are important to us. So, one of the ways you can look at is this a healthy ritual or not, is like what are the values that it's communicating? What are the stories that this is embodying? To use a Jewish example, again, the Exodus story is ritualized in the Passover Seder.

[00:31:08] And so, through these different foods and these different blessings and the four questions and wines, we're retelling the story of how the Israelites left Egypt, were liberated, you know, and, and the plagues that fell on the Egyptians and the promised land that awaits us still. And the Catholic mass too is a retelling of the Last Supper of Jesus and his disciples.

[00:31:29] So you can see those are two religious examples, but they're often embodying a story or they're retelling, or they're lifting up the values that this community claims to hold dear. Now, that doesn't mean they always embody them. But it tries to recenter them at the heart of the community. And rituals are powerful, meaning making tools.

[00:31:49] And so you were just talking about the different stages in Cabin or in any community that people might go through, just like in stages of life, right. The transition from childhood into adulthood or adult into old age, those are moments that are threshold moments, and we as human beings are meaning making creatures.

[00:32:06] And so we seek transitional rituals to help us cross that threshold: a wedding ceremony, a funeral, a graduation ceremony, right? All of these are very simple or sometimes very complicated rituals that help us know something here has changed and what was is no longer, and what will be is now here.

[00:32:26] Thinking about community design, thinking about how do we create a healthy community? Rituals have to be part of that, and that's why we have those. You know, in The Nearnness, we have those opening words and those closing words. We have the candle lighting. We have these consistent elements that just help us live in a healthier rhythm too. I think one of the signs of modernity is that we live in this sort of like constant streaming of life. There is no pause and there is no return. It's just next, next, next, next, next. Right? Like the inbox is never empty. And so rather than living in sort of time as an arrow, how can we live in time as a circle where we come back— “oh, it's Friday night. It's time to turn off my phone. Oh, it's Monday morning. It's time to greet the new day.” Living time in that different way, I think is profoundly healthier, and that's where rituals come in. 

[00:33:15] Jackson Steger: I love that. I love the sort of combination of philosophical and tactical in that answer. And on that more tactical vein that you, you concluded with, any specific advice on rituals that might best bridge online spaces and real world gatherings?

[00:33:34] Casper ter Kuile: Yeah, the best, especially for new communities, there's some design work that you can do, but there's also noticing what are people self-organizing? Like often the most meaningful and the best rituals are built on something that has already started. Designing from scratch often feels a little hollow and kind of meh.

[00:33:51] It's so much better to build on something. So, thinking about digital and IRL, I think we've all learned that doing both at the same time is not a winner. So, for me, it's all about sequencing and trying to lean into the thing that is uniquely possible in that context. So, for example, my book was published at the height of Covid in June 2020, and I was really sad, right?

[00:34:14] I had a 20 city book tour planned, and we're gonna do these live shows with my podcast and all sorts of wonderful things. Those were canceled. But instead, I did a sort of book launch and suddenly all my aunts and uncles from Holland and my family in England and all friends across the world were able to be present at this digital thing, which made it really much more meaningful cuz it was really personal to me.

[00:34:36] And so there was a beautiful way in which that celebration enabled participation across time and space that wouldn't have been possible IRL. On the other hand, when I'm gathering people in person, now I really think about the physical things: dancing, eating, cooking, singing, all the things that really suck on Zoom, but are so rich, being outside, right, that that are possible IRL.

[00:35:00] But again, one of the things you can do online is connect with people you otherwise would never meet and have really deep, enriching conversations in what feels often safer and more accessible. Because worst thing that happens, you just close the computer and you walk away. Right? So, leaning into what's possible in this modality that isn't possible in the other, turning up the volume on those things.

[00:35:25] Jackson Steger: This has been an amazing conversation, and as we approach close, I wanna ask some, maybe a bit more derivative questions, but ones that I'm just personally, selfishly excited to ask, which is about this intersection between tech and spirituality. Yeah, I think that, in some ways they are diverging and in other ways they're converging faster than ever.

[00:35:48] And first, maybe more of an academic question, but throughout history, like I'm, I'll preface this. I'm gonna ask you about AI in a second, but before I do that, I'm curious, are there other major inflection points in history of certain technologies coming out that have just profoundly changed how our spiritual communities have formed and flourished?

[00:36:10] Casper ter Kuile: Enormously, and we would be fools to think that theology does not respond to technology. And perhaps one informs the other as well. But the most obvious one in the kind of western mind is the introduction of the printing press and the huge impact that had on the Protestant Reformation in Europe especially.

[00:36:28] And the reason why it did that is certainly religious knowledge and the word of God in Medieval Catholic Europe was mediated by the priest, and for people who were illiterate, they did not have access to the scriptures themselves. And as you see the spread of the written word, the refrain of Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation was Solo Scriptura, was the word, only the word. That's what matters. And all of these other rituals that have been created, like confession and the buying of indulgences, not only were they unscriptual, they were wrong. They, they were evil. And so, what we have to return to is this word of God. And so that's why you have really the, even still I think in America today, in our subconsciousness, religion equals “do you believe in Jesus Christ?” It becomes so much about, “do you believe in this particular figure that's written down in this book?” That is what this kind of simplified meaning becomes. So, I think the, the introduction of the printing press is enormous. But you might also think, if you look at the rise of Methodism, for example, you see how industrialization really disrupted some of the status quo organization in religious language. You would talk about the polity. What is the kind of governance and structure of the church? So traditionally, both in the Catholic and in the Anglican church, and I'll just talk about England here, that's the context I know best, religious life was organized by parish.

[00:37:53] So you'd have a church, you'd have a little area around the church that those people would belong to. And this is of course, just in a Christian context, but as you have mass movement of population to new urban centers because of industrialization, you have the clearance of common land. You have new populations that no longer bounded by geography in the way that they were.

[00:38:14] And so you start to see the rise of religious movements like Methodism. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, famously said, the world is my parish. So, he was breaking with this old way of. Organizing spirituality and community and saying, “actually you can choose which church you go to, and it doesn't have to be the one that's nearest to you.” 

[00:38:33] Right? You can choose. And so, you start to see a little bit more of a consumptive mindset of choosing which one I want, which is still very much alive and well, not in a kind of Evangelical world now. All of which is to say as we think about these new technologies like AI, or even computing generally, right?

[00:38:49] I would say the last kind of 20, 30 years, really the flourishing of the internet already has shifted how we think about where authority comes from. So no longer do we wanna look, and forgive me again for a Catholic listeners, a Pope in Rome who sits at the head of a triangle hierarchy, and he's supposed to have all the answers, he’s absurd in an Amazon review era where, of course we're gonna trust the wisdom of other reviewers more than just one expert who was elected by who? and has authority how? We're gonna be much more interested in our friends up peers, the people we trust, “what was your experience?” That's where authority comes from now. I don't know how AI is gonna shape our spirituality, but I certainly think if we'll present new opportunities, and I hate to say, but very many challenges too. And I think one of the key purposes of spirituality in the 21st century is to help us know what makes us human.

[00:39:43] Well, how would you answer that question? I have to answer it theologically, but I think my understanding, and this is just for me, but I think part of what makes us human is that an inherent belonging to one another. And I find the language of soul helpful here. That we are not just bodies, but we, but there is something in or around or beyond us that makes us more than just the physical bodies that we are.

[00:40:09] And my experience is that those—  I struggle with the language, but whether you use energy, whether you use whatever language works for you, but there's something in us that is the kind of the spirit of life and that that belongs to something big, bigger. Now, who knows? There may be technologies that find that they have that too.

[00:40:30] But, uh, technology ultimately is, is a tool. And I think we are not tools. We are worthy and have inherent goodness and dignity. Whether we are useful to an economy or not. And so, that for me is really important, that we don't lose sight of what makes us worthy of being alive. 

[00:40:50] Jackson Steger: Thank you so much, Casper, for joining us.

[00:40:53] For folks who would like to participate in a Nearness journey or learn more, how should we direct them? And I'll also add that Cabin citizens receive a special discount off of a Nearness journey, so if you're a Cabin citizen, go ahead and check it out. But Casper, I'll sort of leave it to you to provide the right call to action there.

[00:41:16] Casper ter Kuile: Yeah, absolutely. Come check out The Nearness. It's at thenearness.coop and if you just click the Start Your Journey button, you'll see the next eight-week journey that kicks off in the week of July 10th. The signup deadline is July 2nd, do check it out before then. And if you are a Cabin citizen, use the code Cabin People, which will give you a nice little discount.

[00:41:36] But we also have a pay what you can option. We really want everyone who's interested to participate. And yeah, please let us know. We've got some info sessions as well if you wanna just get a taster. Um, so we'll hope to journey with you over the summer. Thanks, that was great.

[End of transcript]

We have built neighborhoods, rehabilitated orchards, designed tiny cabins, assembled saunas, housed creators, interviewed city builders, hosted dinner parties, played games, facilitated meaningful coliving, and gathered thoughtfully to make new friends and reimagine how we live.

Today, on the eve of our second birthday, Cabin is launching the world’s first network city. A network city is a set of globally distributed neighborhoods that have a shared culture, economy, and system of governance.

Creating a network city of beautiful neighborhoods

Cabin neighborhoods are designed to cater to remote workers and creators who love nature. Our network city is made up of 20 coliving neighborhoods and outposts around the world, including the following locations:

Each neighborhood shares three characteristics:

1. Access to beautiful nature: Breathtaking scenery available outside the front door.

2. Fast internet: Reliable, high-speed WiFi to make it easy to connect and do work.

3. Strong community: Good vibes for thoughtful people to live together smoothly.

The flavor of each individual neighborhood changes from place-to-place; that’s what makes them fun to explore! But no matter where they are, all Cabin neighborhoods provide a great balance of work, community, and nature.

To browse these neighborhoods, meet other members, and otherwise navigate Cabin’s network city, check out the Network City Center, which includes:

• Cabin Citizenship: a subscription membership for remote workers to live in our network city.

• City Directory: an online registry of our city’s beautiful coliving neighborhoods in nature.

• Cabin Census: a community directory where members can build identity and reputation.

• Town Hall: a discord server where our community gathers to make plans and memes.

These products work in concert to help citizens colive, create, and conserve together across the world.

Cabin Citizenship

Traditionally, citizenship implies rights, access, and responsibilities in civic, political, and social life. Being a Cabin Citizen is characterized by a similar set of benefits and responsibilities.

Cabin Citizenship is a subscription membership to Cabin’s network city. To become a Cabin Citizen, you must get vouched for by an existing Citizen. Once you receive a vouch, you can mint a Citizenship by paying 0.2 ETH annually (As of this writing, 0.2 ETH is about $360). We accept credit card or crypto payment.

Citizenship is free if you attend a Build Week at a Cabin neighborhood or hold 1,000 ₡ABIN.

What’s included in Citizenship

Citizens are issued digital and physical passports that give them access to our community’s global network of properties, experiences, and members:

🌆ACCESS OUR NETWORK CITY

• Explore Cabin’s neighborhoods: exclusive access to coliving and residencies at Cabin neighborhoods around the world.

• Create listings in the City Directory: list your own offerings in the City Directory and connect with other Citizens at your property.

• Join Citizen-only events: exclusive access to Cabin-organized events, including…

  • an invitation to Cabin Camp, our annual Citizen gathering at a 500-person summer camp, complete with a water park, a lake, an archery range, and programming designed to further connect our Citizens and help grow our network city. The first Cabin Camp will take place in October 2024.

  • a cosmic celebration of the April 2024 solar eclipse, on the path of totality at Cabin’s Neighborhood Zero.

🗳️GOVERN OUR NETWORK CITY

• Receive 25 ₡ABIN: each of the first 5,040 Founding Citizens will receive ₡ABIN to participate in transparent on-chain governance of our network city.

• Receive a numbered Founding Citizen NFT: to commemorate and digitally verify your Citizenship across the Network City Center.

• Vouch for other Citizens: each Citizen can vouch for up to five new Cabin Citizens per year.

✅ GET CITIZENSHIP PERKS

• Special merch: access to Citizen-only Cabin merch drops - beginning with the “Welcome Home” drop available here.

• Access to a Citizens-only channel: join the #founding-citizens channel in our Town Hall for early access to features and the ability to impact the roadmap.

• Thousands of dollars in partnership benefits: discounts with vibe-aligned brands like SafetyWing, Hipcamp, and more.

Founding Citizens

In order to plant the seeds of a strong culture, we have distributed the first Cabin Citizenships for free to original community members as a token of appreciation:

• Participants in the original donation crowdfund (101)

• Holders of at least 1,000 ₡ABIN (53)

• Passport holders (144)

• Inaugural City Directory listings (20)

This group will become the founding polis for deciding all future citizens. While we want Cabin to grow, we don’t want to grow it too fast. Vibes don’t blitzscale. By starting with this strong community of initial citizens and giving the power of community growth to you, we can increase the number of citizens without compromising the integrity and intimacy of our IRL experiences.

Cabin’s City Directory

Cabin’s City Directory is where Citizens explore neighborhoods and outposts in Cabin’s network. Citizens receive exclusive access to coliving and residencies in the City Directory and collectively curate the list of neighborhoods that make up the network city.

Cabin Citizens can add new outposts to the City Directory. Community members use ₡ABIN to upvote and govern which outposts become neighborhoods. When outposts with at least 4 bedrooms and 20 mbps internet receive 1,000 ₡ in votes, they officially become a neighborhood in our network city.

The best listings in the City Directory will rise to the top of this simple token-curated registry. This bottoms-up cultural curation ensures longterm community alignment with Cabin’s vision of a network of nature-immersed neighborhoods.

Census

The first step to becoming a Cabin Citizen is to create a profile on Cabin’s Census.

Anyone can create a profile in the Census and begin building their reputation and identity within the community. When you participate in our online and offline gatherings, you can earn roles, passport stamps, and tokens that give you privileges, reputation, and governance rights.

This credentialing system contextualizes your experience within the Cabin ecosystem and is viewable by other community members as an on-chain reputation and identity-management system.

Together, the Census, Citizenship, and the City Directory serve as the community sensemaking and coordination layer for our network city, allowing Citizens and neighborhoods to find like-minded community members, build reputation, and assemble resources.

Reimagining How We Live

We believe that a network city is the best way to enable Citizens to live surrounded by other kind, thoughtful, creative, open-minded, playful, generous people. We are a mix of creators, builders, naturalists, gatherers, caretakers, entrepreneurs, thinkers, and doers.

If we are responsible Citizens who add new Citizens and govern our treasury thoughtfully, we will be able to offer more affordable, higher quality, and flexible housing options than are available in traditional cities. Designing community living with immediate access to nature offers unparalleled quality for the price. By offering a continuous a la carte menu of coliving and work-stay exchanges across a network of neighborhoods, we can re-write the rules for how we coordinate, connect, and live with each other.

You can join us on this journey by visiting cabin.city today. For more on Cabin’s broader vision and strategy, check out our recently published Vision Paper.

Apps for the August Creator-in-Residence are due June 1st. Tell us about a creative project you want to work on for a month on 28 acres of rolling hills at a cabin in the Texas Hill Country. It can be whatever passion project you’d like. To apply, you can upload a video to Instagram or write a thread on Twitter (just like our July applicants did below). Make sure to tag us so that we see it!

The applicants

@melior24 applied on Twitter

Melissa Pfeifer

@melior24

Hi @creatorcabins! This is my application for July Creator in Residence

My passion project is developing a DAO governance system that encourages individual engagement for better collective outcomes

3

5:20 PM • Apr 26, 2023

@beats_kiwi applied on Twitter

Kiwi

@beats_kiwi

Greetings @creatorcabins ! I'm slicedkiwibeats. I'm a music producer-songwriter from Ohio and I've been making music for 4 years. Additionally, I am applying for the July Creator residency.

A passion project I would love to build is a jam session, but for music projects.

2

11:22 PM • Apr 23, 2023

See past winners:

• June 2023 Creator-in-Residence

  Winner: OrganicStonez

  Vote: https://snapshot.org/#/cabindao.eth/proposal/0xc7e7018fd0d28a4eeb6beee148eed4921dbc0869eb372916e915d18a89561cfc

• May 2023 Creator-in-Residence

  Winner: Kat Bezuma (@bezuma.studio on Instagram)

  Vote: https://snapshot.org/#/cabindao.eth/proposal/0xc7e7018fd0d28a4eeb6beee148eed4921dbc0869eb372916e915d18a89561cfc

• April 2023 Creator-in-Residence

  Winner: Cam Murdoch (@cammurdochmusic on Twitter)

  Vote: https://snapshot.org/#/cabindao.eth/proposal/0x78336d68aab83df6d60fd2656ec6ea7a7dc00e9a59921e1c3a2bc26ecf5c96a8

• March 2023 Creator-in-Residence

  Winner: Rudi Medved (@rudimedved1 on Twitter)

  Vote: https://snapshot.org/#/cabindao.eth/proposal/0xda0fb1168404921734a86f98ef5d5fcddd5768196e34064d4b58667674db2d0f

  Finished project: https://twitter.com/rudimedved1/status/1641910299153317888?s=20

This post describes two different coliving offerings available in the Eastern Sierra Nevada Mountains this summer.

• A 4-6 week paid coliving experience in June and July

• A free work-stay Build Week

For more about Montaia, you can read about last year’s “Summer in the Sierras” here. Additionally, you can read about one of the residents’ experiences here.

Paid Coliving in June and July

Are you feeling the call of the wild? Do you wish to return to a more natural connection to the world around you? We believe that it is CRUCIAL that those of us who are designing/developing the virtual world are also cultivating a deep relationship with the natural, wild world. 

We invite you to join us between June - July 2023 (4-6 weeks) for a Rewilding Web3 Immersion; a Cabin <-> Montaia Co-living experience in the Eastern Sierra Mountains of California.

APPLY NOW: https://montaia.typeform.com/to/Emrh3LYT

MORE INFO HERE: https://montaia-basecamp.webflow.io/residency/re-wilding-web3-a-cabin-montaia-co-living-experience

Montaia Basecamp is a Cabin Neighborhood nestled in the heart of the Eastern Sierra Mountains in California. Our back door opens into millions of acres of the Inyo National Forest, one of the most beautiful and wildest wilderness expanses in the country. There are hundreds of hiking trails, world-class rock climbing, and pristine mountain lakes within an hour’s drive of the property.

During this month, we will have access to high-speed wifi, but over the period of this month we will focus on reconnecting with our bodies through physical health practices and outdoor immersions. This will include weekly digital detox days, 2 optional overnight camping trips, and visits to local volcanic hot springs for sunrise soaks.

Together we will build strong community ties as we focus on weaving a tapestry of connection between humans and the natural world. Together, we will focus on developing healthy relationships with self, with community, and with the wilderness around us.

Work-Exchange Build Week in June

You are invited to join the Cabin community for our first ever volunteer Build Week at Montaia Basecamp in the Eastern Sierra Mountains of California. This remote co-living space is nestled at the foot of an 11,000ft granite cliff and boasts some of the nation’s best hiking trails, natural hot springs, and crystal clear starry nights.

APPLY NOW: https://montaia.typeform.com/to/LMb66wLu

The projects during this week at Montaia will include:

• Building & erecting deer fencing for the new outdoor garden space 

• Building Permaculture garden beds in the Hugelkultur design method.

• Constructing a metal geodesic dome & building a wooden floor base. 

• Creatively designing meditation walkways throughout the landscape of the property.

In exchange for your time and energy, you will be provided with food/lodging for the entire week as well as community facilitation including two half-day adventures into the surrounding wilderness. 

When: June 1-7

Where: Mammoth Lakes, California

See past Cabin build weeks in:

• Portugal (Gardening Exchange)

• Puerto Rico (A Deck)

• Neighborhood Zero (Sauna)

• Neighborhood Zero (Pergola)

Citizens have passports that give them access to coliving and residencies at Cabin neighborhoods. Over the next few years, our city will grow to 5,040 founding citizens—the number that Aristotle thought made for an ideal polis. We collectively govern our city and build a network of neighborhoods from the ground up.

Over the past two years, our online community has designed and built a thriving coliving property called Neighborhood Zero in the Texas Hill Country. We are now expanding a shared culture, economy, and governance across a global network of physical neighborhoods designed for strong community, fast internet, and access to nature.

This document outlines our core beliefs and plans to build a city:

1. Why we’re building a city

   1. The problem

   2. The solution

2. Who we are

   1. Origin story

   2. Community

3. What we believe

   1. We are happiest living with people we admire

   2. We can find our people online and get together in person

   3. We can live anywhere and earn money online

4. How we’re doing it

   1. Culture

   2. Governance

   3. Economy

5. Where we’re going

   1. Next 5 Years

   2. Next 5 Decades

   3. Next 5 Centuries

Why we’re building a city

A city is a densely settled area with clearly defined boundaries whose members work primarily on non-agricultural tasks. Cities share a culture, economy, and governance structure. Throughout history, they have served as fountains of human creativity and prosperity. They are where people come together to build new economies and ways of life.

But we haven’t built new cities in a long time. Phoenix, founded in 1868, is the youngest major American city. Cities like San Francisco haven’t changed much in the past century as development has ground to a halt. In the last 50 years, we’ve built our urban and suburban environment around cars and disconnected single family homes:

Americans are currently less happy with their lives than they’ve been in 50 years. There seem to be two main causes: increasing loneliness and decreasing standard of living.

The increase in loneliness has roots in the decline of America’s social associations of the 20th century, like the Rotary Club, Boy Scouts, churches, and bowling leagues. The book Bowling Alone shows membership and participation in social and civic organizations swelled in the middle of the twentieth century and then went into steep decline starting in the mid-late 1960s.

This coincides with the rise of the car-centric suburban lifestyle, designed to shuttle single families around to single family homes. Suburban homes have become atomic units disconnected from a deep tapestry of local relationships.

The rise of the consumer internet, mobile phones, and social media has exacerbated this sense of loneliness by creating an explosion of screen time, parasocial relationships, and an unrealistic view of others’ social lives. Social media promotes anti-social passive engagement—we need in-person connections to build empathy through body language and subtle emotional signals.

Living standards have also been dropping. American life expectancy is at a 25 year low. Meanwhile, the basic costs of living — housing, food, education, and healthcare — have doubled over the same period, accounting for inflation:

We think it’s time to get back to the basics and try something different.

There’s a long history of back-to-the-land movements rejecting high living costs, gridlocked politics, and urban decay in favor of a greater degree of autonomy, resilience, and local community. In most cases, movements encounter the harsh reality of living off of the land and fail to proliferate their ideals. Occasionally, they have the tools to persevere and build new cities.

The good news is that in the last few decades, humans have gained new tools for city building. Economic, demographic, and social changes are colliding to unlock new ways of living and working. A new tech stack of coordination software and off-grid housing hardware are allowing online communities to manifest IRL and become more self-sufficient. The resulting cities can help people reconnect with each other and nature, improving both in the process.

We believe that the pace layers of civilization are bending in this direction:

1. Fashion: cottagecore and vanlife

2. Commerce: remote work, the creator economy, increased urban cost of living

3. Infrastructure: satellite internet, solar power, modular housing, self-driving cars

4. Governance: DAOs, network states, and blockchain leviathans

5. Culture: digital nomads, internet-native communities, squad wealth, solarpunk

6. Nature: climate change, biodiversity loss

When you add this all together, you end up with fertile ground for internet-native cities. Creating a high density of great people has historically required a city to be located in one place, but cities adapt to new technologies. The cities we live in today are designed around cars. We believe cities of the future will be organized online, and will be physically decentralized across a network of locations.

These network cities will be tied together in the same way cities always have been: shared cultures, economies, and governance structures. Our culture is co-created through gatherings, roles, and lore. Our collective coordination happens through polycentric governance of neighborhoods, guilds, fellowships, and citizens. Our economy is designed around the principles of import replacement, reciprocity, and regeneration.

Our network city is made up of independently owned and operated coliving neighborhoods that share three characteristics:

1. Strong community

2. Fast internet

3. Access to nature

We offer more affordable, higher quality, more flexible housing options than you can get in traditional cities. By building for ourselves in rural areas, we aim to produce 10x less expensive housing options for our community. By designing for community amenities and access to nature, we can offer unparalleled quality for the price. By offering a continuous ala carte menu of coliving and work-stay exchanges across a network of neighborhoods, we provide flexibility and financial optionality to our citizens.

Who we are

Cabin started with a gathering of online creators called the Creator Coop. As the world reopened in 2021, we met in person at a cabin in the Texas Hill Country. Late one night around a campfire, we dreamed up a residency program for creators governed by a community.

That week, we launched a crowdfund where community members could help sponsor creator residencies at the cabins. An incredible crew of 101 people from across the internet chipped in donations, and over the next few months, we collectively voted on which creators got residencies.

From those initial residencies, a DAO was born. Over 500 people are now holders of the ₡ABIN token, which is used to govern our shared treasury of funds and network of neighborhoods. Each month, we still vote on creators to win a free residency at our cabins.

A city starts with a high density of incredible humans who can attract more creative, productive, interesting people. Great cities attract ambitious people, and ambitious people create great cities. ₡ABIN holders include an incredible range of creators, founders, investors, leaders, and contributors from across the internet. We work with some of the best community strategic partners in the world, are recognized as a leading social DAO, and have started the public conversation about network cities.

What we believe

Our community believes in three obvious truths:

1. We are happiest living with people we admire

2. We can find our people online and get together in person

3. We can live anywhere and earn money online

Obvious Truth #1: We are happiest living with people we admire

This idea (and the idea of obvious truths) is adapted from our friends at Radish, a coliving community in Oakland. Spend any time in a well-organized coliving community and it's immediately evident how different of a lifestyle it can be for human connection, novelty, and happiness.

Living together in community is a deeply natural thing for humans to do. This truth is so banal that it's easy to forget how far from it most of us choose to live. Most people prioritize houses with cars in the suburbs instead of community, nature, and co-creation. It doesn’t have to be this way—you can choose who is around your campfire.

At Cabin, we choose to surround ourselves with kind, thoughtful, creative, open-minded, playful, generous people. We are a mix of creators, builders, naturalists, gatherers, caretakers, entrepreneurs, thinkers, and doers. We are highly motivated people who want to do good in the world, but are low drama and easy-going.

Coliving in nature is the new old way of living. By returning to this timeless way of living, we can provide a happier, healthier, cheaper, and more flexible lifestyle for our community.

Obvious Truth #2: We can find our people online and get together in person

In the Facebook era, people met in person and then became “friends” online. But it makes more sense to do the opposite: find your friends online and then meet up in person.

There are at least 1000x more people to choose from online, and they conveniently gather into easily identifiable tribes. People in the dating pool are the most highly motivated searchers for strong new connections, and they have figured this out in droves:

But the physical world still matters. In order to build deep relationships, people need to come together, break bread, be present, and immerse themselves in the environment. Having common interests with someone is a good starting point, but to form deep relationships, you need to go through experiences together. Maybe someday there will be virtual realities with the same bandwidth as the real world, but for now, you can’t beat good old fashioned reality.

Obvious Truth #3: We can live anywhere and earn money online

Opportunities to earn money online are skyrocketing. COVID-19 completely shifted the cultural Overton window on remote work, leading to a 5x increase in Americans working remotely over the past 5 years. This accelerated an already potent change in the nature of the firm.

Declining transaction costs and growing distribution channels are creating new ways of doing business, built around flexible independent work. This led to the gig and creator economies, and now it's coming for a wide range of indie knowledge work. This process has been rapidly accelerated by large language models, image models, and other emerging forms of artificial intelligence.

The boom in flexible work has enabled more people to explore flexible lifestyles. There’s been tremendous growth in the number of people working remotely, creating independently, and living nomadically:

This has created a huge increase in the number of people looking for new ways to live that better match their lifestyle. It used to be the case that we spent our working days with coworkers from the same company, and lived near wherever the office happened to be. Now, we can spend our days surrounded by a community of our choosing, cross-pollinating our work and lives alongside other creative professions.

Remote work also solves the core problem that has historically caused intentional communities to fail: it’s hard to bootstrap an economy living off of the land. Most intentional communities fail to build robust enough incomes to sustain themselves. By combining land-based practices with income earned online, remote work can completely change the economics of rural intentional communities.

How we’re doing it

When we say we’re collectively building a city, we mean it literally. Over the past two years, our online community has designed and built a full-time coliving property called Neighborhood Zero.

Created from the ground up by members of the community, Neighborhood Zero includes 8 bedrooms and bathrooms spread across 3 cabins, an outdoor spa, community gathering spaces, and an area for vans. It sits on 28-acres of the Texas Hill Country and is home to a rotating dinner party of Cabin colivers (and several longhorn cattle).

Cabin is building a network of physical locations like Neighborhood Zero. This network is managed through the collective coordination of Citizens and neighborhoods.

Here’s how it works:

1. Neighborhoods list offers for coliving, residencies, and build weeks in the City Directory. Listings start as outposts and become neighborhoods when they get enough votes from the community.

2. Citizens can apply for offers at neighborhoods and outposts. Some Citizens pay to colive at neighborhoods and others contribute skills through work-stay exchanges.

3. The Census shows each members’ roles, stamps, voting power, and citizenship. Some offers in the City Directory are only available to people who hold these credentials.

This marketplace for matching people and places operates as a decentralized network. Neighborhoods, citizens, token holders, and guilds each maintain self-sovereign autonomy over a part of this polycentric governance structure and marketplace. The Cabin community co-creates our culture, governance, and economy to support the development of this network of neighborhoods.

Culture

Our culture is co-created at virtual and physical gatherings where we come together in roles and build lore. People instigate cooperative coordination that replicates our cultural memes and deepens our collective sense of self. This game is a self-reinforcing social system for building places where our citizens live together.

Gatherings

We’ve gathered to live, work, and play together in places like California’s Eastern Sierra, the jungles of Puerto Rico, and the Portuguese Azores. We’ve colived in cabins in the woods, built permanent physical infrastructure at neighborhoods, and gathered in large groups to enjoy each other’s company and figure things out together. Through these gatherings, we’ve grown deeper connections and relationships among community members.

When you participate in our online and offline gatherings, you can earn roles and stamps that get added to your Census profile. Anyone can create their profile in our Census and begin building their reputation and identity within the community. These credentials are distributed by a decentralized network of community members, stored onchain, and publicly verifiable by anyone.

Passport stamps draw inspiration from merit badges, laptop stickers, and community patches. They provide a cultural vibe-check by showing what you’ve done with the community. We’ve distributed thousands of stamps to members who have onboarded, attended events, completed residencies, and colived with Cabin across the world.

Roles

We are co-creating the world’s first IRL RPG: an in-real life role playing game. Playing the game starts with choosing your role—archetypes who can help co-create a network city. These roles give people a path of contribution and direction as they join the community.

Roles form guilds and develop their own subcultures, rights of passage, skills, and practices. While we currently have six roles, we expect many more to emerge and specialize from within the community over time:

1. Caretaker: Operator of a neighborhood. Jack-of-all-trades responsible for a space.

2. Builder: Maker of physical things that improve neighborhoods.

3. Gatherer: Space-maker in residence building the container and culture.

4. Naturalist: Grower of plants, animals, and systems for the natural environment.

5. Creator: Very-online producer of art, novelty, content, and experiments.

6. Resident: Remote worker living across the neighborhood network.

Lore

The Greater Cabin Universe includes many lore-filled rabbit holes, like a buried treasure, non-fungible longhorn cattle, one sauna teams, and the ceremonial distribution of hats. Venkatesh Rao calls lorecraft the first “internet-native school of organizational thinking”. It encompasses the ways that stories, memes, language, and symbols can help define community norms and practices. Importantly, it emerges on its own when the vibes are right:

Lore cannot be engineered in the same way marketing can be. While you can shape lore as it emerges, it is a matter of subtle gardening and curation… Lore is something you witness, and attempt to shape as it emerges, if it emerges, not something you design and execute… You can only recognize and institutionalize.

To avoid smothering budding loreplants, we garden carefully and try not to take lore too seriously. But we do take seriously the idea that we can collectively grow a life after lifestyle for ourselves. This type of lore gardening is at the root of culture building:

At the beginning of the 18th century, “culture” was still only a verb. It meant to cultivate the land, to encourage natural growth: the culture of leeks or potatoes or gardens. But inevitably, the term was applied to mean the “cultivation” of the social conditions for a healthy society.

Matthew Arnold, who coined this use of the word, imagined intentional cultural development as a way to help people achieve humanistic goals in a post-religious society. He also advocated for a top-down cultural shaping of the masses towards the needs of the State. Lore provides us with collective tools to shape community cultures from the bottom up, using the memes of production.

Governance

We collectively manage our treasury, neighborhoods, guilds, and citizens via programmable polycentric governance games. Polycentric governance is an emergent system in which many diverse centers of partial authority collectively govern a network. Blockchains, which provide communities with self-sovereign tools for programmable governance, allow networks of internet strangers to manage resources collectively and transparently.

Onchain governance is a new type of leviathan that puts capture-resistant governance directly in the hands of a community. Members can self-custody tokens that represent roles, responsibilities, and governance powers and can be used autonomously and transparently to make organizational decisions without the need for a trusted central authority.

Legally, our DAO is structured as an Unincorporated Nonprofit Association (like a neighborhood association) made up of a constellation of other independently operated organizations and people who govern it onchain.

₡ABIN

₡ABIN is our governance token, representing your voting power in community decisions. Anyone who holds or has been delegated 1000 ₡ can submit a governance proposal to the DAO. Proposals are selected using quadratic voting to increase equity among tokenholders. Tokenholders govern the DAO’s public treasury to grow its network of citizens, neighborhoods, and fellowships.

The City Directory determines which neighborhoods are inside of our city limits. Citizens can create new outposts for the network to consider. When outposts with at least 4 bedrooms at 20 mbps internet receive 1000 ₡ in votes, they become an official neighborhood and a part of our network city. The City Directory is governed as a simple token curated registry (TCR). There are more game-theoretically complete rules for managing the incentive structures of TCRs. We’ve mapped out how these rules could work for Cabin, and they can be added over time as the size and complexity of the network demands them.

Guilds

Guilds are self-governing pods that grant roles to skilled Builders, Naturalists, Creators, Gatherers, and Caretakers. Over time, many more guilds will develop and specialize to help grow neighborhoods. Roles are represented onchain as Hats and may be required to participate in certain neighborhood offerings, like residency programs.

• Apprentice status is self-selected by community members in the Census to signal interest in becoming a member of a guild.

• Artisan status is granted to people who have completed the requirements to become a fully recognized guild member. This usually involves participating in an in-person event.

• Custodians are responsible for managing guilds and distributing roles.

Citizenship

Citizenship is a subscription membership managed through a web-of-trust vouching system. A current Citizen must nominate you for citizenship, and can only vouch for up to ten people per year.

Citizens are granted chip-embedded passports, a numbered Citizen NFT, and ₡ABIN to participate in collective governance. They have exclusive access to offerings in the City Directory. Citizens also get access to our annual gathering, merch, and partnership perks.

Economy

Cities have historically been the source of new economies, and may be the only way to create emergent economic systems. The unpredictability of emergent systems is exactly what makes them hard to centrally plan. We don’t try to centrally control or plan our economy.

Instead, we are growing emergent local economies with programmable economic incentives designed around the principles of import replacement, reciprocity, and regeneration.

Import replacement

In The Economy of Cities, Jane Jacobs describes how cities grow economies through import replacement. Cities grow by importing goods, creating the capacity for replicating the goods internally, and then exporting the locally produced surplus. This surplus allows the city to earn (and replace) new imports with more complex and valuable goods and services, creating an economic cycle of growth. Producing your own goods and services creates new jobs and wealth within a community while developing a diverse and resilient local economy.

The internet creates new opportunities to apply the concept of import replacement to the economies of network cities. Crucially, network cities don’t need to bootstrap their economies from scratch. They can begin with remote workers, who stay economically connected online and can live and invest their resources anywhere. Remote work provides a financial basis for the community by allowing residents to import their income.

Imported income, attention, and goods create an economic basis for adding additional forms of work that grow the economy. This added work comes in the form of definancialized residencies designed around Cabin’s roles. Work-stay residencies allow neighborhoods to build homes, grow food, and make meaning together.

Cabin’s definancialized residencies become the basis for an economy of reciprocity and regeneration. As squad wealth grows within neighborhoods, it also creates and exports value in the form of relationships, skills, content, and work for members of the community. These exports generate more attention and income for the neighborhood, repeating the cycle.

Reciprocity

Western economic and legal systems are largely designed around private property. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer describes the indigenous wisdom of economies designed around gifts:

From the viewpoint of a private property economy, the "gift" is deemed to be "free" because we obtain it free of charge, at no cost. But in the gift economy, gifts are not free. The essence of the gift is that it creates a set of relationships. The currency of a gift economy is, at its root, reciprocity. In Western thinking, private land is understood to be a "bundle of rights," whereas in a gift economy property has a "bundle of responsibilities" attached.

Definancialized exchange is a potent form of human relationship building. While we still rely on money to create economic efficiency, we also try to nurture forms of non-financial contribution that are built on intrinsic motivation.

At Cabin, this starts with housing. Neighborhoods offer work-stay residency programs to Builders, Naturalists, Gatherers, and Creators. In exchange for free housing, residents help build the regenerative systems that make neighborhoods thrive.

Reciprocity can take many other forms: shared meals, shoutouts, brags, and do-ocracy are all part of a gift economy. By finding ways to give our gifts to the community, we create deeper relationships, meaning, and value.

Regeneration

Regenerative economies build capacity and resilience sustainably. They overcome collective action problems to grow common-pool resources for local communities. Small groups producing real goods in close collaboration with the local environment results in regeneration:

By building neighborhoods from the ground up in rural areas, we can create better housing options in less time for fewer resources. Lower land costs, less regulation, off-grid infrastructure, and coliving make it feasible for communities to build 10x cheaper and better housing for themselves.

Neighborhoods can build their own housing, grow their own food, produce their own energy, manage their own water, and make their own meaning. By creating self-sufficient capacity in nature, we can build a globally resilient mesh network of sustainable capacity for human flourishing. The solarpunk movement showcases a tool-kit of renewable energy, local permaculture, and decentralized systems that enable an optimistic view of a regenerative future.

The best store of value is a local community, but global economic systems can’t make this kind of value legible, so they ignore it. Crypto-economic systems can provide the tools to grow, test, and evolve microeconomies for local communities. This opens up a new design space for building regenerative value structures.

Where we’re going

Next 5 Years

Over the next few years, we plan to collectively curate our first 5,040 citizens and 500 active neighborhoods.

Aristotle argued that 5,040 citizens made for an ideal self-governing city, or polis. It’s enough people to allow for social, political, and economic diversity while still maintaining the ability to cohesively self-govern. It’s also a highly divisible number, and around the number of people you could squeeze into a physical location to hear a speaker before there were microphones.

Technology has come a long way since then, but we still believe 5,040 is a good number of citizens for Cabin to aim for in the next few years. Vibes don’t blitzscale. While we want to grow Cabin, we don’t want to grow it too fast. We believe that by starting with a strong community of initial citizens and giving the power of community growth to them, we can increase the number of citizens without outgrowing the vibe.

If existing citizens vouch for a few additional citizens each year, there will be 5,040 citizens in the next 3-5 years. Five thousand and forty is a good milestone for long-term community sustainability. It’s enough to support fellowships that can provide for the product, operations, and community-building needs of Cabin on an ongoing basis and reach profitability on our current runway:

To provide coliving and residency options for our 5,040 founding citizens, we will onboard our first 500 neighborhoods. The Census and City Directory will serve as a community sensemaking and coordination layer, allowing prospective neighborhoods to find like-minded community members, build reputation, and assemble resources.

Building new neighborhoods is a huge undertaking. By creating deep relationships across members of the community, we will form groups that have the skills, relationships, and resources to build permanent places we can call home.

Next 5 Decades

In the next 50 years, we plan to cocreate a network city of over a million people concurrently living together in permanent intergenerational communities. We will live across a global network of neighborhoods deeply embedded in their natural environment.

Neighborhoods will range in size from a handful of people living in a house to thousands of people in large settlements that are dense, walkable, human-scaled, and regenerative. They will offer Citizens a combination of permanent and flexible living arrangements, and many will become specialized niches of community in the network.

Some of these niches will be designed for guilds: communities of builders, naturalists, gatherers, and creators. Others will center around as-of-yet unformed scenes, who will vibe check each other's passport stamps. As we age together as a community, we expect to see neighborhoods emerge that are designed for the full cycle of life stages. In particular, we will see a rapid expansion of Cabin neighborhoods designed for groups of families to live together in the next decade.

At the scale of millions of people, we would operate a set of protocols and products for managing network cities. This could include protocols designed around onchain primitives like:

• a token curated registry for city directories

• an onchain census for community identity and reputation

• subscription membership tokens and passport cards

• publicly verifiable self-sovereign voting

Next 5 Centuries

Societies across history have formed via decentralized autonomous networks of cooperating bands of humans. These local bands, tribes, villages, and towns have developed interdependent networks of cultural and economic exchange that allowed them to thrive.

Occasionally, a tenacious group of people uses an emerging set of technologies to build an enduring new system of living. The societies that emerge during these historical periods have become fountains of human culture, creativity, economic activity, and self-sovereign governance.

We are living through one of these periods, and we take that seriously enough to consider 500 year plans. But it would be ludicrous to use central planning exercises on these time horizons. The best we can do is learn from history and prepare for possibilities.

We study historical examples of societies that have created enduring systems of self-governance. Across the history of Western civilization, there’s a clear cycle of decentralized cities and centralized states. Mesopotamian river valley civilizations, Greek city-states, medieval market towns, and New England townships show us how federated systems can emerge and create conditions of peace and prosperity:

Indigenous groups that have been ignored in the Western canon have built societies and cities around an incredible diversity of governance structures and social contracts. We draw inspiration from many of these sources, including Catalhoyuk, Nebelivka, Uruk, Teotihuacan, and the Haudenosaunee. Our network of neighborhoods is designed to have the same type of decentralized autonomous local control, coupled with economic and cultural exchange, that has led to successful city building in the past.

Five hundred years ago, the largest cities had hundreds of thousands of inhabitants. Now, the largest cities are 100x bigger and most humans live in urban areas. If we are successful in building a network city of a million people over the next 50 years, over the next 500 we will likely see billions of people become citizens of network cities. We hope that this way of organizing ourselves can increase peace and prosperity in the same way it has when cities have emerged in the past.

Cam Murdoch 🏝️

@camfromthecoast

En route to Austin, TX for my residency at @creatorcabins.

Thank you to everyone that helped make this possible!

As promised, I’m going to document the entire trip and play a live stream show.

Stay tuned for dates & other details by following @lesurfnoir

#GoldenHour

81

7:02 PM • Apr 1, 2023

@rudimedved1 has wrapped his time as Cabin’s March Creator-in-Residence (though he is hanging around for a few more days!.

rudibear.eth

@rudimedved1

I spent the whole month of March at @creatorcabins as a creator-in-resident.

Here are some of my highlights

Launched a tiny product - a directory of rural coliving communities and started a community around it rudimedved.notion.site/rudimedved/Reg…

9

4:08 PM • Mar 31, 2023

Meanwhile, it’s time to select our Creator-in-Residence for June!

Below are the final-round applicants. You can vote for your favorite here. (You will be directed to a third party app called Snapshot, which is where Cabin makes all of our voting decisions). Voting ends at 9:49 AM PST on April 9th.

Apps for the July Creator-in-Residence are due May 1st. Tell us about a creative project you want to work on for a month on 28 acres of rolling hills at a cabin in the Texas Hill Country. It can be whatever passion project you’d like. To apply, you can upload a video to Instagram or write a thread on Twitter (just like our June applicants did below). Make sure to tag us so that we see it!

@rem_cycles applied on Twitter and Instagram

@Ousikai applied on Twitter

欧思凯 (Ousikai) ᯅ

@Ousikai

trying again for June residency with this tweet thread :^) @creatorcabins

欧思凯 (Ousikai) ᯅ

@Ousikai

Hi, I'm Ousikai and I'm apply for the @creatorcabins #DAOsummer22 Residency!

I am:
* an American writer born in the early 1990s
* with an El Salvadoran heritage from my immigrated parents
* who is fascinated with Eastern Storytelling, most notably Japanese Anime

1

7:56 PM • Apr 3, 2023

@utangclan applied on Instagram

@mvgicspells applied on Instagram

@OrganicStonez applied on Twitter

Stonez🗿

@OrganicStonez

Peace @creatorcabins - it's Stonez!

I'm applying for May's Creator Residency. I am an visual & music artist who co-founded @4bidden4ruit4 a curatorial collective dedicated to art, wellness, & immersive experiences.

I plan to bring together a "Piece of Peace"

44

11:01 PM • Mar 10, 2023

In a world where loneliness is a growing epidemic, coliving offers a solution by connecting people in spaces designed for community and personal growth.

But what makes a coliving space truly great? How can we create environments that not only meet our basic needs for shelter and security, but also help us to grow as individuals? How might we coordinate to create an incredible living experience at a low cost? 

One way to answer these questions is by looking at the Pyramid of Coliving Needs. This visual framework is the result of recording 30+ interviews with leaders reimagining how we live (includes both for-profit and DIY coliving contexts). It is also informed by my experience coliving across multiple countries and a dozen US cities.

Basic needs: The base of the pyramid

Adopt the following principles to lay a good foundation for a well-designed coliving space.

Don’t cheapen the essentials: For residents, a coliving environment is their home - it’s crucial to provide a smooth and comfortable living experience. Beds, sheets, WiFi, and work spaces should be top-of-the-line. It’s a worthwhile investment to know that folks are sleeping well and are set up for success when they work. Get good mattresses. Splurge on the 500mbps WiFi speeds. Buy some standing desks. Many of us spend most of our day sleeping or working - these small touches will improve everyone’s day-to-day experience. 

Design for serendipity: Don’t hope for connection between residents - engineer it. A wishy-washy resident happy hour once a month won’t create the deep connections that fuel supportive and caring environments, but repeated organic connections will. Strangers become friends through a combination of shared interests and shared time. You can impact the latter by designing a space so that residents more easily bump into one another throughout their day. To do this, the best coliving spaces embrace the architectural pattern of caves and commons.

<https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cp2oqXutJx_/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y= >

Caves and commons is what it sounds like: You want a combination of private caves (where people sleep) surrounding common areas used by all. When folks leave their cave, they must navigate through the commons, where they can more easily interact with others in the community.

Don’t put shared resources on a roof or in a basement that nobody is going to visit unprompted. If your community is going to spend significant money on great amenities (a worthwhile endeavor if you have a committed core group of co-owners), then you should place those amenities in the common spaces and walkways so that they actually get used. When folks pass by shared spaces during their daily rhythms, there is a higher chance that they activate the spaces and foster unplanned group hangouts.

In short, make it easy to find friends and to enjoy a space.

Enable high degrees of privacy: Contrary to popular belief, many introverts love coliving. Even though these can be highly stimulating and social environments, introverts appreciate that they can enter and exit their caves on their terms.

Private bedrooms are great. But some other coliving houses may opt for denser living accommodations to accommodate people with tighter budgets. Japanese style pods or rooms w/ dividers are an equally affordable way to provide a better privacy experience. Even in the case of shared bedrooms, aim to design for as much audio-visual privacy as possible. 

Create shared mobility: The best way to make sure someone doesn’t feel trapped is to give them a way to escape. As fun as coliving environments are, folks will still want to come and go as they please. For that, they need transportation options. As a resident, I always appreciate how access to shared transportation options (like house bikes or car share agreements) enable me to explore the larger contexts of the coliving community I’m visiting.

Many coliving residents might be too nomadic to deal with the logistics of owning their own vehicle or other form of transportation. Your community can expand the radius that someone can travel outside of your coliving hub by providing shared bikes, scooters, and skateboards. You can even do this with cars or minivans in high-trust communities. Depending on your level of comfort, you may want to have some written agreements here.

The middle of the pyramid (part 1): Amenities

Amenities usually are included on traditional apartment marketing websites or hotel instagram pages, but rarely are actually used (often because these places don’t engineer for serendipity, as discussed above).

But in the context of coliving, here are the amenities that I’ve found consistently add value, get used, and help make for an incredible living experience:

1. An industrial kitchen for making meals for large groups. Two dishwashing machines are preferred to one. Large pots, good grill surface area, and ample fridge storage will help support the density of folks living near each other. For larger communities, Micro-kitchens scattered elsewhere across the property offer additional, more “chill” cooking spaces. 

2. Saunas. This will run you about $2-12k depending on which model you choose. Seems silly until you try it. Saunas lead to increased metabolism, increased weight loss, better sleep, improved muscle recovery and reduced soreness. We built one at Cabin’s Neighborhood Zero coliving property and it gets used almost every single night, year round.

   

   Cabin

   @cabindotcity

   

   timelapse of our sauna build by @dav1dtse
   
   this is what a DAO looks like: a swarm of people coming and going, contributing pieces to a shared goal

   

   49

   10:37 PM • Apr 20, 2022

3. A gym/yoga studio. This can be scaled up or down depending on the spending power of your coliving group. The low end of this is a bench and a pair of adjustable dumbbells that you leave in a yard or multipurpose room. The middle end of this includes cardio machines or a shared Peloton. The high end is a premium facility or a dedicated sporting complex. Whatever you choose, aim to offer something that allows residents to move their bodies! This is especially powerful on days when it's too cold or rainy for outdoor activities.

4. A hot tub. Probably more of a hassle than anything else on this list, but who doesn’t like a hot tub?

5. A cold plunge. The health benefits are well documented, and a cold tub pairs nicely with a sauna/hot tub. The minimally viable version of these is also very cheap.

6. Creator spaces. Podcast studios and recording equipment that are ready-made for creators will be sure to attract artists, musicians, and many others who make content for a living. Just be sure that the WiFi works in those spaces, too - I once signed a three month coliving lease and was excited to use a podcasting space, only to learn that the internet connection was too weak to actually use for calls. At Cabin, we intend to build a network of properties that are creator-first.

7. A movie theater or a lounge with ample seating around a TV. Don’t have this in the main social area or folks will inevitably be sucked into whatever passive content someone is consuming. Multipurpose rooms don’t work. But there is something wholesome to a movie night with friends or watching a basketball game/reality show/live cultural moment together - so it’s nice to have as an option.

Do you need all of these? Absolutely not. IMO, the kitchen is the only required amenity from this list because everybody eats every day and a large, well-stocked kitchen can become an effective social space in addition to serving an essential function.

But one of the reasons why coliving is so special is because the density and high number of residents pooling their money allows many premium amenities to suddenly become affordable because of economies of scale. If your community can share these costs, you’re able to deliver a higher value living experience for everyone.

The middle of the pyramid (part 2): Community Norms

Cool perks like the ones listed above can only get you so far - the true magic of coliving comes from having cohesive communities. Roommates bickering is nothing new and coliving introduces more housemates than many have had before. It’s imperative to have principles or norms that a community upholds and that each resident agrees to follow.

Each coliving community should have norms that feel natural and organic to it - there is no one-size-fits-all. Below are some examples that I have seen work well, but this is by no means an exhaustive list:

1. Chefs rotate and co-create. Coliving communities should either split the cost of hiring a private chef (surprisingly affordable after 15+ housemates) or have a rotating schedule of cooking shifts. This way, everyone knows that they can count on a warm meal with friends at the end of each day, but without the overhead of having to commit to making meals every night. There is nothing more special than when a resident cooks an old family recipe to share with the group. Encourage folks to bring these cherished, nostalgic tastes to the group.

2. Chefs don’t clean. If you do decide that you want coliving members to cook for the community each/most nights, then whoever cooks on any given night should not have to do dishes.

3. Cheer the opt-out. Some people mistakenly think that just because you live in a coliving community means you have to do all the activities and participate in all the meals. That should not be the case at all. While paying members should be welcome at all events, nobody should be required to attend. Everyone has different commitments and energy levels.

4. Adopt do-ocracy. Do-ocracy encourages community members closest to a decision to make any small decision that is cheap and easily-reversible. Group decision-making runs the risk of being slow and overcomplicated. “Do-ocracy” (which Cabin member Phil Levin writes about here) is an effective way to counteract these flaws to empower residents to act on the to-dos the community needs most

5. Utilize a brag channel. We make the mistake of stigmatizing bragging. If you create a culture of bragging when you complete chores, it enables two things. 1) You get props for doing things that help the community and your work doesn’t go unnoticed. 2) Other people notice chores being done at a higher rate and feel compelled to also contribute to the common good.

Norms should be minimal and bottom-up. Have community members introduce them as a response to situations native to your coliving hub, and then communicate the norms clearly to new members as they enter the community.

The top of the pyramid: Community Intention

A governing community intention helps to tie the pyramid together. It helps to attract a specific community of individuals who share a common interest or goal.

I mentioned earlier that strangers become friends through shared interests and shared time. A community intention is a way to get members of your coliving hub to self-select their shared interests. For example, a coliving hub focused on wellness might attract residents interested in a lifestyle filled with yoga, meditation, and healthy eating. This can create a sense of camaraderie and support among residents, which can contribute to a positive living experience.

Cabin is building a coliving network for creators who love living in nature. Here are a few more example themes that different coliving communities might adopt:

• A space for musicians to collaborate daily

• A hacker house for founders and entrepreneurs

• A place for dancers to always have the opportunity to improve their craft

• A group of nutrition-conscious roommates could design their environment to best support their diet

• A space for environmentalists to live sustainably

• A coliving community that promotes social justice and activism

• A community of pet owners

• A space for fitness enthusiasts to train and work out together

• A hub for spiritual seekers and practitioners

• A coliving space for seniors

• A community of gamers and esports enthusiasts

• A space for outdoor enthusiasts and adventurers

• A space for makers and DIY enthusiasts

A governing intention can also help to create a cohesive community culture. When residents are aligned around a shared intention, it can help to create a sense of purpose and direction for the community. This can lead to more meaningful interactions and collaborations between residents.

A specific intention can also help to differentiate a coliving hub from others in the market. By offering a unique value proposition, such as a focus on wellness or creativity, a coliving hub can attract residents who are specifically seeking that type of experience. This can help create a loyal community of residents who are invested in the coliving hub's mission and values for the long run. 

Let’s Build

The Pyramid of Coliving Needs provides a visual framework for designing and building successful coliving spaces, from the basic needs of shelter and security to the amenities and community norms that make a space truly great. By embracing these principles, groups can design incredible living experiences that enrich the lives of their residents and foster new friendships in an increasingly lonely world. 

What we need now is the next generation of gatherers and caretakers to come forward and be the leaders that these communities need. If you’re that kind of leader, hop into Cabin’s discord to learn about opportunities to host or colive with Cabin.

Meanwhile, it’s time to select our Creator-in-Residence for May!

Below are the final-round applicants. You can vote for your favorite here. (You will be directed to a third party app called Snapshot, which is where Cabin makes all of our voting decisions). Voting ends at 3 AM CST on March 19th.

Apps for the June Creator-in-Residence are due April 3rd. Tell us about a creative project you want to work on for a month on 28 acres of rolling hills at a cabin in the Texas Hill Country. It can be whatever passion project you’d like. To apply, you can upload a video to Instagram or write a thread on Twitter (just like our May applicants did below).

@bezuma.studio applied on Instagram

@joshcadorette applied on Twitter

Josh Cadorette

@joshcadorette

It started with a twitter DM.

(like most things do)

I had reached out to @JonathanHillis on a whim.

The result?

An evening w/ @creatorcabins.

Here's how Rüfüs Du Sol led me to @kift, Kift led me to Cabin, & why I'm applying to Cabin's creator in residence program:

37

12:28 PM • Mar 10, 2023

@StevieTiles applied on Twitter

Stevie Gleason

@Stevie_Gleason

Hello, @creatorcabins fam! This is my application for the May Creator in Residence.

Project Name: The Mobile Stu

Project Goal: Design & build a mobile music studio so that more musicians in the CABIN community make music. It could be a new residency or a business.

More

13

6:23 PM • Mar 10, 2023

@OrganicStonez applied on Twitter:

Stonez🗿

@OrganicStonez

Peace @creatorcabins - it's Stonez!

I'm applying for May's Creator Residency. I am an visual & music artist who co-founded @4bidden4ruit4 a curatorial collective dedicated to art, wellness, & immersive experiences.

I plan to bring together a "Piece of Peace"

44

11:01 PM • Mar 10, 2023

@tylercoolidge applied on Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CnaVw9YjFQn/?igshid=YWJhMjlhZTc%3D

Apps for the May Creator in Residence are due March 10th. Tell us about a creative project you want to work on for a month on 28 acres of rolling hills at a cabin in the Texas Hill Country. It can be whatever passion project you’d like. To apply, you can upload a video to Instagram or write a thread on Twitter (just like our April applicants did below).

April Finalists

Please click on the threads or video submissions to see the full application and then vote on Snapshot!

@cammurdochmusic applied on Twitter

Cam Murdoch 🏝️

@camfromthecoast

Hey @creatorcabins! I'm a musician developing the artistic movement of #futuresurf. With that, I co-host a live show on @futuresurfradio a few times a week.

Future Surf is about exploration & connection. Uncovering the opportunities that lie in our differences from a global lens

22

6:13 PM • Jan 19, 2023

@delightfulabyss applied on Twitter:

Kelly Clark applied on Instagram

@GeorgeLantay applied on Twitter

George Lantay

@georgepurpose_

@creatorcabins Creator Residence app links below

1

4:24 PM • Feb 14, 2023

@tylercoolidge64 applied on Twitter

tyler coolidge 🏆

@tylercoolidge64

hi @creatorcabins , my name is tyler coolidge and this is my submission for your Residency Program (i do not have a preference in month — thank you for providing opportunities for all of us)

10

1:38 AM • Feb 15, 2023

#29 Spectra: The City That Builds Cities with Ryan Rzepecki

Host Jackson Steger interviews leaders that are building new cities and other new models of living for digital nomads, creators and remote workers. Campfire is produced by Cabin, which is building a new kind of city for creators called a network city. Our community is developing a global coliving network of physical locations that we call neighborhoods.

https://simplecast.com

#31 Wander: Tech-Enabled Short Term Rentals with John Andrew Entwistle

This week on Campfire, Jackson is joined by John Andrew Entwistle, the Founder and CEO of Wander. Wander is a vertically integrated short term rental company. T

https://podcasts.apple.com

Transcript:

[00:00:00] Jackson Steger: Hey there, you're listening to Campfire, a podcast where we interview leaders that are building new cities and other new models of living for digital nomads, creators, and remote workers. My name is Jackson Steger and I work with Cabin to develop new neighborhoods and grow a community of nature loving creators and builders.

[00:00:17] Today's interview features John Andrew Entwistle, Founder and CEO of Wander. Wander is building a network of beautiful, smart homes across the globe that guests can access the tap of a button. Our conversation today answers the question, how can you find, develop, and scale beautiful properties that have a high quality bar for temporary guests?

[00:00:36] Campfire is produced by Cabin, which is building a new kind of city for creators called a network city. Our community is developing a global co-living network of physical locations that we call neighborhoods. If you wanna live in those neighborhoods or create cool things near nature with other thoughtful people nearby, you can learn more about us by visiting cabin.city.

[00:00:55] John Andrew Entwistle, welcome to Campfire. 

[00:00:58] John Andrew Entwistle: Thanks so much for having me. I'm super stoked to be here. 

[00:01:01] Jackson Steger: We're stoked to have you. I'm a Wander founding member. I've been following y'all since, I think, your public launch, so really excited to have you on the show and hopefully stay at a Wander one day. Wanna talk just first about what Wander is and who it's for. 

[00:01:17] John Andrew Entwistle: Yeah, so the big idea with Wander is to effectively verticalize the short term rental space. So right now, when you go and book a vacation rental, there are a bunch of different players, right? You have Airbnb and VRBO as your booking platform. Underneath that, you have the property manager, and underneath that you have the actual property owner.

[00:01:37] And what that leads to is a really fragmented experience. I think a lot of your listeners have probably booked one of these places and it didn't look like the photos, the guest experience wasn't great, et cetera. And so, the big idea with Wander is if you can verticalize that, if you can control everything from the booking platform, to the home management, to the actual underlying asset, that you can create this really incredible experience for guests where they know what they're getting. And then of course, offer a lot of cool tooling as well. So being able to turn on and off the lights right through your phone or access the Tesla in the garage, or making sure that you have incredible WiFi, all these really cool things. 

[00:02:11] Jackson Steger: And who is it for specifically? Because there's a lot of people out there who will do an Airbnb for a night with their friends, or maybe some people use it as an alternative to rent for a whole month. I've done that. Is this for just anyone who might use Airbnb, or is there a more specific persona that, at least in the early days, you're focusing on?

[00:02:31] John Andrew Entwistle: To start with we’re starting with shorter term stays, and the product is more expensive, so we do have some folks who rent for longer periods of time, but that's not super accessible to most people unless you're splitting with a larger group. Eventually though, we will migrate into longer term stays and different GOs, but the key there is that we want to provide an incredible experience, which means that in order to do so at a lower price point, you effectively need to expand into areas where you can support that. So, think Mexico, Bali, those types of places, as opposed to lowering our quality standard just to hit a certain price point. 

[00:03:08] Jackson Steger: I look at the images you have of Wander Platforms, and I see these beautiful works stations and these vistas that I could record this podcast from.

[00:03:17] And I'm curious how possible is what Wander's trying to be now in 2023 versus pre remote work exploding during the pandemic?

[00:03:27] John Andrew Entwistle: Yeah. So, we're having our biggest month yet, which is always a good thing to say as a startup founder. Very lucky. And I think that really comes down to the fact that Wander can be used by anyone. You have digital nomads. You have just people looking to get away for a few days with their friends. You have honeymooners. You have families. You have all these different people using the product for really whatever they want to use it for, and I think that's really the main advantage for Wanderers, that we're going after such a large general travel market while making sure that the product can be used by digital nomads in the same way that it can be used by family looking to get away for a few days.

[00:04:03] Jackson Steger: Sure. At Cabin, which is the organization that produces this podcast, we're building neighborhoods that have nature out the front door for remote workers and for creators alike. And we're being very thoughtful about the expansion. We currently have three neighborhoods and we're working on bringing some more in, but we're in no rush necessarily.

[00:04:23] We all want to compromise like our ethos of having these large, mostly rural spaces, usually within an hour or so of an airport. We're very particular about choosing those next places, and I'm curious how you've thought about identifying places that would be good Wander locations. Like is that a data-driven process or do you have a community that informs how you think about that? Just curious, the sequencing of properties, how you made those decisions. 

[00:04:49] John Andrew Entwistle: Yeah, so obviously when you're doing like any type of real estate investing, you want to leverage data to make sure you don't miss, and fortunately in this industry, you have all types of data in terms of seasonality, geographic density, occupancy rates of nearby hotels or short-term rentals or all these different things.

[00:05:10] And so, what you end up creating is basically a bunch of guardrails around the places that you purchase. For us, we obviously leverage all this data to identify what areas make sense, but very similar to you all, it's hypercritical that the experience is wonderful and inspiring and exciting. And so, we like to say that the data and the underwriting and that whole process are really the guardrails. Obviously, we can't purchase outside of that, but we also need to check the box of the guest experience as well. 

[00:05:41] Jackson Steger: Yeah. You mentioned Mexico and Bali and, and I know you're in The Bahamas right now, but I'm curious, when will you really make that global push versus domestic, and what are the milestones do you need to hit in order for you all to do that? Or is it already happening? 

[00:05:57] John Andrew Entwistle: Yeah, so it'll happen this year. Towards the end of this year, I'm very set on planting our first international flag. Now the question of where is a big question. Obviously we could do something in North America. We could plant a flag in Europe. Iceland is actually, I think, a perfect in between three hours from New York.

[00:06:15] Absolutely a magical place to go and explore. So, we'll see where we end up planting that flag. It's certainly gonna happen this year, and I think once you do the first, then obviously you can go much further, much faster. 

[00:06:28] Jackson Steger: And assume you own these properties. Is that true? 

[00:06:31] John Andrew Entwistle: Yeah, that's correct. 

[00:06:33] Jackson Steger: And so, how did you wind up financing them?

[00:06:35] So the question of capital markets and like financing single family assets, it's very large and complicated. I could probably spend an hour walking through the different steps and process. But essentially, what you start off with is basically one-off financing. So one-off financing for each individual asset, and then your next step is basically lumping them all together into some type of larger facility.

[00:06:57] So, we just announced that we closed this hundred million dollar credit facility from Credit Suisse, which is very, very challenging to do and really requires the company to be institutional grade in every way. And that sort of allows us, basically, to go out and buy properties that are within a certain buy box and have that basically pre-approved as long as we check those criteria.

[00:07:17] So that's the step. You start off with one-off financing and then you move into a larger facility. And then, Wander is very fortunate that obviously working with a large institutional bank is the ultimate goal of that. And then you can go even further with long-term fixed financing from like some insurance company or whatever that looks like. But it's a pretty typical step in terms of assets. 

[00:07:40] Jackson Steger: Curious how you learned that? I know you're a Thiel Fellow, right? And so curious, like how have you been educating yourself just on this space, on the range of financing options available to you or companies like yours.

[00:07:53] John Andrew Entwistle: Yeah, the short answer is that I'm an obsessive learner.

[00:07:57] My sister just bought me a Kindle because my bookshelf started to turn into like chaos. My room is just stacked and stacked, and so anytime that I am thinking about an idea or a problem, I ask all types of questions and those questions then turn into even more questions, because obviously that's how it goes from a research perspective.

[00:08:16] And what ends up happening is that you look for those answers those answers and you end up building a pretty broad understanding of the space. But then what you want to do is you want to validate those answers with some type of industry expert to make sure that what you're reading or understanding isn’t outdated, and more specifically that the assumptions that you're creating based on those materials, especially if you're an original thinker, is actually correct and not super naive. And so, from there we were very fortunate to build a pretty incredible group of advisors from Open Door and otherwise, and obviously hire our own internal team with decades of experience. So that all really starts from having a broad understanding of the space, narrowing it down, validating your original ideas, and then using that knowledge to make sure the people you hire aren't actually sort of useless, if that makes sense.

[00:09:06] You need to know enough about the space that you're hiring in before you go and hire someone.  

[00:09:12] Jackson Steger: Sure. Getting the hundred million credit line from Credit Suisse. Yes. Last night I was reading Selina’s 2022 investor report, and they similarly have, I think, 350 million ready to deploy over the next two years to try to triple their beds and inventory.

[00:09:32] I'm curious, how do you build that relationship with large capital partners? What do they wanna see? Especially when you’re relatively new player on the scene. 

[00:09:40] John Andrew Entwistle: Yeah. So, the first thing that they're looking for is really the quality of team and the quality of your investors. So, there's no way that Wander would've been able to land this facility if we hadn't received backing from QED and Red Point and those types of names, which is also a decision that you have to make as a founder as well.

[00:09:59] We had firms that were more interested or willing to pay more, but at the end of the day, I felt like they weren't going to create that value. And so that's something that you really need to be mindful of, especially in this space. You know, from there, really they're looking for how you run your business, right?

[00:10:14] Are the assets performing? What internal processes are there? Is this a serious company, and are they able to support this type of facility? It comes with audited financials and monthly reporting and all these different things, and so it's a very complicated process to support, and so can this company afford to support it?

[00:10:35] Can they actually run the process? Is the leadership team dedicated to doing so? And then obviously, are the assets performing? Can they support this interest rate? Is it an asset that they want to actually finance? Which the short term rentals is really single family homes. And so that's where the advantage is.

[00:10:51] You're tying into that infrastructure. Once you check all those boxes, then you start the long diligence and negotiation process. And there are a handful of obviously, different operators that you need to go and, and talk to. Basically, the big banks. And yeah, you run a process from there. Takes anywhere from four to six months and a whole bunch of legal fees and thousands and thousands of pages of criteria and policies and contracts and all that sort of stuff.

[00:11:18] But at the end of it, obviously you end up with a, something that allows your company to grow much faster, and also something that candidly forces your company's maturity far further into the future. Wander is an 18 month old company, give or take, and we have the operational maturity a pre IPO organization, which is also super important, right?

[00:11:39] Anytime you're dealing with a real estate or otherwise, like having that maturity is hypercritical. 

[00:11:45] Jackson Steger: You’ve alluded twice now to this set of advantages that one gets when working with single family homes. Could you elaborate on what those are? 

[00:11:50] John Andrew Entwistle: Yes. Whenever you're dealing with a new asset category, you have to think about what are the adjacencies, or what adjacent asset categories, are there that have existing infrastructure. So. I'll give like examples on two opposite ends. So, let's talk about like wine investing, right? Wine as an asset category is relatively small, and there are some incredible companies that go and invest like Vinovest and others, but it's a relatively small asset category, and so it's difficult to get institutional investment or institutional lending or more difficult.

[00:12:24] And to be clear, again, a company like Vinovest is in a different category. But then you look at single family rentals, right? Long-term rentals, and you're looking at literally hundreds of billions of dollars of equity investment from massive hedge funds. You're looking at trillions of dollars of lending infrastructure because everyone wants to go and buy a home.

[00:12:45] And so when you make the leap into short-term rentals, effectively what you're doing is taking the same underlying asset and putting a different business model on it. And so it’s much easier for a large institutional bank to go and look at that and say, okay, this is something that I can fund. Or an investor can say, this is something that I can invest in because it's a very stable or more stable underlying asset that's now generating a much higher yield.

[00:13:10] And so, that's sort of what I mean when I talk about the advantages of single family homes as a wedge into the hospitality space. 

[00:13:18] Jackson Steger: Awesome. Appreciate that context. So, we've talked about the financing, the financing a little bit. Let's say you choose a new location, for example, somewhere in the Ozarks in Missouri, and you decide, oh, there's a lot of people in Kansas City and St. Louis who we might be able to track for a weekend trip. But what kind of renovations are typically needed for you all to do? What process do you have in place to ensure that you have that quality threshold met across all of your properties? 

[00:13:49] John Andrew Entwistle: Yeah, so obviously you need to be extremely thoughtful about your CapEx whenever you're going into a new location, and make sure that you're taking that into consideration: your underwriting. So, once you've modeled that out, let's say that place in the Ozarks we were looking at and we said, okay, it's gonna be, let's say, 200,000 in CapEx. From there, within Wander, that process is pretty sophisticated. So, it's basically 3D renders of absolutely everything and price estimates for each piece within that render, along with within those renders all of the furniture and otherwise all being budgeted

[00:14:25] And really, automatically procured. So, once we start that process, everything gets distributed to a central repository. That central repository will then go and basically install everything in a pretty short period of time. So, if the home doesn't need much renovation, it'll take us about two weeks, give or take.

[00:14:41] If it needs more, obviously it can take a bit longer, but because of the time is not your friend. As a startup, we try and keep that pretty short. And from a quality management perspective, the fact that we're basically centrally like simulating the space, and that has to be approved and is being done by that same team, you get this level of quality and consistency across the portfolio, which is also hyper unique, and nice for customers as well to know that regardless of which house you go to, it's gonna be solid. 

[00:15:10] Jackson Steger: Two weeks is really fast. That's really impressive. I wanna ask about Atlas. You recently launched product called Atlas. Can you tell the audience what Atlas is and who's eligible? 

[00:15:20] John Andrew Entwistle: Yeah. So, the idea with Atlas is really to blur the line between this idea of customer and owner. So, when you think about while we're building with Wander, finance is obviously the other side of real estate. And you need to supply some amount of equity to go and to continue to scale that portfolio.

[00:15:37] And so that equity can come from either a real estate private equity firm, or it can come from individuals can come from a family office, can really come from wherever. For us, I saw this opportunity to create this really wonderful community experience around this idea that you can actually own a piece of this network that you're staying in and benefit from those same returns that those large institutional investors are capturing.

[00:16:01] So Wander Atlas is basically that vision coming to life. So, it's launching as basically the first vacation rental, which I can go into the process of creating a REIT that is very painful. 

[00:16:14] Jackson Steger: Please do. I’d be curious. 

[00:16:15] Yeah, REIT's the, I guess I'll start with what a REIT is, right. So, REIT is a stands for Real Estate Investment Trust, and it's essentially a designation by the SEC and the IRF that allows for certain advantages for investors. So, you get to deduct a certain amount of the income, and it also comes with certain rules for that company, right? So, a REIT has to own 90% of what it owns has to be real estate. It has to distribute 90% of its income back to shareholders. So, there are a lot of these like forcing functions, which keeps the REIT honest.

[00:16:47] And then obviously there's a bunch of reporting requirements as well, audited financials and all these different things. And so, like when I went through the space of alternative investments, like I was pretty horrified to see the underlying financials of a lot of these products, right? You see, the vast majority just go out in fees.

[00:17:06] So you know, you can buy a share of, you know, let's say a fractional home on one of these other platforms, and you put in $5 and you get $2 of real estate. It doesn't make any sense. And so, I knew that from a quality perspective and in terms of protecting our users, I wanted it to be structured as a REIT. Next you go into this problem set of, okay, yes, there are adjacencies when you think about hotels or single family homes, but no one's done this for vacation rentals yet.

[00:17:33] And so what that led to was a pretty in-depth process with our lawyers and accountants and other accountants and other lawyers, and this really big exercise to basically create a new financial product that again, frankly like just hasn't been done before, but is being done in a way that the IRS and SEC is like, yes, this is good to go.

[00:17:55] So that process was pretty intense. Again, I think the PPM alone is like 160 pages. The contracts are thousands and thousands of pages of legal documents, and there's all types of, again, auditing requirements and otherwise that Wander has third party fund administrators, all these different things. But what it means is that for investors, it is truly the most efficient way to invest and own a piece of not just, obviously, Wander’s portfolio, which I think is certainly special, but vacation rentals generally, and the returns that we're able to generate candidly, are going to be higher than if you were just gonna go and buy some in Airbnb and try and operate it yourself, which I think is like the special piece. Over time, what you're gonna see us do, is merge the concept within the ecosystem.

[00:18:43] So right now it's a little separate, but over time you'll see it come into the app and you can imagine going and staying at a wander and saying, Hey, you've earned $500 into Atlas, and oh, that money has been deposited for your monthly dividend, or quarterly dividend has been deposited in share credits.

[00:18:57] You can use that within Wander’s platform or you can pull it out. And you have this really cool sense of belonging and ownership and this idea where candidly, if, I think if you put, obviously it would be a decent amount of money, but let's say instead of buying a house, you put all that money into Atlas and like those dividends were then allowing you to spend X amount of time on the platform.

[00:19:19] It becomes like a pretty beautiful thing when you think about, rather than buying a second home, I'm just gonna stick all that money into Atlas and then those credits go right into my Wander account and I can use it as cash, or I can use it on the platform, and I can live anywhere. So that's the future that I'm really excited for.

[00:19:35] But there's a lot of steps in between, and so we're measuring twice, cutting once. And then what that also allows, that I'm pretty excited about, is that it means that individuals get to invest alongside these massive firms. Wander could just go and accept, uh, 200 million check from a big hedge fund, which obviously we will be raising institutional capital for Atlas, and the interest around that has been really incredible, but it was important to me that the community could own a piece of it as well to keep us responsible as a company, as we scale

[00:20:05] Jackson Steger: Yeah, that's really exciting. And future state you describe is, if done right, would be really meaningful. This word community gets tossed around a lot by a lot of different organizations, not just in this space, but every space these days it seems. Like, how do you engage a Wander community in this stage, and how do you build it towards this place where people can, what, like all those steps in between that you described? What are those in terms of community? 

[00:20:30] John Andrew Entwistle: Yeah. So, I have a relatively contrarian perspective on community. I, I think it's because, like I grew up as an internet kid.

[00:20:39] Like I was a part of all these different Skype groups and everything else, like playing different games and otherwise, and, but it never felt forced. It was like this group of people doing this thing. Basically, what you ended up really looking at was this group of people with a shared passion, who are all united through some type of common idea, some type of really life goal, right?

[00:21:02] Or whatever it may be. It's not like you can force that. A lot of companies just go and create Discord. and are like, bam, community. That's not how it works. You can't just throw a bunch of people into a Discord. or create a community Slack, and call it a day. In fact, like some of the strongest communities don't even have that infrastructure, which is the camp that I sit in, is like my thesis that community is a group of people who find an idea exciting, and if that idea is able to execute, if the company's able to execute on that idea, then what you end up creating is not just a community, but a little bit of a cult. And I think that's where things get really interesting and what you want to create from there is basically infrastructure that fosters that engagement, but not, and again, like a cringey way.

[00:21:52] So one thing we're adding with Wander is this idea of a guest book where people can talk to previous guests, say, hey, you should check out this little shop. It was absolutely amazing. Like, here are some photos, et cetera. And it's when you go and stay to Wander, you'll be able to go and read this guest book.

[00:22:08] And even though you've never met this person and you're not talking to them live, you feel this connection, and that connection is so much more real, again than 5,000 names in a Discord and X, Y, Z. And so, that's how I think about community is, have an idea that people are excited about, execute on it to form a little bit of cult, not in a bad way, like a good one, and then create some features within your product that allows for a human to human connection in a very safe and organic way.

[00:22:39] Jackson Steger: A refreshing take. Thanks for sharing. I wanna finish the Atlas conversation. On your website, you have this 8% targeted annual return. I've seen a few other much smaller scale real estate projects that kind of hover around 5%. And so, I'm curious, like how did you arrive at this 8% target annual return? Obviously, it's targeted.

[00:23:00] I'm sure you have all the disclaimer language in the world to help your investors know that you can't guarantee it necessarily, but it's an ambitious, but, albeit I would say maybe you, you perceive it as doable target. How did you get there?

[00:23:14] John Andrew Entwistle: Yeah, so, obviously for anyone looking at investing analysis, you should go through the PPM and all that sort of stuff.

[00:23:22] With that being said, that's based on our historical operating history, so that's not based on any type of like wishy washy, raise your hand in the air and see which way the wind is blowing. That's based off of our conservative base case from our historical operating, and actually, and again, review the disclosures, et cetera, we’ve overperformed that in in certain respects and that's, when you go through the process of forming a REIT and going through this process with our accountants and lawyers and otherwise. We're also not the only people who can make that justification. Everything has to go through our accountants and auditors and what we can say.

[00:24:03] Every single claim that you see with Atlas hasn't just been double checked by our own internal investment team, but it's literally reviewed with scrutiny from one of the big three accounting firms, which you can see their logo in the PPM, and they're basically verifications of everything and obviously also our lawyers as well.

[00:24:22] So, that 8% return, it is a really attractive investment, and candidly, that's one of the benefits of short-term rentals. You have a relatively stable underlying asset, which if you do the math on base occupancy rates, and then the ADR for these properties, it's an attractive return versus a long-term rental, which may be operating at, let's say 3, 4, 5% return a year.

[00:24:47] Short-term rentals are typically operating a little higher. Now, to be clear, I don't think that the short term rental industry as a whole is going to enjoy returns that high because, at the end of the day, you'll need to have an incredible asset. You can't have a bunch of cookie cutter homes in Arizona and expect it to perform well.

[00:25:07] You need handpicked, underwritten, high performing assets ran by a professional operator. So, in any event, yes, the return is definitely, I think, super attractive for investors and is extremely well backed up with our performance history to date. But obviously, like I implore any potential investor to go and read the PPM and talk to our head of capital markets and all that sort of good stuff.

[00:25:31] Jackson Steger: So, really appreciate your take on the community that you're building within Atlas and within Wander. If someone wants to learn more about Wander, about Atlas, where should we send them?

[00:25:41] John Andrew Entwistle: Yeah, so obviously like before any investment, you should go and talk with your financial advisor and all that sort of fun stuff.

[00:25:48] And if you go to wander.com/atlas, you can sign up, and as you go through that flow, you'll see all the different materials, the subscription agreement, the PPM, like all your investment questions, along with a Wander team member being there to answer any questions you may have or otherwise. That's what I recommend for those of you all who are interested, it is only available right now to accredited investors, but hopefully sometime towards the end of Q2 that'll change.

[00:26:15] Jackson Steger: John, thanks so much for coming on the show. Really appreciate it, and congrats on all the success you've had with Wander. 

[00:26:20] John Andrew Entwistle: Oh, thank you so much for having me. It's been a really, really enjoyable conversation.

END OF TRANSCRIPT

#30 Plumia: Enabling Global Mobility with Lauren Razavi

This week, Jackson is joined by Lauren Razavi, digital nomad and the Executive Director of Plumia. Jackson and Laura talk about what it means to be a digital no

https://podcasts.apple.com

#30 Plumia: Enabling Global Mobility with Lauren Razavi

Host Jackson Steger interviews leaders that are building new cities and other new models of living for digital nomads, creators and remote workers. Campfire is produced by Cabin, which is building a new kind of city for creators called a network city. Our community is developing a global coliving network of physical locations that we call neighborhoods.

https://simplecast.com

Transcript:

[00:00:00] Jackson Steger: Hey there, you're listening to Campfire, a podcast where we interview leaders that are building new cities and other new models of living for digital nomads, creators, and remote workers. My name is Jackson Steger, and I work with Cabin to develop new neighborhoods and grow a community of nature loving creators and builders.

[00:00:17] Today's episode is with Lauren Razavi, Executive Director at Plumia and author of the book Global Natives. Plumia is an umbrella project to increase the global mobility rights of people everywhere. Whether it's through the products they create, like a digital nomad visa, or co-designing policy with governments.

[00:00:33] Our conversation today attempts to answer the question, “what is a global native and how might we improve global mobility for digital nomads?” Campfire is produced by Cabin, which is building a new kind of city for creators called the Network City. Our community is developing a global coliving network of physical locations that we call neighborhoods.

[00:00:52] If you wanna live in those neighborhoods or create cool things near nature with other thoughtful people nearby, you can learn more about us by visiting cabin.city. Lauren Razavi, welcome to Campfire.

[00:01:04] Lauren Razavi: Hello. Thank you for having me.

[00:01:05] Jackson Steger: Really excited to talk to you for a number of reasons. The first and foremost of which just the title of your book, Global Natives, is a phrase that I've used my whole life, but until very recently, until Chance introduced us electronically, I never actually seen really others use at scale.

[00:01:26] So, love that that's a term that you've really embraced and would love to just get a sense of how you interpret it, how you define a global native, and how you would contextualize that within this growing digital nomad class that we're gonna talk about today.

[00:01:42] Lauren Razavi: Absolutely. So, Global Natives is the title of a book that I wrote coming out on Kindle in March, and essentially, I wanted to find a phrase that sort of didn’t just encapsulate the digital nomad movement that we have now: this first moment where people are kind of embracing the ability to move around the world and kind of work from anywhere, but actually looking a bit forward at the kind of cultural change that this represents. So, I think individuals these days have a very global identity, even if they're not nomadic. If they're a settler, they are still connecting globally through the internet.

[00:02:18] And I think a lot of people have heard this phrase, digital natives, which became quite popular in academia in the 2000s and the 2010s. And I wanted to move that along a little bit and think about how we can understand the differences in generations and people's relationship to globalization and to global living.

[00:02:37] Jackson Steger: Yeah. I really appreciate that. One of the questions that is asked almost anytime you meet someone new, especially when you're traveling a lot, is where are you from? And I'm curious how you answer that question and then we can maybe talk about the context of that question a little bit more.

[00:02:53] Lauren Razavi: Yeah, so I think I addressed that question quite confrontationally, so I get asked it a lot because I'm traveling around a lot, and I feel like it's quite a false question. Like people want to understand something of what your experience might be, which I think is where that question is really coming from.

[00:03:09] And it's almost never coming from like a negative place. But to be on the receiving end of it, when you live a very borderless life, when you have a very kind of global, international family, can feel a little bit like, ah, really? But I think a better question to ask comes from Taiye Selasi who has a fantastic Ted Talk, and she introduces this idea of stop asking people where they're from.

[00:03:32] Instead, ask them where they're local. And to be a local of a place is really to have rituals and relationships in a place. So, if you are a local of a few different cities, that you might have a sort of home where you are from, sort of connection with a few different places. And I think in today's world, that's probably a much better way of understanding people’s relationship with place.

[00:03:56] So for me personally, I would call myself a local of London, a place called Norwich in the UK, which is, um, a kind of a place of origin, a place where my family lives, a local of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, which is my home base. I'm also a local of Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. It's another favorite place, and I'd probably say I'm a local in New York as well.

[00:04:18] So I have these like relationships with these different places and really strong social connections there. They're the kinds of places where I can walk around and I already know where I'm going to get my coffee or where I want to go for dinner or drinks with a friend, and I have memories there.

[00:04:36] I have people that I've met and experiences that I've had, and I think to think about where you are local is a much more meaningful kind of way to assess your relationship with places in the world than to, to sort of think about where you're from. I'm never quite sure how to answer the question, where are you from?

[00:04:52] I usually go back to people and say, what do you mean by that? Do you mean where did I grow up? Do you mean which passport do I hold? Do you mean what is my parents' heritage? And often people don't know what they mean. They just want that sense of who you are and what your experiences might have been, where your perspective might be coming from.

[00:05:10] Jackson Steger: Yeah, I'm gonna steal that. Where are you local? I agree. That's a much better question. For context, my dad's a foreign service officer, so I, I grew up traveling every three years and didn't even live in my passport country until I was in college. So, it's always been a tricky one. I would say I'm local to Venice Beach to Durham, North Carolina, a little bit to New York and DC and to Lima, Peru. But anything before my high school era, even though I might have spent a lot of time there as a kid, I'm not going back to the degree that I think I could currently consider myself local. So, I like that framing. Of course, if I'll also, my answer to this question will also vary based on the context of the conversation. If I'm in just like a brief elevator or Uber ride and don't necessarily want to get into the nuances of global nativity, I might just give a throwaway answer like DC.

[00:06:02] Lauren Razavi: You see, I try not to do that. I try and force myself in the moment to really have the conversation because I'm a great believer in the idea that any kind of one conversation you're having with an Uber driver or whatever, it has the potential to change their frame of reference, to make them think a bit more deeply, and maybe think differently about how to ask the question and what they really want to know in the future. But I also relate. We're all busy people and you don't always want to get into the sort of like social-cultural implications of a very innocent, friendly question.

[00:06:32] Jackson Steger: Sure. And, it's not say that I don't think I could have a meaningful conversation with anyone.

[00:06:36] It's just oftentimes if you share the complex story behind one's locality, or origin story, it just might become this like conversation I've had a lot before and sometimes I'd rather just flip it on them, right, and learn, you know, what, where they're local to and what, where they're from. At Cabin, a lot of the people that we cater to are to digital nomads and to creating neighborhoods for folks who increasingly are going to cross pollinate our network of neighborhoods with culture and their experiences and bring a new location and stuff like that.

[00:07:13] But in kind of thinking about that, the scale of that opportunity and catering to like models of living for a new digital nomad class, it's interesting to try and quantify how big that opportunity might be, and I know you have some thoughts on this. So, two part question here: first is just what is a digital nomad?

[00:07:34] In this post, I’m not gonna call it post pandemic, I'll call it a post lockdown era, what is a digital nomad now that remote work has risen the way it has, and how many nomads are there out there, and how many will there be? I've seen throw away articles saying a billion digital nomads by year 2035, and that seems a little high to me, but it depends in part, I guess, on the definition.

[00:07:58] Lauren Razavi: So, a digital nomad, and this is actually a topic that plagued me during the writing of my book, as in needing to define digital nomads in a way that was meaningful but also not too restrictive to really understand this as a cultural movement and not just as segmenting a really small part of the world to a sort of temporary trend.

[00:08:19] And so, my definition of a digital nomad is a person who travels and remote works at the same time. And so that may well be somebody who has owns a property or has a long-term rental contract in one place, but they're spending three months of the year traveling around or even one month of the year traveling around.

[00:08:37] I think it's a common misunderstanding that digital nomads are all traveling constantly. A different location every week or every month. And actually, there are many people who are remote working and traveling at the same time, sort of returning to different places. So perhaps even coming back to what we've already spoken about. If you have a sort of local relationship with a few different places, you are probably over the course of a year, going to travel back to the same places that you've been to before, to catch up with friends, to see that place again, to revisit your connection to it. And I think a nomadism right now really does take different formats, and I think in five to ten years we almost definitely won't be using the term digital nomad because it will just become a lot more normal.

[00:09:21] Like it won't need a label to describe people living more borderless and global lives, moving from place to place. And I'm really excited for that because I think, in some respects, I'm an early adopter, global native as a person who comes from a big international family, who lived in different countries growing up, and it's really exciting to think about how the world is changing so that more people are able to forge relationships and have experiences across borders.

[00:09:48] The second part of your question, how many nomads are there? The prediction of 1 billion digital nomads by 2035 comes from Pieter Levels, who is the creator behind nomadlist.com: a fantastic resource for digital nomads, and he actually said that back in 2015, which is really wild if you think about it now.

[00:10:09] Cause obviously post pandemic, remote work is on the up, has really come to the mainstream. But back in 2015, it was just a bunch of, as millennial kids, like going around the world and experimenting with this lifestyle. I don't think the 1 billion by 2035 figure is out of this world. Particularly, if you use my definition of people who travel in remote work at the same time, but not necessarily in like a constant format.

[00:10:35] But I also think it really depends on the kind of policy and government landscape that we encounter and how much sort of business incentive there is to push forward and keep encouraging this demographic and this understanding of identity as something that crosses borders. There's not a lot of reliable data and information out there about the nomad population at the moment, and that's primarily because we don't measure stuff across borders as a world as much as we should.

[00:11:05] The most reliable data that's available is from an annual study called the State of Independence in America, and it looks at freelancing and the state of work across the US and it's been going for a lot of years. Since 2018, it's by an organization called MBO Partners, and since 2018, it's had a section in its sort of big survey about digital nomads and remote work, and according to their data, there are about 16 million people in America who currently identify as digital nomads, and that is up from, you'll have to check the figures, but I believe it's up from 10 million the prior year and around 7 million the year before that.

[00:11:46] Now, obviously the United States is not the entire world, but that's some really reliable data to show us that people are beginning to identify with this label and really beginning to embrace this nomadic way of living and the internet era that we find ourselves in. At SafetyWing, we are beginning to do some work to really try and give some more concrete numbers to digital nomads. So, our approach is to collaborate with organizations like the United Nations, the World Bank, countries, and their kind of data sets to try and see the landscape of information that's out there and give some definition to how we can better understand nomads. And that's, it's a very big challenge because as I said, like we're not really measuring stuff as a world as well as we might be across borders, but I think now is like the time for us to start doing that.

[00:12:33] And actually, nomads are a really useful lens to be able to understand like global changes that are happening in the world, particularly in terms of mobility, how people are moving around.

[00:12:44] Jackson Steger: Yes. So much in there that I want to unpack and including SafetyWing and Plumia, which we'll get to. I also wanna talk about the global mobility first, but before even the global mobility, I think this evolution of language around digital nomadism is really important.

[00:12:59] I imagine that as time proceeds, we’ll develop these micro classifications of digital nomads too. For example, I did like a sort of month to month digital nomadism for two years. And then have recently switched to what my roommates and I, who are also former nomads called digital slowmadism, where it's a series of four to 16 month stints where we have a home base, which for us is in Venice Beach, LA, but then still have the ability to go on three to eight week sends here and there.

[00:13:34] I'm curious: recognizing that there's a range from just finished college backpacker who is on a train every night, to the retiree going on a journey around the world, to the remote worker who's doing maybe a season at a time. What are the different models of living that you've seen as a nomad yourself that you feel bullish on in terms of something that will rise?

[00:14:02] An example might be a Selena of the world or Cabin, ourselves, that's how we increasingly try to position ourselves. But what works for different kinds of digital nomads within that broader umbrella?

[00:14:15] Lauren Razavi: I think it's a little bit tough to generalize for exactly this reason that nomadism is actually quite a diverse movement, and I think that it's really a case if you were talking about any kind of large group of people, I think there aren't like straightforward questions to how people live because everybody is different; everybody has different preferences. I've certainly encountered a lot of folks at the beginning of their nomadic journey, and I do think this kind of very fast paced travel tends to be where people start because once the Pandora's box of travel is open, you're a bit like, “oh my goodness: I can see the whole world. And actually, if I do it one week at a time, I could cover the whole world quite quickly.” But in reality, for most people, that becomes very tiring, very, very quickly.

[00:14:57] And actually, travel starts to become less rewarding because if you're completely switched on all the time, going from place to place, having to be alert, having to learn new, alongside working part-time or full-time, that becomes really intense and really draining. And I think that a lot of us need cave time is what I call it.

[00:15:17] So just to be like somewhere and actually not be switched on and going around and seeing stuff and meeting new people. But actually having time where you can be in your pajamas until midday and you can be cooking for yourself inside and not really thinking about where you are. So, I think it's different pace at different times.

[00:15:35] Long term, I do see a lot of people returning to the same destinations every year. So rather than it being a case of fast paced travel to lots of new places all the time, it's more, you look at your year and you go, “okay, between the months of April and September, the weather is good in Europe. Europe is a great place to be, so I'm gonna do all of my kind of European travel and enjoy the summer in that part of the world.

[00:16:00] Maybe go over to North America and visit some places there as well. And then for the other part of the year, I'm gonna go to my favorite places in Southeast Asia or Latin America.” And you see a lot of people really establishing that pattern. I think of it like birds migrating as the weather changes, you're moving around the world and yeah, going back to the same places that that you really like.

[00:16:22] I think to touch on, I guess the kind of living or housing component of this, which I'm really fascinated by. Back in, I think it was in 2020, I wrote a piece, which is still online somewhere, so maybe you can find it for the show notes, but about the concept of subscription living. And this is basically the idea that in future we will pay a subscription to a brand for access to space in many different locations around the world.

[00:16:49] And often, it's like consistent space as in the same kind of design of room or apartment around the world. That we will pay for that as a subscription and get flexibility and the ability to live in different places around the world, rather than paying a monthly or annual subscription, as it were to a landlord in a single location.

[00:17:09] And I really believe that this is gonna be a big part of the future, and that it's gonna be something that really takes a lot of the stress out of the digital nomad lifestyle and enables more people to do it. I think we're at a time right now where there is so much work to be done to create the infrastructure and create the systems and opportunities for people to really embrace remote work and be able to travel, but not travel in a way that is tiring and inconvenient but is instead a facilitated travel by ambitious brands that are trying to pave the way for people to live really quite differently.

[00:17:43] I mean, the, the whole term nomadism, obviously it has its roots in a history of nomads literally walking around the world, and I think it's bringing that into the 21st century. Like we might travel and move differently, but fundamentally it's about facilitating that movement.

[00:17:59] Jackson Steger: Yeah. And my next question will be about movement, but very briefly before that. What do you do in your personal life? You mentioned all these different places that you feel local to. How are you personally thinking about your home base as just maybe a nomad or in someone newer to the nomads space? Listening to this can hear how you approach it and in lieu of those subscription living options becoming fully mature and available, find something to hold them over.

[00:18:29] Lauren Razavi: Yeah. At the moment, post lockdown era, I am going through a phase of pretty much ongoing travel. So, I'm spending at about a month in a different location and just moving around. But I guess there's two parts to this question. One is, I suppose my sense of home base and what I've done and what I plan to do.

[00:18:48] So I'll dig into. So, during the lockdowns, during the height of the pandemic, I actually moved into a hotel full-time in Amsterdam. So, there's a fantastic apartment hotel called Zoku, and they have locations in a few different European cities. But I essentially moved in there full-time as a guinea pig for subscription living. So, this idea of paying for monthly fee for access to the accommodation, and actually Zoku is great in the sense it has a coworking space on site and it was very quiet during the pandemic. So, I've had a coworking space and a micro apartment to myself, and for me, Amsterdam is like the spiritual home.

[00:19:23] It's a really amazing place, a place where I feel very at peace and able to do my best work, a place that sort of has this really amazing mix of the things that I'm looking for in a place. It was a lot of fun to live and be a full-time hotel guest during the pandemic, but after essentially a couple of years spent mainly in Amsterdam with a few trips by train around the EU, I was really ready to get back out onto the road and make up for lost time. So yeah, you catch me in a period of kind of ongoing travel at the moment, but later this year I'm intending to properly home base in Amsterdam. So, I'm gonna buy a property there and make the commitment to always be returning there and spending probably about six months of my year in Amsterdam and, and I turned 30 last year. And I feel 30 is an age at which you'd go “Ok. I've done a decade of full adult living. What am I gonna do with the next decade of my life?” And I think for me, it's important to put down a root somewhere because it is tiring to only have a suitcase full of stuff.

[00:20:26] It is nice to be able to buy a couple of extra outfits or buy print books and not have to abandon them along the way. So, I'm quite looking forward to having this home base: this place for my books, my clothes to live while I'm traveling, and also to have that place to come back to what I was saying before, to just have cave time, as in to not be thinking about where I wanna go and what I wanna do, and having all this stimulation and new experiences, but instead just feeling extremely like relaxed and chilled out.

[00:20:54] I would definitely, if Zoku or another brand came out with a, a big kind of global annual subscription, I think that's something that I would try and stack on top of a home base. But I suppose I'm taking a little bit more of a traditional route and, and I’m going for it in terms of establishing a home base for myself now.

[00:21:12] Jackson Steger: For folks who are listening only, you should see how big Lauren smiles when she talks about getting to establish that Amsterdam home base. I'm excited for you, and I'm sure that would be great. I’ll also be in Amsterdam for six weeks later this year too.

[00:21:25] Lauren Razavi: Wow. I'll show you around. Awesome.

[00:21:27] Jackson Steger: Awesome. That’d be great. I've never been, but one of my best friends is Dutch, and this is gonna host me, so I'm excited for all the sort of walkable and bikeable aspects of the city that are key to, I think a lot of mod-, or new urbanism inspiration and initiatives. Migrating now to managing global mobility, and this will work us towards SafetyWing and Plumia as well.

[00:21:50] I wrote an article recently, it was called The Past, Present, and Future of Passports, and I know that you've also written about the history of passports. So I wanna start there. When I was pink, much, you wrote a whole book, I had this more shallow approach, but I had two sort of conclusions about the core function of passports.

[00:22:09] They are meant to grant permission to travel and to confer status. So, I'm curious, how would you add to that list, and then how would you further contextualize passports as it relates to one's ability to be globally mobile?

[00:22:26] Lauren Razavi: Yeah, so I think passports are a really interesting thing. I'll start with a personal story, which is that my father is a refugee from Iran to the UK.

[00:22:34] And so, from a very young age growing up, I remember him taking my British passport like this and going, “do you know how lucky you are to have this? Do you know how different your life would be if you had a Persian passport instead?” And I think that was like very influential to me in terms of realizing my own kind of, passport privilege, and how much of the world is really organized by the kind of coincidence of your birthplace.

[00:22:57] So from the second that you're born, your kind of opportunities are really restricted by the circumstances under which you've come into the world, and you can't do anything about that. It's a fundamental inequality in the world, and I think that it's a lag in the system that we find ourselves there, but in a world of remote work, it really becomes completely unacceptable as the status quo. Where you were born should not impact whether you can access global work opportunities, but that's the world we live in today.

[00:23:26] Even though somebody with an internet connection can do a job from wherever they are. I think passports are a really interesting symbol of the global system that we find ourselves in, of how borders work, of kind of fundamental inequalities from the past, just being brought along into the time that we live in now.

[00:23:45] It is an interesting distinction to maybe explore a little bit between passports and visas. And I think this is something that only geeks like me who've really dug into it understand. But a passport is fundamentally about identity verification, and when you're trying to cross a border, the border agent knowing where to send you back, if they don't like the look of you. That's like fundamentally the kind of passport part around identity verification.

[00:24:09] Whereas visas are the part that's a bit more. The permission to do things in a particular country, within particular borders. And so, uh, when I was digging into the history of passports and visas, it's all quite conflated so, back in the times of Genghis Khan, actually, the thing that in the world today we look at and say, oh, that was one of the world's first passports, from the kind of Genghis Khan era, was actually more like a visa because it wasn't about verifying your identity as such.

[00:24:39] It was more about granting you permission, and actually hospitality on top of permission. So as in you'd have people who would feed you and give you lodging as you traveled around the world if you had one of these kind of early visa iterations. So, I think that's quite interesting. These days, we still have both passports and visas.

[00:24:57] I think that there's a lot more flexibility, there's a lot more opportunity around visas right now, and that those are one of the most fundamental ways that we can start to unpick and sort of unravel this weird global system that we have that doesn't really represent what it is to live in the world today.

[00:25:14] And I think there's a really big opportunity there for innovation, which we can get into a little bit more with the work I'm doing at SafetyWing, but I think passports are, is something, there's a technical challenge there in terms of how do we verify people's identity, if not through this system. But there's also this kind of status thing of like passport privilege of like where you come from, which is not really something that I see as being super relevant in the future.

[00:25:41] But I can also see that we need these ways of managing people’s, movement around the world. So, there's still this sort of a validity there, but I think right now the challenge is to try to unpick the important points of things like passports and visas, and then begin to think about it a little bit more.

[00:25:58] If we were designing this stuff from the ground up, what would be the most important thing, and what do people actually want to be able to do? There's like this intersection that I think is quite interesting between travel and kind of diplomatic relations if you'd like. So, it's like you have borders organized primarily around countries and diplomatic relations, but then you have travelers these days bringing quite a consumer lens to things.

[00:26:22] So it's like they want to be able to move quickly through airports. They want to be able to not be encumbered by these diplomatic relations on the ground. This is an area I could talk about for hours. I'm gonna pause there, but I’m happy to dig more into anything that I've just said or anything more you wanna talk about.

[00:26:38] Jackson Steger: Yeah, let's do it in the context of SafetyWing and and Plumia. So, for the audience, I'll have recorded an intro prior to them hearing our full conversation, so they'll have context on your role. For them, could you please explain what is SafetyWing and what is Plumia, if I'm saying that right?

[00:26:55] Lauren Razavi: You are indeed.

[00:26:56] SafetyWing is a company on a mission to build a global social safety net. So, stuff that you would normally access through a country, through a nation state, such as health insurance, income protection, and pensions. We are building that at the global level as a subscription service. My part of the company is called Plumia, and Plumia is a kind of global mobility portion of that mission.

[00:27:21] So I'm working on visas and visa kind of products with the view of creating a next generation global passport within 10 years available to anybody in the world, regardless of birthplace. And really what we're trying to do is on the kind of 10-year horizon, we're trying to create citizenship as a service. So rather than being stuck with the citizenship that you were born with or having to be incredibly rich to buy a second passport to access more global mobility rights, we are trying to create a system by which people can opt in.

[00:27:57] And then be able to access the services of citizenship without being restricted by these arbitrary measures of where they were born, et cetera. And I'll go just a little bit into the kind of big project that we're working on at Plumia right now, which is a product called the Nomad Border Pass. Nomad Border Pass is due to launch in 2025, and it will essentially allow people to spend 90 days per visit in at least 10 countries when we launch, and they'll be able to remote work, it'll have legitimate status to do that, and then the permit itself will be renewed every five years.

[00:28:36] So you can understand it as like a multi-country visa. And our goal is really to move from 10 countries at launch to as many countries as possible, being part of our kind of system and program over the next 10 years. And essentially, all of this work that we're doing around global mobility, around global social safety net, comes together into our grander vision of essentially building a country on the internet for digital nomads.

[00:29:01] So, we are very much oriented and part of the network state movement, which I know your listeners are already gonna be a little bit familiar with.

[00:29:08] Jackson Steger: Absolutely. That's so exciting. I remember, I think it was in 2019, I was on a train from Philadelphia to DC, and I started journaling about this exact idea. Oh, what if there was a pass that like anyone could get to, to let them go anywhere.

[00:29:21] But where I faltered was, was on the execution of uncertainty about what the first step would be. So, I have a two-parter here, which is one, if you're able to share which countries those are, I would be curious to know. But even if you're not, like how are you going about choosing those countries and then how are you having conversations with them that help alleviate concerns they may have around this, given that there's new concepts historically for humanity? Yeah. How have those conversations gone? What are they concerned about and Yeah, that's the extent of the question.

[00:29:54] Lauren Razavi: Okay, fantastic. So, I'm not in a position where I can talk about the specific countries at the moment, but I can get, give context of our general approach for sure.

[00:30:04] As I said, in an ideal world, in 10 years time, almost every country on Earth would be part of the kind of program would be allowing digital nomads, remote workers to spend time within the criteria that we set up with them. But essentially, when I came on board at SafetyWing, the Plumia project, the Plumia mission was very embryonic.

[00:30:24] So there was a lot of enthusiasm around it. There'd been a public launch. We had a lot of people on an email list interested in being part of this movement towards an internet country for digital nomads, but we didn't really know what to do with all of that energy. So, it was my job to feel my way around in the dark and figure out what would be a useful thing to do.

[00:30:43] That's really where the Nomad Border Pass concept has come from. And actually, the concept comes from a lot of the conversations that I've had with policy makers and government officials from around the world. So, one of the things that I did when I came into my job is just start to have conversations with interesting people who could potentially be cheerleaders for digital nomads, for countries embracing the nomad opportunity around the world.

[00:31:08] And it was really from a series of conversations over three to six months that I realized this was the most useful thing that we could do: was to give shape to a product that really emphasizes flexibility and mobility, which is what digital nomads are really looking for. This was all happening, so I started my job with SafetyWing in December 2021.

[00:31:31] These conversations were happening in the context of the world's first digital nomad visas having launched in 2020 and 2021. I think we're at the point now where it's more than 60 countries in the world have a digital nomad visa program. One of the big issues with these policies though these programs, is that they were quite rushed in the context of the pandemic.

[00:31:52] It was a lot of, “okay, we've lost all of our tourists, so what do we do now? How can we attract people in? How can we save our ailing local economy?” That it was very tourism dependent when tourists are just not really a thing during these lockdowns. And yeah, that's the context of the policies that launched. I think for that reason, there has not been a lot of conversation, or at least in the initial stages, there's not a lot of conversations going on between governments and nomads.

[00:32:17] So, you had governments feeling their own way around in the dark to try and figure out how to attract these people. One of the primary issues with nomad visas is that they're quite long-term commitments. So, a nomad visa tends to be a minimum of six months, but more often 12 months, usually with an option to renew or extend for up to another year.

[00:32:38] So, you're looking to attract people for somewhere between six and 24 months. Now, most digital nomads, if they've never visited a location before, are not actually very interested in making that kind of long-term commitment upfront. They want to come for a few months, experience the place, see how they feel about it, and then maybe come back the next year.

[00:33:01] It's not so much about settling down, moving all of your stuff, being an expat in the sense of really committing for a long time, and so that's really where I saw the space for the Nomad Border Pass was to facilitate these sort of shorter term interactions with countries so that nomads can then, if they like a place, make that firmer commitment and then stay for longer, and governments have been very receptive to that.

[00:33:27] Say, pretty much every country that I've spoken to has been, how do we sign up for this? Which is why at the moment actually we're not so much in outreach mode as we are in building mode. So, the MVP of the Nomad Border Path, this is exclusive to this podcast, I'm revealing that, is actually gonna be complete by the end of this quarter.

[00:33:45] And then we're gonna be moving forward with some countries as beta testers to test the program and iron out any creases. But yeah, that's the context of what we're developing and why: really trying to focus on nomad end users and really design something that works for them, but also really helps countries benefit from nomads.

[00:34:06] Because nomads bring a lot of local spend to a place. They also bring connections to the global stage, to other countries, often to global remote work opportunities in tech and the knowledge economy that otherwise local people in different areas may not have access to. So, there's quite a lot for countries to benefit from, but that relationship really needs some design and some attention so that everybody can win: the governments, the nomads, and the host communities.

[00:34:32] Jackson Steger: I love that. You mentioned the global mobility, the passport piece for that, when I would say that for nomads and global natives, that mobility is a big friction point. I can think of from my own experience. Two other major friction points, and those are taxes and healthcare.

[00:34:48] How should nomads think about getting their health insurance? From my experience, I use this organization called Opolis. I'm paid right now almost exclusively on chain in USDC. I work with this organization called Opolis that negotiates on my behalf to get me insurance. I basically hire Opolis as my payroll company for while I'm in the US and then I have health insurance through that collective. But that doesn't apply for when I wanna leave the country.

[00:35:19] What options are there for digital nomads who maybe work out of one country, but travel everywhere?

[00:35:27] Lauren Razavi: Yeah. So maybe I'll just start by saying the kind of conventional way of thinking about healthcare, of trying to interact with the systems that exist today would be registering for a different healthcare program on the ground in every place that you visit.

[00:35:44] So say you're doing 12 places in 12 months, you would be going around and you have to interact with 12 different bureaucracies probably in a language that you don't understand. And it's a lot of paperwork. It's a headache. Actually, if people had to do that like you, I think most people would either go uninsured, or they actually might not travel at all in the first place.

[00:36:05] I personally have a long-term health condition. When I first started traveling, this was a huge concern and consideration because I need prescription medications. And so okay, do I have to return to like my home country for that or how am I gonna handle this? So, I think the landscape is quite messy.

[00:36:20] There are also a lot of global private health insurance programs which kind of work in the sense that you can get a global package at great expense, but often they have a lot of restrictions in terms of you having to be based in one country or return to your sort of home country or country of origin should something go wrong.

[00:36:40] And it's the same with travel insurance. So, travel insurance really requires you to have a connection to one place and to go back to that place and we will helicopter you back home if you break your leg or whatever, but actually you have to have a home to go back to. So that's how the healthcare system is working at the moment.

[00:36:56] But luckily, we at SafetyWing, have a product called Remote Health which essentially solves this problem. And so, nomads are our primary target audience. We also have expats and remote workers who perhaps have connections in different countries, and they are also our customers. But essentially, what our health insurance does is makes it so that you can, paying a global subscription on very easy to understand terms of what is and isn't covered, how things work, and then access local healthcare on the ground wherever you are. So, for me, with a long-term health condition, I'm able to pick up my prescription in whichever country I'm in. Sometimes there's a little bit of nuance in terms of accessing at that local point.

[00:37:38] Like on the ground, you might have to register in a particular way. You might have to pay an administration fee to get onto the books, but from there you're kind of free to collect what you need. And so yeah, the remote health insurance that we offer is available at the company level. So, a lot of our clients, a lot of our customers are actually technology companies or other forms of companies that get that insurance for their whole teams, uh, right throughout the world.

[00:38:06] And then we also have an individual option. So, an individual nomad planning a trip can take out that health insurance themselves and know that they are fully covered. And so, this is the first kind of truly global health insurance that is borderless and portable, and we're able to essentially solve that problem for nomads: just clear up the landscape a bit.

[00:38:26] I think it's interesting because this is what we're trying to do in global mobility and what we were trying to do in other areas as well is really just creating something new from what is there that is relevant in the context of what people need today rather than going “here's what exists. Let's try and make the square peg fit in a round hole, as it were.”

[00:38:44] Jackson Steger: That's so interesting and congrats on all of you for making that program exist. I wanna talk about taxes a little bit too, just cuz that's the other thing I've found tricky. I have a few thoughts. I think it's unrealistic for, let's just imagine American citizen for this example.

[00:39:01] I think it's unrealistic for both the citizen themselves who maybe work for a private company. Travels in a year to seven countries and 14 states, it's unrealistic to expect both them and the IRS to basically track all of the taxes that they should pay technically for like their two and a half weeks in Virginia versus their four weeks in Puerto Escondido versus their five weeks in Spain.

[00:39:30] I'm curious, what is a fair tax policy for nomads that makes sure that they're not coming into a space and just totally taking advantage of commonly funded resources without actually putting a penny in themselves. But at the same time, if that there's just some convenience to the model and they feel as though they aren't being like nickled and dimed.

[00:39:54] I could imagine, for example, if you kept it to the US only. You would, instead of paying federal and state income taxes, pay your federal taxes and then like a, a flat nomad tax that funds common infrastructure like airports or other things that maybe like a nomad class uses, but that still is only keeping one country in mind.

[00:40:16] How do you think about taxes at Plumia and at SafetyWing?

[00:40:20] Lauren Razavi: Okay. It's big, fantastic, meaty area for us to get into this one. I'll start by just talking about, I think it's important to make a distinction with taxes, right? You have national taxes, which is your income taxes and such. I'm calling them national taxes, but we're not necessarily gonna focus on the national bit in what I'm about to say.

[00:40:38] But you'd have this larger kind of tax, the main one being income tax, and then you have all this kind of tax infrastructure that's a lot more municipal taxes, so stuff on the ground that's happening. The way I like to think about this, and I like to take quite a future lens on it because the whole landscape is very messy today and is not really kept up with the state of the internet in general.

[00:40:58] But I like to think about it on two levels. So, global level, local level. I think at the global level we're gonna see taxation become more and more like a transaction fee. So, if you think about it, if you and I want to transact in some way right now, I need to send you some money, you're gonna provide me with some services.

[00:41:19] Essentially, it's a very competitive landscape out there in terms of which jurisdiction might be most beneficial for us to be used for that transaction. Some places are gonna make us charge VAT, sort of sales taxes on a transaction. Some are gonna make us register to a very complex system and then do filings for the next three years because we did a transaction and some of them are gonna ask us for just about nothing at all: maybe a tiny fraction, almost like a Stripe fee, 3% transaction fee sort of thing. And I think we're gonna see more and more people really embracing this competitive landscape and being like, which jurisdiction do I want to transact through? So where do I want to file my taxes? You see this a lot already.

[00:42:01] The ultra wealthy have been doing it for many years, as in like choosing a jurisdiction and benefiting from these sort of inequalities or across the global tax system. I think we'll see much, much more of that and we will see taxes come down more to a level of being like transaction fees than being huge portion of income and a huge kind of restriction and something that people don't change. And I think that's quite exciting because I think we should have nation states competing with one another to attract people. I think that it's very easy in the world today to forget that people have the ability to exit a country that is not serving them well.

[00:42:39] And I think that's gonna be a big part of the future. That's the kind of global aspect: the local aspect. The on the ground services is a very different portion, so at the moment, hospitals, schools, et cetera: these are not necessarily or funded by your kind of income taxes, your kind of national taxes. Often, there are taxes on a much more local level that go directly to those things, like trash collection and such as, like all of these kinds of packages of local services.

[00:43:07] And those kind of on the ground services, I think that's where there's the potential to really widen inequality gaps between host communities and digital nomads because as you say: people can come in and use a place and not really contribute to it. I think that's a really big problem at SafetyWing, and it's one that we want to solve and build into to everything that we're doing, a kind of awareness of that.

[00:43:29] And so the way that we see it is that we're the global layer on top of the local layer. So, we wanna make it very easy for you to, for example, have that health insurance product at the global level as a subscription, but we're not building hospitals and so we want to really support the kind of people that are building the hospitals and make sure that there's some equity in that system that people who are using stuff are essentially paying into it.

[00:43:54] And one of the ways that we see to do that is to introduce nomad taxes, and we want that to be part of the Nomad Border Pass. One of the kind of easiest ways to think about this is in many places around the world, including my home-based destination of Amsterdam, you as a visitor are charged a nightly tourist tax.

[00:44:13] So on top of your accommodation, you will also be paying a small percentage or a per night fee that goes to the municipality, that goes to the local area to help fund stuff that you are gonna be using while you're there. We propose that nomads should contribute in the same way that actually this is an area that is right for the taking: where Nomads do owe something to the communities where they're spending time.

[00:44:37] The communities need investment, and the governments need to be managing the relationship between nomads and host communities. And so yeah, we see that playing a role in the future. I think one of the surprising things from my perspective, and not necessarily surprising because I disagree, I certainly feel like I want to contribute something financially to the places that I go.

[00:44:59] But I've done a lot of user interviews with digital nomads, and this is a really widely held desire. Nomads wanna pay taxes. That it's like at the moment you are really stuck with these kind of like existing systems. Whereas if you actually want to do that, you need to register with the tax system. You need to do a registration.

[00:45:20] It's a lot of paperwork. It's a lot of headache. My kind of vision for the future of this is actually sort of subway transport card. You want to be able to arrive in a location, check in as it were, and then have everything tracked in terms of like how long you're spending there, the level of contribution that you're gonna make, and for it to be as easy as tap in, tap out.

[00:45:40] And so, yeah, I don't have the detail on how we'll make that a reality yet, but that's my take on the tax question. I think it's super, super important to basically design these new ways of doing things and to not assume that everything should work as governments currently work. Because I think if we look at technology and the technology industry, there are so many better systems going on that we can copy, paste and remix for this area.

[00:46:05] Jackson Steger: Well, I wish you all the luck in building that kind of infrastructure. I'm sure it would be extremely useful to so many people and sovereign nations and network states: all the tools you're building the full stack, health insurance, and mobility, and tax infrastructure, conferring permission to travel, and maybe even helping these global natives have local homes is really inspiring and important work and wish you all the best with it.

[00:46:40] If someone listens to this episode and they want to learn more about any of the things that you've talked about today, where should we direct them?

[00:46:47] Lauren Razavi: I have many links to share. I'm personally on Twitter, and I also have a newsletter which is covering the space of borderless living, global mobility, network states.

[00:46:57] You can find me, Lauren Razavi, @LaurenRazavi on Twitter, and you can find my newsletter at lraz.io/newsletter. And then on the Plumia front, we are at Plumia.org. You can sign up for our newsletter there. We also have cohorts running in 2023, so it's an opportunity to engage a bit more with some of the ideas that I've been talking about today and get involved in building out some projects to tribute to the development of this ecosystem and this space.

[00:47:27] So yeah, if you sign up for the email list there, you'll be able to get access and get up to speed on all of that. And of course, SafetyWing is safetywing.com, and you can find out more about our health insurance products, and later the Nomad Border Pass, via our website.

[00:47:42] Jackson Steger: Awesome. And I can personally vouch for the cohort that Lauren just mentioned: we’re a week and a half into this particular rendition and it's been great and very value add so far, and I've met a lot of really interesting folks. Thanks so much, Lauren. Really appreciate you coming on.

[00:47:55] Lauren Razavi: Thank you. Bye.

END OF TRANSCRIPT

Apps for the April Creator in Residence are due February 15th. Tell us about a creative project you want to work on for a month on 28 acres of rolling hills at a cabin in the Texas Hill Country. It can be whatever passion project you’d like. To apply, you can upload a video to Instagram or write a thread on Twitter (just like our March applicants did below).

March Finalists:

Please click on the threads or video submissions to see the full application and then vote on Spanshot!

@rosaliesongs applied on Twitter:

Rosalie

@rosaliesongs

Hi @creatorcabins! My name is Rosalie. I'm a singer, songwriter & producer who makes deep pop music. Deep pop combines pop music with singer-songwriter lyrics, electronic soundscapes & the Nashville craft of songwriting. I'm applying for the Creator Residency cohort in March

42

7:36 PM • Jan 13, 2023

Tyler Coolidge applied on Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CnaVw9YjFQn/?igshid=YWJhMjlhZTc=

@rudimedved1 applied on Twitter:

rudibear.eth

@rudimedved1

Applying for the new Creator Residency by @creatorcabins

My goal for the residency: work on developing a model for digital nomads to give back to the visiting communities

Read on

11

3:35 PM • Jan 18, 2023

@jmack_ent applied on Twitter:

J. Mack Ent.

@jmack_ent

Heya @creatorcabins J. Mack Ent. Here! I'm a multidimensional artist with music as my medium at the intersection of technology, spirituality, and mental health.

I am ecstatic to have the opportunity to apply for the upcoming Creator Residency Cohort!

18

8:48 PM • Jan 23, 2023

@DarrnellBradley applied on Twitter:

Darrnell Bradley

@DarrnellBradley

hey @creatorcabins Im a nerdcore artist / reactor. I make music about "nerdy" topics: anime, comics, etc. I find this opportunity to be very interesting and that is why I'm applying for the upcoming creator residency program.

11

6:01 PM • Jan 23, 2023

@jackbrickle applied on Twitter:

Jack Brickle, O.S.

@JackBrickle

Oi @creatorcabins MostlyZach here. I am a writer, filmmaker, and producer (founder of Maryland's #Fringe Festival). My work centers around the journey adults with #adhd face. #creatorcabins

1

1:50 PM • Jan 24, 2023

Carlen Altman applied on Instagram:

EDIT: Carlen applied via Instagram but has asked us to instead consider her for April instead of March, so save your votes!

https://www.instagram.com/p/Cn02gDmuq-H/?igshid=YWJhMjlhZTc%3D

#29 Spectra: The City That Builds Cities with Ryan Rzepecki

Host Jackson Steger interviews leaders that are building new cities and other new models of living for digital nomads, creators and remote workers. Campfire is produced by Cabin, which is building a new kind of city for creators called a network city. Our community is developing a global coliving network of physical locations that we call neighborhoods.

https://simplecast.com

#29 Spectra: The City That Builds Cities with Ryan Rzepecki

On this episode of Campfire, Jackson is joined by Ryan Rzepecki, the Founder and CEO of Spectra Cities. Spectra helps placemakers design and model virtual citie

https://podcasts.apple.com

Transcript:

[00:00:00] Jackson Steger: Hey there, you're listening to Campfire, a podcast where we interview leaders that are building new cities and other new models of living for digital nomads, creators, and remote work. My name is Jackson Steger, and I work with Cabin to develop new neighborhoods and grow a community of nature-loving creators and builders.

[00:00:18] Today's interview features Ryan Rzepecki, Founder and CEO of Spectra Cities, and former founder and CEO of JUMP Bikes: a bike share startup that sold to Uber in 2018. Spectra Cities just launched last week. It's a virtual city that builds real cities. Architects, engineers, urban designers, and more all collaborate in a virtual environment to design new cities using VR and other awesome technology.

[00:00:43] Our conversation today attends to answer the question, how do you cooperatively design and improve new cities before you build them? Campfire is produced by Cabin, which is building a new kind of city for creators called a network city. Our community is developing a global co-living network of physical locations that we call neighborhoods.

[00:01:00] If you wanna create cool things or live near nature with other thoughtful people nearby, you can learn more about us by visiting cabin.city. Ryan Rzepecki, welcome to Campfire.

[00:01:12] Ryan Rzepecki: Thanks for having me. This is great.

[00:01:14] Jackson Steger: Congrats on the launch of Spectra. We're gonna talk about Spectra. We're gonna talk about jump bikes and all kinds of fun stuff later in the show.

[00:01:23] But first, I just want to lean on your broader urban planning background. How have cities been planned for historically, and based on all the experiences that you've had, how should cities be planned?

[00:01:37] Ryan Rzepecki: Yeah. I'd say by and large cities haven't been very much planned in history and they're these sort of organic conglomerations of people and jobs, and they kind of grow iteratively over time.

[00:01:49] There have been a few big attempts at more top-down city planning. Occasionally, a country will move like its capital city to a different part of the country to kind of activate it. So something like Brasília or maybe you'll have a large company building a company town, or you also have things like the New York City Street Grid, uh, being put into place, which isn't like a complete city plan in terms of, we don't think of that as a, a startup city in the same way that we would think of Brasília, but it enabled the type of growth that followed. So yeah, by and large, around organic growth. And then maybe planning a street grid in, in the last 70 years or 80 years, or actually now it's closer to a hundred years, in the United States and many other places they've adopted Euclidian zoning, which is very descriptive in terms of what you can build and where. It's not even necessarily a programming every block, but it really restricts what can be built, and I'd say for the most part, has a negative effect on how things are built. Uh, what we're trying to do is allow for that sort of organic evolution of a city or of a concept for a city to happen, but to do that digitally.

[00:02:49] And so to find a large community of people that want to play around with urban design, with what the city for the future would look like, how would we organize transportation, how do we do food production? How do we manage waste? How do we do all those things and use virtual reality, and use virtual spaces to, to test these ideas, uh, get excited by certain different directions, then find a piece of land, and go out and build that in phases.

[00:03:12] And so, the idea is can you get that sort of organic evolution that you have in real cities? Have some of that take place digitally and have a community form around that digitally. Then find the land and then when you actually go to build, you're able to build a lot faster and some of the ideas have been tested along the way.

[00:03:26] Jackson Steger: Awesome. Yeah, that's a great segue. I would love for you to just share what is Spectra and who's it for?

[00:03:31] Ryan Rzepecki: Yeah so, our initial launch is focused for folks that may be urban planners, architects, civil engineers, interior designers, landscape architects, folks that are placemakers, and then people that are world builders, like virtual world builders.

[00:03:46] So people that have experience with the Unity game engine, people that do 3D asset modeling, people that are creating games. And so we wanna sit at the intersection of those two groups in two communities, the physical placemakers and the virtual world builders, and give them a shared set of tools. Give them an open source library of assets, and see what type of experimentation happens. We've released our V1 concepts, uh, and all of the assets that make it up as a, under a Creative Commons license, so you can actually download it, do with it what you like, and then hopefully some amount of that gets fed back into the project, and we continue to build out the virtual world.

[00:04:20] Jackson Steger: Yeah. Can you elaborate on that piece a little bit? It was unclear to me. I'm not super familiar with open-source model as a concept. Is there a strong revenue model in place for Spectra? Does there need to be? Like is the goal to make money or is that secondary?

[00:04:35] Ryan Rzepecki: So, the 20 or 30 year goal is to build an actual physical city of at least a million people.

[00:04:40] So it's, it's a real large city that would grow out of this community. And along the way to that, there's lots of different ways to monetize and to create value. Certainly just on taking raw land and turning it into a thriving city, there's a lot of value that's created there. I see there being projects along the way that each have their kind of own ownership structure and management.

[00:04:59] For example, we have a farm here in Puerto Rico, an 80 acre farm that I want to develop as part of Spectra and test some ideas around the types of buildings we wanna put on there. Maybe we have a cooperatively run agricultural component. So, test some of the governance ideas, test some of the physical placemaking ideas on a very small scale.

[00:05:17] I think there, there could be much bigger projects, neighborhood scale projects, more tourism focused projects. There could be a variety of projects that would want to tap into this community to test ideas, and if we've grown to a certain scale, could be a distribution outlet as well to find people that are interested in our projects.

[00:05:32] Is Spectra itself kind of the network, uh, something that makes money directly? I think maybe in time. I think there's also probably, there's probably a crypto angle on that as well, but I think the first thing is to actually build a community and build a community that's actually interested in place making and interested in building cities.

[00:05:48] And then we can layer on those economic incentives later and figure out the right governance model. We've sort of outlined in the white paper a multi-layered governance structure where each block has its governance: it's a cooperative or something like a kibbutz, which is communal living idea. And then that kind of ladders up and stacks up to a city level government.

[00:06:06] So I think we're gonna run a lot of experiments on governance and there's also a lot of economic experimentation that can happen as well. So yeah, I think there'll be a time and place for Spectra to accrue value itself at the network level. But well before that, I think there's specific projects that will have a more directly investible and a more directly monetizable path.

[00:06:24] Jackson Steger: Sure. Yeah. I appreciate that context. I'm curious, though at Cabin, we also a attract many of these builder types, these urban designers, civil engineers, architects. Do you have any mechanisms in place for attracting placemakers at scale? How do you think about the community management side of finding those right kinds of people besides maybe coming on podcasts like these?

[00:06:47] Ryan Rzepecki: Yeah, I think podcasts like this are pretty important actually. I think the first wave is just tapping into my network and the network of the architecture studio that we're working with. It's called Mena. And getting it out through own networks. I was encouraged that after the first week of launch, we had a few projects reach out to us, basically saw the announcement, they were doing something somewhere in the space.

[00:07:06] They were able to read through the website, understand the rough principles and how it might fit, and then reach out saying, I'm not exactly sure what you're doing, but I think it might be this, and I think it might be related to what we're doing. Maybe we can talk. And so, for me, that's a week into it, it's good signal put out a message that people can understand and the right people will connect with.

[00:07:24] It wasn't meant to be a massive like consumer launch, so much as just getting it out and trying to find the right people. And more tactically, I think there's an interesting model of working with universities, so looking at architecture schools, urban planning schools. A lot of schools also have game design and development, and whether that's like part of an official class or a club or just a project, I think there's something interesting about partnering with universities to get people to use this playground. In fact, we actually have a partnership with a German university that's actually set up like a lab and some like VR treadmills and all kinds of equipment, and it's a transportation focused department that wants to like test ideas in a virtual world. So, I see that as one of the primary paths that we're gonna look to build community.

[00:08:08] Jackson Steger: That's so cool. So I'm curious, now I'm starting to think of this more from, helping the audience understand the onboarding into Spectra. Like for example, I know you're familiar with Phil Levin, who's been on the show before and introduced us.

[00:08:21] He has a property in Oakland called Radish, which is this collection of great buildings that we've talked about in the show as well. I have this vision of building like the radish of Venice, or, or I currently live, in LA, or like maybe something like that on like raw land in Hawaii or somewhere else.

[00:08:38] So, say I wanted to do that and say I wanted to do it with some other cabin folks who were interested in building a neighborhood with me. What could I do in Spectra right now to, or in the near future, to start modeling that out?

[00:08:52] Ryan Rzepecki: Yeah, I think that exists as, as the concept of a block. I'd be basically launching a block at into Spectra, and you could take the template buildings that we've put together and the people in your community can occupy virtual apartments in those buildings, and you can use that as a starting point. And one level deeper, if you have people on your team that have some of these design skills, either architecture skills or even just 3D modeling skills, you can design your own space and plug into that and see if you can submit those assets to Spectra to incorporate into the larger world. We'll have some amount of support for people to, what I've discovered through this process is that the tools that architects work in to make these assets and the tools that 3D modelers and game developers make, use, and make things in, they're different.

[00:09:35] And if one of those, it doesn't necessarily mean you understand the other and how the two play together. So, I see a little bit of a role of us being able to bridge that. And if you sit on one side of the fence or the other, if you're an architect and you're familiar with those tools, if you're a game developer, a 3D asset modeler, and you use those tools, we can bridge that gap and help get buildable assets into the virtual world.

[00:09:54] Jackson Steger: So, this idea of doing everything in the virtual world, what advantages do VR and AR offer, like user testing a city?

[00:10:04] Ryan Rzepecki: I think if you wanna do anything with urban design that is unconventional, the types of spaces that people haven't experienced before, it's very helpful. And so, we're building it without any cars in the traditional sense in our city.

[00:10:16] So our ground floors have bikes and, and kind of golf cart size and smaller vehicles. And so, for people to be in an environment like that and see what that might be like, I think is compelling. And I think being immersed in that world, you can understand it in a deeper way than if you just saw a nice rendering, or a nice photograph, or a nice video.

[00:10:33] So I think it's very important for that, particularly where you're trying to push the boundaries into new types of forms that people don't experience every day. VR adoption is still relatively low, so we do want to be relatively cross-platform. We did today our first walkthroughs in Spatial, which is one of the virtual world platforms.

[00:10:49] We imported all our assets, or some of our assets, over to Spatial, and Spatial supports, uh, mobile, it supports browser. You can navigate the virtual world through the, the browser, and it supports Quest VR. And if you're just interested in what we're doing, you can actually go and see it in a few clicks, even if you don't have a VR headset.

[00:11:06] But I would say in terms of really being immersed in a space and understanding the potential of a design, VR adds another element. And because VR adoption's relatively low, we do have some of these other modes of access, but we're also thinking about showing up to events with a VR headset and just like grabbing someone at a bar or restaurant and saying, hey, just put this on and come to this place for a while.

[00:11:27] And I've done that anecdotally over the last couple months, and it's really fun. It actually reminds me a bit of my JUMP days. We were, for many people, the first electric bike that they rode and just the wow factor on their face. Like they'd heard of a bicycle and they rode a bicycle, right? But they didn't realize like how game changing an e-bike is, and then they had that aha moment and they had it with our product.

[00:11:45] I think it was an opportunity to do that a little bit with VR, where you may have never used or used it like three years ago, and then we put a top of the line headset on you, connected to a gaming PC, and you're seeing a really vivid virtual world simulating the future. I think there's a bit of an awakening and an aha you get that way. So we plan to do some like popups and events.

[00:12:04] Jackson Steger: Yeah, that's really interesting. I wanna go a little bit deeper into that 10 out of 10 VR crossed with Spectra experience. Say at Neighborhood Zero, which is Cabin’s first property outside of Austin, Texas, let's say we took a shed and we outfitted it to be this Spectra studio where there's uh, great WiFi and a Spectra headset; what are the other elements we might wanna include in that space?

[00:12:28] You know, similarly, maybe for those that are listening to this, thinking about their lab or their classroom, what's the best possible experience we can co-create to have a good Spectra?

[00:12:40] Ryan Rzepecki: I mean, I think, just having a gaming PC attached to something like the HP Reverb or any decent top of the line VR headset is pretty great.

[00:12:49] It's not a huge elaborate setup, and it's really easy to do, but most people, even if they have a VR headset, like the Quest 2, they don't have a gaming PC. That's what I've found has been the barrier for a lot of people. So just having a room with those two things get you a good way there. It doesn't take up a lot of space, and it's not very expensive.

[00:13:06] What that lab in Germany did is they bought like a track pad that you walk on, and you like just walk on it and it moves you through VR, which is really cool. And they're looking for other additional hardware devices to do that. Now, I've never used that stuff. I'm kinda excited to try that, and that's like another level of immersion.

[00:13:21] But I think a big piece of it, just being visually immersed and looking around and seeing the world. You can get a gaming laptop that'll run it for less than $2,000, and you can get a good headset for $600 or less. So it's not a crazy expense.

[00:13:35] Jackson Steger: Awesome. That's really fun. I do now wanna, you brought up JUMP, and I wanna visit those days and all of the fun economics of micro mobility.

[00:13:45] So, I live in Venice Beach in Los Angeles right now, where we're right next to Santa Monica. Santa Monica just pulled Lyft bikes out of the area, which I was really bummed about. I don't have a car. I have been here about a year trying to survive on just my bike and then the public micro mobility options that are available to me.

[00:14:05] For whatever reason, Lyft pulled their bike, and I've just seen a lot of attempts in the micro mobility space fail or not succeed so much as maybe the projects hope to. You successfully sold JUMP to Uber. Just a broad question here, but what makes micro mobility work, and what makes it not work?

[00:14:25] Ryan Rzepecki: Yeah. it's fun to put that hat back on.

[00:14:27] I do think about it from time to time since it was 12 years of my life. First thing is density of the city and a place that's mixed use and great to walk in and great to bike in, in general and has the density and the types of trips that you'd want to take. And so, I had thought for quite a while that the European cities are much better suited for micro mobility and had a clear path to the usage to being profitable.

[00:14:54] And what had happened during the boom years is a lot of places that just weren't very bike friendly places, not really people friendly places, they're very car centric places, started getting lots and lots of bikes and scooters on the street, and I think we, we had a few surprises. Like we launched in Sacramento, and based on some of the other cities we've been in, like Atlanta, Tampa, we didn't have huge expectations but ended up doing quite well.

[00:15:19] And so then we thought maybe more places are like Sacramento and places that we didn't think were gonna work once electrified, they're gonna work pretty well. But I'd say by and large, that was a red herring. Most of the places that didn't work very well in Gen One bike share, the earlier versions of bike share, also didn't work with scooters and e-bikes.

[00:15:37] And so honestly, that's a big part of what motivated me to do Spectra. I spent a good chunk of my career trying to make existing cities better. So, before I started JUMP, I'd worked for the New York City Department of Transportation for a little over a year doing bike lanes, bike infrastructure. I got to work on the closure of Times Square to cars and opening up the pedestrian plaza.

[00:15:57] I got to do those type of projects, and I realized just how hard it is to change existing places. It's just these huge political battles. And you know, we fought so hard to put in a few bike lanes, or we fought so hard to put in just a few hundred bikes into some of these cities. And I really started thinking, well, because the success of this mode is so dependent on the built environment, what would it be like if you could start from scratch and you can build a place for people on bicycles from the very beginning? And that was the inspiration.

[00:16:20] So yeah, I think there is, I don't wanna say it won't work in many US cities, but it's really hard. And I think where it does work is personally owned. I think we'll continue to grow and have some success, but to make this shared model work, you really need some density and you turned over the assets. And that’s just my observation in general, is that we tend to separate land use management from transportation management.

[00:16:43] We get really bad outcomes as a result. So, just get limitless sprawl. And because we have limitless sprawl, we can't really economically put in a bus line or train because it's a solo density. And so, I think we really need to look at those two things together. And transportation is a response to the land use.

[00:16:58] It's hard to take bad land use and then make good transportation.

[00:17:03] Jackson Steger: I'm glad you brought up your time working at the New York DOT. I live near a street in Venice called Lincoln Boulevard. It's this two to three lane car, congested, ugly road that is loud and not friendly at all to pedestrians. And I was on a ChatGPT bender, so I was just like, ChatGPT: “how do I change Bike lanes in Venice to, or how do I change car lanes in Venice Beach to bike lanes?” And it gave this sort of general civic engagement answer and then also followed up with a list of a few organizations to work with. And so, then I reached out to this bike coalition. But I'm curious, like, yeah, generally, what is the process for a local citizen to want to become more engaged, to effectively change car lanes into protected bike lanes, what would you recommend?

[00:17:59] Ryan Rzepecki: Yeah, I think that's actually one of the, the positive things over the last 20 years or so, that building streets with bikes in mind and with pedestrians in mind for probably at least 50 years or so, it was not best practice.

[00:18:13] The best practice was like, get as many lanes as possible, move as many cars as possible, as fast as possible. That's all the traffic engineers cared about. And so that's really just been shifting increasingly decade after decade until now there's been enough experiments and enough, enough different types of infrastructure that have been tested that really there's no excuse for traffic engineer to say they can't do it.

[00:18:34] If you can shut down Times Square, Seventh Avenue, and Broadway, and Times Square, if you can change Paris in the way that it's been changed. If you can do it in these extremely high density, high traffic environments, you can really do it anywhere. And so, then what's lacking? So we don't, we have the toolkit now. We have this, particularly for bike infrastructure, it's often not very expensive.

[00:18:52] We're talking about paint and barriers. Then it's the political will. And so that's where what you're saying really does matter. If you care about your city, if you care about your local environment, how do you get involved in advocating? And a simple thing to do, and I wish there were better, I wish there were better mechanisms of outreach, but usually cities will do some sort of public hearing for various bike and pedestrian projects.

[00:19:12] And often what happens, like most public hearings, a bunch of cranky people show up to complain about losing their parking. And it really does help when you get 3, 4, 5, 10 people to come to the podium and say, well, no, I want this. I live in this neighborhood. I want my kids to be able to do this. I would use it.

[00:19:30] And it just gives that the other voice to it that that helps the project get approved. What ends up happening is the city council people that are at that hearing, they may not have a lot of context. They probably don't have a lot of context. The staff people at the agency, the SFMTA, or whatever agency is doing the project, they have a lot of context and they're really, really prepared.

[00:19:49] But sometimes it's elected officials and they don't, and they're just trying to read the room. And, it's a terrible sample of people that are willing to come out at from 5:00 PM to midnight on a Tuesday night or whatever. That's not a really good way to collect feedback, but that's still what a lot of cities use, and so if you can make it to a hearing, it helps.

[00:20:07] There's a lot of open streets events that cities are holding now too, and so that's been the vehicle for change where you're temporarily closing down a street, getting people to come out to it, and so that that's just social and fun, and you might meet other people that are interested and passionate about it.

[00:20:22] And then I think there's a probably a level of advocacy that goes beyond that, which is if you're familiar with a particular treatment or a particular set of blocks, you can be really the one pushing for an improvement there. And cities will be responsive to some degree. And so, if you know there's a particularly dangerous intersection or you have a really interesting insight for a way to improve connectivity in a city, you could submit that, and then you can be the advocate or the thorn in the side of the city to make it happen. So, I think there's a spectrum between supporting existing city projects, enjoying infrastructure and open streets when it happens, and then identifying a project and really being more of the advocate for it.

[00:21:01] Also in most cities, you don't have to do this in isolation if you really care. Most cities have some sort of active bike community and some have nonprofits that you can either donate time or money to, and you can connect to other people that care about this. And we're thankfully at a time where there's a critical mass in almost every major city of people working on this

[00:21:18] Jackson Steger: Yeah, shout out to the Los Angeles County Bike Coalition who responded to my Tweet almost right away and sent a really thoughtful email. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. So, cool. I know we're almost at time, so I wanna make sure to get some work. You've given all this really tactical, helpful advice.

[00:21:36] Wanna get a little more philosophical again, which is also how we opened. There's this kind of debate in urban planning. I've seen a little bit about should you build new cities versus should you try to change the ones that, that already exist, and your career is very interesting because you've spent meaningful time, I think doing both. And so, I'm just curious what you think about that question. Is it one or the other, or, yeah, I'll just let you take the floor.

[00:22:01] Ryan Rzepecki: Yeah. I think in my background is also a mix of urban planning and technology, right? So, I think the technologists, it gets excited about new systems and thinking outside of existing frameworks to come up with something better.

[00:22:13] And then urban planners as a group, I would say, tend to be more conservative and care about how do we make small changes to the existing system? I think both are important. I certainly learned a lot through my time doing that work. I certainly applaud anybody trying to make even small changes in their city like we just talked about, that if you're doing the good work of improving the bike-ability and pedestrian experience, that's awesome, and we should continue to do that.

[00:22:36] I think where I would, to the urban planners, in particular, that say all these new cities, we should just fix existing cities and that's, we shouldn't, we shouldn't engage in this Greenfield development, there’s several responses. First, the global population is growing, and we're urbanizing at the same time.

[00:22:53] So I think African alone is gonna add 1 billion urban residents. I think globally it's maybe two, maybe more. And so, those people have to live somewhere, and the existing cities, as we have them, aren't going to be able to accommodate that growth. So, we need new places, and we can either plan with that in mind and try to build better places that reflect the future we wanna live in, rather than repeating the mistakes of the past. And so, it's just on a pure demographic look into the future, we know we need new places. I think we also need zones where you can experiment, where you can try different things and have them hopefully be successful. And some will work for other new cities.

[00:23:27] Some will be able to be fed back into existing cities. There's probably some of the things that we're doing that would be hard to implement into an existing city, but I think there's gonna be learnings here that flow backward. And so, it's worth undertaking for that as well. And then I think we just need lots of shots on goal, to be honest

[00:23:41] Like I think the Neom Project in Saudi Arabia got a lot of criticism. We've made very different design choices for the city we're working on. But it's different, right? Like they're doing something, they're putting something out there. Certainly, I would applaud that more than the attitude of “don't build anything anywhere.” And that's where we're in in the US. It's very difficult to build anything. Everybody comes up and tries to block and obstruct everything. And I think trying to build new things, and particularly if they're dense and they're car free, which Neom is, I think it's worth doing.

[00:24:11] And so I think, yeah, we need these experiments, and we need lots of them. And we have a few decades to find a way to live more sustainably and more equitably, and we're very far from that now. And so, let's run many of these experiments. Let's incrementally fix the cities we have, and let's like take some moonshots on what could a new Greenfield city be? And let’s do both.

[00:24:33] Jackson Steger: Cheers to more shots on goal. Love what you all are making happen at Spectra to enable those shots. And we're trying to do the same at Cabin, and thanks so much for coming on the show, Ryan. Where can people learn more if they'd like?

[00:24:45] Ryan Rzepecki: Yeah, so we just launched the website, spectracities.com.

[00:24:50] We have spatial scenes, virtual scenes that you can go through, and those are linked on the site and on our Discord. And so, you can actually browse all those scenes, and we're hosting weekly walkthroughs, so we can actually give you little tours of the scenes in spatial and in PCVR if you have PCVR.

[00:25:06] So go to spectracities.com, join the Discord, do a tour, and go see the scenes in spatial. And then you'll have a good feel for what we're doing. And if you feel you have the skillset to contribute or you just have the interest to contribute, reach out. And we're building a community that's going to continue to add to the world and evolve it.

[00:25:21] Jackson Steger: Great. And just, I'll add a personal testament, even on just a desktop browser, looks like a very fluid and user-friendly experience, so I would encourage everyone to go check it out. Thanks again, Ryan, and hope to keep following your journey and seeing the great ways that you're changing cities and building new ones.

[00:25:39] Ryan Rzepecki: Thanks, Jackson. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me.

END OF TRANSCRIPT

#28 Afropolitan: A Digital Nation for the African Diaspora

Host Jackson Steger interviews leaders that are building new cities and other new models of living for digital nomads, creators and remote workers. Campfire is produced by Cabin, which is building a new kind of city for creators called a network city. Our community is developing a global coliving network of physical locations that we call neighborhoods.

https://simplecast.com

#28 Afropolitan: A Digital Nation for the African Diaspora

Eche Emole is the cofounder of Afropolitan, a network state for the African Diaspora. Jackson and Eche discuss historical analogs, Afropolitan's roadmap, and th

https://podcasts.apple.com

Transcript:

[00:00:00] Jackson Steger: Hi everyone. This is Jackson Steger, and you're listening to Campfire's last episode of 2022. Let's get it. 

[00:00:00] This season of Campfire seeks to understand how to build new cities, and each week we are joined by experts and practitioners from different startup cities who will share the stories and lessons that they have learned from experimenting with radical new models of living.

[00:00:23] Today's guest is Eche Emole, Co-founder of Afropolitan. Afropolitan is creating a digital nation to enable all Africans to build abundant lives. They build themselves as the network state for the African diaspora. It was fascinating to chat about their vision, roadmap, and day-to-day operations.

[00:00:41] Unrelated, if you're a general contract-type builder who's talented with their hands, or a naturalist who has built regenerative gardening or permaculture systems on properties before, reach out to me on Twitter @JacksonSteger if you're interested in living at Neighborhood Zero for free for a few months next year.

[00:01:01] Thanks to everyone who listened to the show this year. It has been incredibly fulfilling to have had the chance to meet and learn from our many talented guests, and that wouldn't have been remotely possible without your continued listenership and feedback on Twitter and on Discord. We'll be taking some time off for the holidays and for the new year, but we'll be back in 2023 with fun episodes about these wild new ways of living that we've been exploring. Cheers.

[00:01:28] Eche Emole, welcome to Campfire. 

[00:01:31] Eche Emole: Thank you so much for having me, Jackson. How are you doing? 

[00:01:34] Jackson Steger: I am doing very well. I've got a full liter and a half of water next to me, and I'm going to do my best to resist the urge to drink all of it, so that I don't have to run to the bathroom in the middle of this episode. Lots to talk about today and really admire a lot of the things that Afropolitan is doing. As we record, you all are in the midst of your first citizenship rollout, which is very exciting. I want to start with the very basics. What is Afropolitan and why are you building it?

[00:02:02] Eche Emole: Yeah. So, Afropolitan is a best-in-class network of the best that Africa and the diaspora have to offer across multiple sectors. While we may be a network today, our goal is to become the first ever internet country, a concept known as the network state, popularized by Balaji Srinivasan. A network state is a highly aligned online community with a capacity for collective action that's able to crowdfund territory around the world and eventually become diplomatically recognized by preexisting states. So, that is Afropolitan in a nutshell.

[00:02:34] Jackson Steger: Yeah. We definitely talk a lot about the network state on the show, and just like he is an investor in Afropolitan biology, is also a backer of Cabin. So, excited to see all of that alignment with you all. Why build a network state and a digital nation for the African diaspora? 

[00:02:53] Eche Emole: Yeah. So, I think I'll give our context, which is when I woke up last December 23rd in Nairobi, Kenya, I woke up at 5:00 AM, I'm pacing the room, and then my girl's like, “hey, what's wrong?” I'm like, “look, I know how I would look at someone who's about to tell you what I'm about to tell you, but I think we need to start a new country.” And she's, “wait, what? Why?” And I was like, “Yo, things are not working for us. Like the nation state experiment has failed for Africans globally, right?” Like we are in a situation where a lot of us are looking to immigrate out of the continent. There are not going to be enough visas for everyone, right? And then on top of it, our currencies are getting consistently devalued. We need a new setup from the ground up.

[00:03:34] And I think, we also drew inspiration from the American Founding Fathers, where Alexander Hamilton, in the Federalist Papers, he says, “Is it possible or not for societies of men to form a new governance constitution through reflection and choice or are we forever destined to depend on our governance through accident and force?”

[00:03:54] And that was our why. No modern-day nation state in Africa was created by reflection and choice. It's always been through accident and force. And we have suffered the consequences of that throughout multiple decades. And I think when it comes to either having our currencies devalued, the fact that we don't even have the same passport privilege as the rest of the world, the fact that we might not be able to get access to the same types of loans, refinancing, et cetera, these are systematic issues that we face from the top down. And I think our approach is knowing what we know now, if we could build a network state, how would we build it from the ground up? And that is our why.

[00:04:31] Jackson Steger: Yeah. I'm glad you brought up the Federalist Paper example. Something that I heard Chika mention in a Twitter space once. I think his name was Theodor Herzl, published Der Judenstaat, the Jewish State at (00:04:43) book in Vienna in the late 1800s. Some credit the book for being a helpful blueprint towards the eventual birth of the state of Israel. Is that, is like the Jewish state and the Zionist movement a useful model for you all? 

[00:04:56] Eche Emole: Yeah, it’s a useful model. And I think, like Balaji says, sometimes it's not to say that everything they did was great, it's just to say like, look, this was a model where people who had shared purpose and values came together to build or create something.

[00:05:10] Another model is, I just wrote an article the other day, From Shared DNA to Shared Purpose, and the model I was using was the pilgrims who came on the Mayflower, right? The whole inspiration was, hey, we believe the Church of England is beyond redemption. We don't think it can be reformed. We're going to move over to the new world and start a new life. And they did that. And I think that’s our own central argument, which is we believe the nation state experiment for Africans is beyond redemption, and we want to reorganize this in this network state model from the ground up. And I think those are models that pull some of our inspiration from. 

[00:05:45] Jackson Steger: Sure. Yeah. Africa is the world's poorest continent, 9 of the 10 highest poverty rates are countries in Africa. In the U.S., where much of the African diaspora resides, black folks face huge racial inequality, police brutality. I think it was a TechCrunch article where you said that the problem you're solving for here is bad governance. So, can you expand on what you mean by bad governance? I don't know if that term is always super widely understood. And what's the relevant solution for governance that Afropolitan is proposing?

[00:06:14] Eche Emole: Yeah. So, I think the analogy we try to give is picture a house that has a weak foundation and the owners want to fix this house. But then they go into the house, and instead of fixing the foundation, they say, you know what? Let's paint the walls. Let's fix the lights. Let's fix the fans. Let's fix the AC. They do all these other things, but never actually fix the foundation, and eventually the house collapses. In this analogy, the weak foundation is our governance. Our governance across Africa is poor, and because of how bad it is, it doesn't allow our other sectors to thrive. So, whether it's the FinTech sectors, the agriculture sectors, or the healthcare sectors, all that depends on a functioning, efficient, or competent governance, and we don't have it. 

[00:06:56] So, the way we expand on it is our governance across Africa is experiencing a crisis of legitimacy. Take for example, one example I could just give that was more a recent, you had a situation in the Russia-Ukraine crisis, where competent governments could go in and say, hey, if you're an American citizen, we have a plane waiting for you before the war starts. Get on it. Let's go. If you're a German citizen, we have a plane waiting for you. Get on it. Let's go. A lot of African and black students were stranded in Ukraine because their governments are not competent. 

[00:07:22] So, for the most part, the average African navigates the world from the place of being a government unto himself. And to be honest, I think we're right to the point where that level of anxiety, that stress, that feeling of not being part of a community that can actually have your back, we're exhausted from that feeling. And I think, for us, what we're saying is how is it possible that our grandfathers, or people who came before us, have better lives from a governance perspective than we did?

[00:07:47] And I think our whole argument is when it comes to governance in Africa, the poor governance, it's a feature. Now, how do we know it's a feature and not a bug? Because we compare ourselves to countries who started after us. So, I'm Nigerian, for example. Our independence was in 1960. The Vietnam War ended in 1975. That's a full 15 years after our independence. Look at Vietnam today. Look at Nigeria today. We compare ourselves to countries like the UAE or Dubai, right? In 1990, Dubai was a sand desert. Look at Dubai today. Look at Nigeria today. 

[00:08:17] So, again, what we’re saying is something has to change, and we've tried changing it through war, elections, revolution, whatever type of prayers, religious prayers. It's not working. So, maybe we go back to the root and start over, and this time build it with more intentionality and reflection as well. 

[00:08:36] Jackson Steger: Sure. Cool. Switching now a little bit away from the underlying motivations to the execution piece. You have on your website a four-phase manifesto on how you plan on executing the vision of forming the Afropolitan network state. Would you mind walking us through each of those four phases, starting with the network? 

[00:08:58] Eche Emole: Yeah. Phase one is building up the network. And I'll just give you additional context. When we say building up a network, a lot of people, even some people in our community don't even know why that's even important. They're like, why do you need a network? What are the benefits of having a network? But we see other groups who've established networks thrive in abundance from the networks that they've established.

[00:09:17] Again, going back to even the Jewish state, that diaspora network was set across borders, and it's followed and stayed with them to this day. Maybe a network like the Freemason’s, those networks have been established over time and it takes them to this day. So, we're looking to establish a best-in-class network of folks who are allies, are African diaspora and people on the continent across multiple sectors. And we want to seed those folks with our citizen passes that identify them as members of the group. And we're doing that through our NFTs. That's one. 

[00:09:46] Phase two is what we're calling Government as A Service, which is GAS. And the whole idea is we want to build an Afropolitan super app that will enable members within our ecosystem be able to capture utility across the ecosystem. This app will be able to do things like self-sovereign, like one company checkout from a jurisdiction perspective, things like remittances powered by crypto, things like risk capital, are you able to actually go bankless? Because one of our arguments is when we interact with traditional systems or traditional finance, we start running into some systematic racism within these systems. Maybe instead of cajoling them, pleading or negotiating for our work, why don't we just build a system that allows us to say, hey, if you're an Afropolitan member, we've set up a system powered by crypto that can say, hey, you qualify for this loan, or you qualify for this refinancing, and we are building those systems within our own ecosystem. So, that's phase two. 

[00:10:37] Phase three for us is what we're calling the minimum viable, and the way to think about that is how do we ladder up the legitimacy allowed to eventually be viewed as a country in the future. In September, we got recognized by the New York Stock Exchange as the first ever internet country. And that's just one way. So, the whole idea with that is you're recognized by the New York Stock Exchange today, tomorrow it’s the United Nations. You're laddering that up. 

[00:10:59] And why that's very important is that was the first time most of us, right? Or in fact, all of us who came through for that event, which were Afropolitan members, had ever even gotten access to the New York Stock Exchange. So, part of what we're saying is when you join this network, we want to be able to get you access to information, access to capital, and also access to just the network that allows you to thrive. And I think we want to unlock that in phase three. 

[00:11:23] And also, a more recent example I just gave was the whole Russia-Ukraine crisis. Competent governments in could go in there, get their citizens out, but our governments could not, especially because they're already incompetent. So, what would it look like if Afropolitans say, hey, we have buses arranged for guys, for you people. Join this Telegram group or join this Discord group and let's get you guys to safety, and that’s Slovakia, Romania, or even Poland, because we've arranged safe havens for our folks to get to safety. And it's just being proactive, where our home governments are not proactive. That's phase three. 

[00:11:55] Phase four is where we go for the diplomatic recognition from preexisting states, but we want to innovate on the land piece of this. So, remember, the network state is online first, land second. And I think for us, what we want to do is combine two concepts. The first concept is an embassy. The second concept is a Chinatown. So, for example, the U.S. Embassy in Kenya, for example, is a sovereign territory in Kenya, and in Chinatowns they have their own post office, their own malls, their own banking, et cetera. We want to combine those two concepts together, and what that forms is a sovereign Afro town. And so, let's zoom out. If you're an Afropolitan citizen, you navigate the world with the Afropolitan passport, you're able to get or make payments for goods and services using the Afropolitan super app, and you eventually get physical entry into Afro towns located across the world because our border won't just be four-corner borders, it'll be a discontiguous border that's stretched across the globe. That's the vision at scale. 

[00:12:55] Jackson Steger: Yeah. I appreciate the clear and succinct way you walked through each of those. I've also found the Chinatown plus embassy model to be really helpful in underscoring the distributed archipelago that network states might have to experience. 

[00:13:10] I want to go back for a second to the super app in phase two. I think the closest analog I've seen for something like this is maybe Singpass. Are you familiar with how Singapore facilitates their sort of day-to-day governance and interaction with its citizenship? And is that a fair comparison?

[00:13:29] Eche Emole: So, I haven't heard of Singpass, but one of the comparisons we do use is WeChat out of China, where it's so integrated into folks’ lives. And I think that's a more compelling example that most people in the world are probably familiar with when they hear of WeChat. But yeah, I think the idea is something like Singaporeans use, that would be something similar to what we want to introduce. Yeah. 

[00:13:48] Jackson Steger: Yeah. I was just recently writing a piece about the future of passports and this integration with not just the entry from countries, but all your DMV certifications, your vaccinations, any interaction with what we currently perceive as government agencies, if you can centralize that in a way that still protects user privacy is great. Awesome. 

[00:14:09] So, moving on a little bit to this citizenship rollout that you're currently going through. At Cabin, we’ve held off from formally launching a citizenship program. I'm bullish that we'll eventually do, but I think we want to have a really concrete strategy in place. So, I'm curious to pick your brain on a few things related to digital citizenship, starting with, like why is now the moment, why does it make sense for you to go out and give these 500 citizenry experiences away? What are you hoping to advance for Afropolitan at this particular moment in time?

[00:14:40] Eche Emole: Yeah. So, I've been asked this question, and I think some people were like, hey, are you trying to achieve or are you striving for a utopia? And I say to them that, no, because where we're coming from, what we're really striving for is a baseline of competence, and we don't have that. So, even just to set the standard for us, where it's a global standard, where, okay, when you come across an Afropolitan, this is what you expect, this is how you expect to feel, this is how you expect to be handled from a service perspective. We need a global baseline competent standard. 

[00:15:11] And so, for us, I loved when Balaji highlighted that alignment is key for the sort of folks you want initially, right? Because we've grown up in an age where social media allows us to think like you just run an ad or just run a Facebook ad or just run a Google ad or just run an…. We have not run a single ad. Most of our inbound interest has been word of mouth, and we've love to see that because when we're seeing people say, hey, my friend told me about this, we're looking to filter for that alignment. 

[00:15:37] And I think our application process in terms of strategy is you go to our website, there's an application process you apply, it gets reviewed by the team, and what we are filtering for with the questions we've asked is high alignment. So, if you just come and you're like, eh, this looked good to do, this was great, I heard about this, I was just curious, then you might obviously not be one of the first 500. But when you come and you give a really good reason, you say that you have time to commit to this, you let us know your why, those are some of the indicators that allow us to filter for alignment as we process the first 500. 

[00:16:09] Jackson Steger: Sure. And so then what is one enable to do with Afropolitan citizenship? What might be a reason why someone would want to other than that they're aligned with what you might have hoped you eventually build?

[00:16:20] Eche Emole: Yeah. So, I think the idea is that the first 500 citizens allow us to do things like set our initial code of conduct for the group and also do things like sign our constitutional on chain. But remember in phase one, what we're building is the network. And so, what we're looking to offer are benefits of early citizenship that will include things like access to a global community of professional builders who understand their needs, an Afropolitan peer support group that allows people to accelerate their journey as builders in curated peer working groups, where they can learn and lean on each other. And these groups will meet like once a month. We also want to provide access to something we call Abundance Unlocked, where folks can gain insider knowledge and insights from industry leaders and cultural icons through hosted private seminars. 

[00:17:05] Obviously, the curated meetups are also important. So, we want to be able to bring together builders throughout the Afropolitan community at virtual and in-person gatherings. And also, the most important one too is the access to our member-only platform that facilitates new connections with like-minded builders to share ideas and network.

[00:17:23] And I know some people might be listening to this and say to themselves, oh, maybe I already have this sort of thing within my community, and it's, yeah. But for the African community at large, this isn't something that's been established globally, right? It's like, in 2022, I think I'm always shocked how still far behind the eight ball we are, and certain things that are taken for granted in the West. And I'm like, look, we need to, again, establish a baseline of competence where you join this network, you get access to the sort of people who want to win and help win. Whereas a lot of times in our backgrounds with Africans, we have dealt with a lot of scarcity, scarcity of resources, scarcity of mind, and even just not being able to play long-term games or long-term people. Nothing really ever compounds in our African ecosystem except for mediocrity really, and it's like, there's no other way to put that lightly. And I think for a lot of us who want better, what we are trying to establish is a network that allows us to thrive at scale. 

[00:18:19] Jackson Steger: Sure. Yeah. So, it's clear to me that you've been thinking about stuff like this since way before Balaji’s book came out this July, and yet still like the conversation that he sparked on network states, the language that he's lent to this space, so much of it is still very philosophical and theoretical at this point. So, how are you making this idea of Afropolitan not just accessible, but even known to folks who aren't on ‘Tech’ Twitter 24 hours a day? 

[00:18:46] Eche Emole: Yeah. To be honest, as we are mostly word of mouth, we've not run a single ad, but I think it's also important to understand the context of Afropolitan. So, we already existed prior to this particular manifestation of what we were building too, and I think the best way to understand Afropolitan’s journey is to think about it in three phases, right?

[00:19:03] Phase one Afropolitan was an organization I started while in law school in San Francisco Bay Area. We catered to the African diaspora through event, Afrobeats parties, concerts, festivals. And a significant highlight of what we achieved during that period was something called the ‘Year of Return’ that happened in Ghana in 2019, where about a million plus people from the diaspora came out to Ghana, and it generated about $2 billion worth of economic activity. The reason that's important is it was a watershed moment for the diaspora. And then come 2020, we thought we could reload this, the demand was pretty high, and then COVID happens. COVID decimates the entire area life events industry. So, we pivoted, and we pivoted into media, but through a social other app, called Clubhouse. So, the Clubhouse, between I and my co-founder, Chika, we built communities under of 200,000 people collectively. 

[00:19:53] And so, phase three then starts when Balaji drops his book, his article first, in April 2021, called How to Start a New Country. And I remember we were in the car in Senegal when this article drops, and when he said, a network state is a highly aligned online community, and when it reaches critical mass, it replicates in the physical. I saw that because that had been our experience but in reverse, right? In the online community, we had done that on Clubhouse, and we had also shown a capacity for collective action, whether it was funding the police brutality protestors in Nigeria in 2020 or funding the Ethiopian refugee crisis in 2020 as well. So, we had seen a capacity for collective action through this online community. And then we had also seen an MVP of what the land piece would look like from a crowdfund territory perspective with the actual year of return that happened in Ghana. 

[00:20:43] So, these are things that were already happening before Balaji even came into the picture. But when he dropped his article and his book, it gave us a way to filter what we were experiencing to now say, okay, cool, this is what we can actually kick on to accomplish now. I think, honestly, he played such a huge role because it allows us to articulate to our members and to our community members and say, this is what we are striving for at scale. It's not just, we're not just here for the parties and for the travel, which are great, there's fun times, but we also have to get back to doing hard things. Like we make the joke that our ancestors built the pyramids, but we're doing TikToks now, right? And there's nothing wrong with the TikTok, but it's just to say that we're not where we need to actually be. And you have a situation where, on the continent, the mindset is just get a visa and get out. But not everyone's going to be able to get a visa. The West isn't going to give everyone a visa. So, what happens to the millions and hundreds of millions of people on the continent who can't get those? At the very least, there's an existential crisis in the horizon, and we hope we can at least fix it if we build a network state that's striving at scale, that people can then hop onto the North, our example at that point. Yeah. 

[00:21:55] Jackson Steger: Sure. Appreciate you sharing that. I want to transition a little bit into the ups of how you and your team is working together in this earlier stage of what will be hopeful very long and prosperous existence.

[00:22:07] So, first, there's obviously hundreds, if not thousands, of people interested in investing in the community in one way or another. But can you talk about like the full-time team, how is it constructed? How do you think of, I know you all have a 2.1 million seed round, which we'll maybe talk about a little bit if we have time, but like how do you think about the resources currently at your disposal, and how to approach the problem of building a network state in a lean and sustainable way in this early day?

[00:22:35] Eche Emole: So, it's almost like we're trying to build a country while bootstrapping. It's a different type of mindset. But I think the way we – so, when we close our seed race, I think the beer market would probably start the next day, right? So, it allowed us to just immediately hunker down and say, okay, what do you absolutely need to execute towards phase one? And then, if you can achieve certain milestones in phase one, maybe you can go out again and race for the larger vision. 

[00:23:02] And so, for right now, I think we have a core team of five people, just five internal folks, and then ad hoc folks that do like either contract work for when we need them, or even just community members who just volunteered their time, like in the informal DAO that's been set up. And we have been very lucky and blessed in that regard because, again, community members who have dived in, who are willing to contribute their time, their resources, and we had already had an informal network. And I think what this allowed us to show the world, because a lot of people hit us up and say, hey, how did you guys get featured on this article or do this or do that, or do you have to pay for PR? I'm like, we have not paid a single dollar in marketing. We always had an informal network, which is what we were saying that we could establish, right? Now, it was can we organize that network towards a specific, and the purpose is what Afropolitan is looking to unlock. 

[00:23:51] And I think, for us, when we finish with this initial citizen passes, we're looking to launch the DAO formally on the back of the first 500 citizens, and that DAO allows us to onboard other members as they come on board as well. 

[00:24:05] Jackson Steger: Sure. Yeah. It is funny, we're also five full-time people at this exact moment at Cabin, though we might make our next hire pretty soon. And one, I've been in early-stage tech my whole career, and one thing I've noticed across the board is having very clear metrics to have as a North Star for the team early has always been very useful. I'm curious, are there obvious metrics that, that you're pursuing right now? And if so, what are those? And if not, how do you maintain alignment and keeping the team growing in the same direction? 

[00:24:39] Eche Emole: Yeah. So, I would say that our first metric with this phase even in this moment was the first 500 members. And then to accomplish that, we wanted to achieve around 2000 applications for the actual membership passes. And I think we're at 1800 applications now, and I think it's been a huge response to be able to get folks to even go on our website, click an application. And we're seeing folks in the data spend 20, 30 minutes finishing up this application, and I think it shows us like a level of dedication where folks believe it's that important for them to even be able to or to even want to do it in the first place.

[00:25:13] And then going into next year, the way we're thinking about it is, again, making sure that the value that the network receives is impactful for you to even want to join the network. So, we're prioritizing things like partnerships that allow us to unlock value, events that allow members to come together and connect, and also just driving up the memberships as well. So, I think for next year we want to track at least 10,000 folks into the Afropolitan network, and that would be our core metric going into 2023. 

[00:25:42] Jackson Steger: Gotcha. From what I can tell, you all seem to use Telegram over Discord. And also, from what I can tell, there's a lot of people in that Telegram. Two-part question here. Why Telegram over Discord? And then two, how do you keep everyone engaged when there's only so much work that can be done at any given point in time and you've got so many people who probably are really enthusiastic by the idea of Afropolitan? 

[00:26:11] Eche Emole: Yeah. And it's funny because it's not just even Telegram. We have WhatsApp groups. We have multiple WhatsApp groups because we've been doing events and things before even this (00:26:19) vision. So, we have a ton of community on WhatsApp. We have a ton of community on Telegram. But I think the reason we hadn't launched our Discord yet was our community was not familiar with the UI/UX for Discord, and it just felt like as we poke them, they would keep on saying we're used to the scrolling. If you've ever traveled across Africa, WhatsApp is like the number one messaging platform. And I think Telegram has the same What's up features, so it's more intuitive to our community. 

[00:26:46] But then with Discord, I definitely appreciate the word that Discord has put into a product, but it's still, like we need community products to be more vibrant. Like there needs to be more, you need to want to chat, and maybe it also involves us re-imagining what social networks actually look like. I think one of the things one of our product guys was discussing yesterday was why do we assume that it has to be over a phone or over a screen, or we need to actually go back to first principles the same way we're going back to first principles for the network state and really reimagine what does a community town spur look like in today's world over the internet. 

[00:27:24] And I think what we're trying to really accomplish at Afropolitan is reimagine what those community products will look like, because right now, I think after 10 or 15 years of using the current social network space, I, for one, I'm no longer, I don't believe it's the best we can do. I think there's just so much more we can unlock. 

[00:27:43] So, to basically answer your question, I think it was community-led to choose Telegram over Discord. And then obviously WhatsApp has a limit on how many members you can have in a group chat, and Telegram allows you to go up to at least 200,000. In the meantime, I think it was a trade-off between those as well. 

[00:28:01] Jackson Steger: And so then on the engagement question, do just people can scroll to the degree that they want to or do you have some way to, do you have spark notes if someone's not doing the massive hundred message scroll every day? 

[00:28:11] Eche Emole: Yeah. So, I think what we're relying on mostly is our newsletter or email list. I think we have like 13,000 folks right now in the mailing list. So, we're relying on that as our main primary channel of dispersing and distributing information. And also, the Twitter spaces, Clubhouse spaces. We built communities on Clubhouse of about 50,000 on Afropolitan launch on there. So, we have had these distribution phases, but I still say that we can do better. I don't think it really is where it's at, and I do feel like there's also exhaustion from the sort of social media platforms that we have today. I don't think that, like when you go into it, a lot of the times it's you’re getting assaulted mentally whether it's from different – like even today I have to take a rest because while I go on my Twitter, there's like half people praising what Afropolitan is doing, and there's the other half that “this is an FTX scam, fuck Sam, fuck you, this, blah, blah, blah, blah.” And then you have to do the thing where you're protecting your mental health while going through the process because you're still maintaining your mental fortitude because you know what you're doing is very important. But I think sometimes it just gets really exhausting, and you say to yourself like, we can do a much better job, especially because we're catering to a community that's highly aligned of creating social products or communication products or community products that are way better than what we have today. 

[00:29:30] Jackson Steger: Really appreciate that. I think I have only one more question though. So much of what you're working on, so fascinating, so dynamic and multifaceted. What's your story before Afropolitan and how do you connect what you were working on before Afropolitan started to, yeah, your current mission? 

[00:29:50] Eche Emole: So, it's funny, we were having this discussion last night. If you had told me this is what I would be doing with my life like two years ago, or even a year ago, I'd be like, “Get out of here. What are you talking about?” But I think my background was it was a multidisciplinary approach. So, I studied my bachelor's in political science in the U.S., did a master's in political science, also went to law school in San Francisco, but then pivoted from all of that into tech and FinTech. But while I was doing that, I was also in the entertainment and music space while also building up these events like at a large scale that catered to thousands of people. 

[00:30:26] And so, I think when the pandemic hit, what it forced everyone to do is to sit with our choices. And I think one of the books a friend handed to me that has been the most impactful book of my life was Naval’s book, the Almanack of Naval Ravikant. And I remember reading it and finally like just being like, I get it now. I have a mental framework to operate for the rest of my life. And so, when I started discovering Balaji’s readings, or even going deeper into Web3, I think my mental framework or the models that I now started to operate started to fill in for me.

[00:31:01] And so, by the time December last year rolled around and this idea comes to me while I'm literally like sleeping and I have to wake up because I'm realizing my brain just wouldn't shut down, those mental frameworks allowed me to really truly see what this network state could be. And honestly, I feel like I wake up every already in it, and it's more of like the process of waiting until we actually get there in reality is what I'm trying to hopefully get to as fast as possible because it is so lit. It is so much fun. And I think sometimes, like one of the feedbacks that we get, because we always consistently have to refine and clarify our messaging, and sometimes as a founder, you're so close to it, like I live and breathe this. Like I'm sleeping at 2:00 AM or 4:00 AM most days. I wake up network state, I sleep network state, I'm literally always talking about Afropolitan. And I think for me it's like people can always see the passion and the intensities people bring to whatever project that they're speaking. And for me, this is like full skin in the game, like I don't see myself doing anything else 30 years from now, 40 years from now. This is it. Because I think, for me, what it allowed me to do is finally tap into my purpose. 

[00:32:10] And I think that's what we're looking to recruit for other folks into our community, which is, look, if you're someone who's very dedicated and very audacious and you believe that you have more to contribute to humanity, this is a place for you. And we don't get intimidated by people who are excellent, right? This is a place where, if you're a master at your craft, you should feel comfortable coming here and thriving alongside other people who want to see you win and really thrive at scale.

[00:32:34] Jackson Steger: Really appreciate that. Actually, is there anything we haven't talked about or anything you want to plug to the audience? Where can they go for next steps on learning more about Afropolitan? 

[00:32:45] Eche Emole: Yeah. No, thank you, Jackson. I think the website would be the best place, www.afropolitan.io. And if you get to the website, if you click on the community tab, you get access to, whether it's our Telegram or even a mailing list. So, I would urge folks to really go to the website. And I think, honestly, what we are really looking for are folks who are highly aligned towards our mission. If you identify with it, if you believe in what we're trying to do, we welcome you into the community. And yeah, honestly, it's a pleasure to have been here. 

[00:33:14] Jackson Steger: Awesome. Looking forward to keeping up with your progress and seeing this diaspora in reverse really manifest into some land somewhere.

[00:33:25] Eche Emole: Honestly, we should talk about Cabin and Afropolitan co-events. 

[00:33:29] Jackson Steger: Absolutely.

[00:33:29] Eche Emole: I know that will be good place to have members meet each other and connect.

[00:33:32] Jackson Steger: Lovely. To chat in real life soon.

[00:33:35] Eche Emole: Thank you so much, Jackson. Have a great one.

END OF TRANSCRIPT

#27 Haven: Wellness Coliving in Venice Beach with Robert O'Neill

Host Jackson Steger interviews leaders that are building new cities and other new models of living for digital nomads, creators and remote workers. Campfire is produced by Cabin, which is building a new kind of city for creators called a network city. Our community is developing a global coliving network of physical locations that we call neighborhoods.

https://simplecast.com

#27 Haven: Wellness Coliving in Venice Beach with Robert O'Neill

This week on Campfire, Jackson is joined by Robert O'Neill, the founder of Haven Coliving. In a city and country where people are reliant on cars and often soci

https://podcasts.apple.com

Transcript:

[00:00:00] Jackson Steger: Hi everyone. This is Jackson Steger, and you're listening to Season 2 of Campfire. Let's get it.

[00:00:10] As always, Campfire seeks to understand how to build new cities. Each week we are joined by experts and practitioners from different startup cities, network states, and coliving organizations who will share the stories and lessons that they have learned from experimenting with radical new models of living.

[00:00:26] Today's guest is Robert O'Neill, Co-founder and CEO of Haven Coliving. Haven is a coliving community in Venice Beach that I lived in at the start of 2022. I loved my experience and I think that Robert has done a great job creating a welcoming, dense space for creatives in Los Angeles. We chat about community building and coliving property development and design.

[00:00:51] A reminder, Cabin’s neighborhoods are also now open for coliving. If you're interested in long-term coliving at beautiful locations with nature out the front door, high speed internet, and actual campfires, you can join the waitlist today by visiting www.cabin.city. We're also excited to announce two new coliving experiences this spring, one in Columbia and one in Portugal.

[00:01:14] A reminder, if you introduce us to a city builder and we book them on the podcast, we'll reward you with some Cabin. Now, onto the episode. 

[00:01:22] Robert O'Neill, welcome to Campfire. 

[00:01:24] Robert O'Neill: Thanks for having me, Jackson. Appreciate it. 

[00:01:26] Jackson Steger: I started off this calendar year by living at Haven at the Brooks property in Venice, California. It’s an amazing month. I did it with two of my best friends. And I've never seen anything like it before or since. So just as a first question, I would love for you to tell the audience what is Haven and what motivated you to start it? 

[00:01:47] Robert O'Neill: Yeah. So, Haven is a coliving house in Venice Beach. So, right now we have six buildings across two communities. And basically our idea behind Haven is to create a space that really promotes community, but also solves some problems within the housing market in L.A., which are lack of flexibility with the time that you're able to stay at places, the affordability, just the difficulty of somebody coming into L.A. not knowing anybody, not knowing where they want to live, not knowing if Venice or West Hollywood or Silver Lake is the right place for them, and how are you going to make a one year decision on that based on pictures online. 

[00:02:27] So, we wanted to make it easy, and we wanted to create a great community. We’ve developed these properties in Venice that we thought would be great for it. They were existing buildings that we took over. We outfitted them into what is Haven, which is shared bedrooms. You have a private enclosed space within a shared bedroom. So, everybody has Japanese-style sleeping pods, and on average it's four to six people per bedroom, but you do get a private enclosed space.

[00:02:52] So we were able to solve for affordability because of the density, we're able to solve for community because you're able to, you just have so many interactions every day, that you meet people. When you're outside, when you're in the kitchen, when you're in the living room, there's just so many interactions that you would have. And we're able to solve for flexibility because you can come in month to month or you can stay... And those are the three challenges that we found within really just the apartment rental market and where we hope we have made a little bit of it then.

[00:03:21] Jackson Steger: Yeah, I definitely felt advantaged by that flexibility. It was great for me as a newcomer to L.A., knowing that I had this month to feel out the vibe, see what I thought, and then if I wanted to extend, that was certainly an option. And then also, if not, then I still knew that there was this community I could go back to and maintain friendships with, which was great. 

[00:03:45] A huge part of the marketing online and also the experience actually being there is that it's this wellness-driven or wellness-oriented community. And so, could you just speak a little bit as to why that is a huge part of Haven? And then like, how does that manifest in the actual design of the layout? 

[00:04:04] Robert O'Neill: Yeah. So, you know, we thought a lot about how to create a community. If you want to bring a group of people together that don't know each other and you're asking to live together, how do you create a common focus of this is the type of person that we're looking for and would be attracted to it but also somebody that would make the community better overall. We decided, we talked to a lot of people. There was another coliving house prior to ours that was focused on artists, and it worked so well because people started bands. People were comedians, and they had similar goals. And coming from my background, which was a tech background, that I was in front of a computer all day, I wasn't living healthy, I was alone, I wanted health and wellness in my life, and we thought, hey, listen, this is something that I think a lot of people want as well. They want community. They want to be around people who are in terms of what they want to gear their life towards. It doesn't matter what background you're in. We have people who are really big into the health and wellness industry. So, they're yogis, they’re breath work instructors, they're doing different things within industry. And there's other people who just, they're not into it, but that's the type of lifestyle they want to achieve to, or actually are.

[00:05:15] Some people come there for a bunch of different reasons, but everybody knows the common goal of what you come to Haven for is that this is a like-minded wellness community and that can inspire you in any way that you want, but we make that even more so from when you started. We developed a much more rigorous onboarding session, so that everybody is completely aware of what the standards are for the community, what's expected out of our new members, and what your expectations should be from us. And we really think we've created a pretty cohesive environment for everybody. 

[00:05:50] Jackson Steger: Yeah. Let's pull that thread a little bit. The curation of the community, I thought, complemented the design space, right? So, there was a yoga studio, there's a gym, there's like outdoor space, and also your serendipity because people have to go through the kitchen to pass into their bedrooms, and so they're bound to bump into someone and maybe have an interaction there. But what's this onboarding you're referring to or is there like curation of who's in the community, and then like are there any rules or expectations you're establishing in that onboarding session?

[00:06:23] Robert O'Neill: Yeah. Everybody who joins Haven does either a virtual or a live tour with our community manager, and he reinforces the values on every tour that he does and saying, this is the community we have, these are the expectations for our new members. And some people don't want to do that, and they do an initial call, and they're like, no, thank you. It's the weed-out process from the initial interview. And when they talk to us at first, at this point, we're trying to not make people not want to do it, but just saying, listen, like being a community is hard. Being around this many people, it's challenging for a lot of people, and you're going to push yourself more than you may be comfortable with, and you have to make sure you're ready for that because some people aren't. And we don't want people to come in and say, oh, this is just a lot and I'm overwhelmed, and all this stuff. So, we try to make it pretty clear up upfront. And then, so that's the first thing, and it helps, again, gravitate the message towards what we're looking for in a community. 

[00:07:17] And then the second part is the application process, which is not a formal like apartment style application where it's, you know, your work history and your residence history and your previous owners. It's more of a college essay style. It's a six-page college essay style application. It's what do you want, what are your goals? What do you want to contribute to the community? Why are you interested in Haven? What type of experience are you hoping to get out of this? What can you contribute back to Haven? 

[00:07:42] And I think that that helps separate people because you actually have to think about it. It's not I have to list five addresses. It's in people who take the time to do it and are thoughtful, and we move them past the process. So, I think it's pretty rigorous, and we try to find the best people we can, and we think we've created a pretty good community. I think there's10 marriages out of the house already in three years, businesses have been created, people have met and found apartments together because they've found people they love to be around. And we encourage all of that. We want to support people as they kind of transition into Haven and try this new experience and transition out to wherever they want to go after that.

[00:08:22] Jackson Steger: You mentioned that the community manager giving these tours does a lot of that level setting, and on this podcast, we've brought in a number of different like coliving communities or similar-ish kinds of projects. And I'm just curious to get your take on what makes a good community manager. What's the skillset that, say someone like you starting a project like this in Philadelphia or D.C. or just some other U.S. city, say they're like starting to hire their first community manager, what would you recommend that they look for?

[00:08:53] Robert O'Neill: At least with us it can be very stressful dealing with a bunch of personalities. And it's not like a regular apartment where, you know, even private room coliving, it's similar, like you’re asking people to share space. So, you're more involved with people's lives than you would if I just said, I got a studio apartment, here are the keys, buy your furniture, goodbye. And so, you have to be willing to set your own boundaries. You have to be willing to obviously be respectful to everybody at all times. But also, again, it's somebody who, it's the office space. Like we have 170 members right now. You have 170 bosses because you have everybody asking you things as you're working through your day. So. you've got to be able to juggle a lot during the day and prioritize what's important and what's not. Finding a good community manager is very difficult. I think our community manager, Cassidy and James and Regina and our whole team, is fantastic, and they are able to delineate their personal life from work. And it is difficult. It’s a challenge for people.

[00:09:57] Jackson Steger: Yeah, I'm sure. Just given the density of how many people are there., and also, my impression is that the Haven Group, it's a lot, there's some younger folks who are like fresh out of high school or fresh out of college, and maybe this is their first time living with a bunch of roommates, there's bound to eventually be conflict, maybe small, maybe large. What are like principles of conflict resolution that you have learned or that your community managers have learned?

[00:10:26] Robert O'Neill: You know, I think what we try not to do is be their parent, and especially we do have a lot of younger people who have never lived on their own before and are moving from this world that in school and at home somebody has always been there to solve their problems for them. What we try to impress upon people is that we're there to help, but you need to make that first step. So, if you're feeling challenged by somebody, if you're feeling that something isn't right, you know, before coming to us, we encourage people to be able to try and solve the issue on their own. And if it can't be solved, we're happy to take that next step. But we don't want to be the frontline of every issue. Obviously, if there's a major issue, we want to be aware of it, but empowering people to communicate their boundaries, communicate what they feel comfortable with in the space is super important, and it's a life lesson for a lot of people. Going through that challenge and saying, okay, I feel uncomfortable with this person's noise level of watching tv, right? I feel uncomfortable with this. And talking to somebody and say, hey, do you mind, quiet hours start at 10:00 P.M., do you mind turning it down? It’s important. And you're living with people, and you want to be friends, and you don't want to be the home monitor, but if you're feeling uncomfortable about it, like you should feel empowered to speak up. And we try to get people to feel empowered that, hey, this is your space, you live here. And if people are doing something that's uncomfortable for you, they're watching the TV or playing the radio or something that's too loud, or just something that makes you feel uncomfortable, you live here. So, we want you to be able to feel comfortable to say, let's make this better.

[00:11:55] We do that, and then we do weekly meetings. So, anybody who has an issue, we encourage them to bring it up so we can solve it as a community instead of a top down where, oh, some people think quiet hours should start at 11. Okay, we change the standard. Now, it's 11, which doesn't make – we can do, but it doesn't solve the problem, and it doesn't merit everybody being on the same page.  So, our house meetings are super important. And we made them mandatory. Since you'd lived there before, they were optional, and we weren't getting a lot of attendance. Now, we're saying, listen, let everybody be involved in making this space better, and it's a constant improvement process. 

[00:12:30] Jackson Steger: Yeah, I like that. And I imagine that not every house meeting is some sort of like rule review. I imagine that at the end people are glad to see everyone and go off and get dinner or something. So, that's awesome. 

[00:12:39] Robert O'Neill: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:12:41] Jackson Steger: That's a great idea. Shifting gears a little bit, I want to just talk about the real estate side of it. I think it's such a unique property, the Brooks location, and Penmar as well, and I just kind of want to learn a little bit about how you identified that property, developed it to the degree that you did. So, back when you first started on this process, what were just basic criteria you were looking for? And then also maybe if you were doing this again, like is there any other criteria you would add to that list? What makes a good coliving property, at least here in L.A.? 

[00:13:13] Robert O'Neill: What we look for is walkability. Some place that a large amount of people don't need cars to live there. They can live and work in the same area. Our Brooks location is near Rose Avenue and Abbott Kinney. Our Penmar location is near the Venice Pier and the canals, and there's amenities near the building that makes it attractive, because we're trying to create someplace, you don't need a car to live there. You can take Uber, you can walk, you can get to where you want to, you can go to the beach, you can do fun stuff just right around you. So, that's super important. 

[00:13:43] In terms of the actual building, I think our first two properties, two communities, are single-family homes, and they're called small subdivisions, which are basically homes for sale. What we're moving to and what we've been trying to identify is more multi-family properties that have more kitchen space for people. And the price point between single-family homes and multi-family is multi-family buildings are about half the price on a per square foot basis than single-family homes. And our goal is to provide cost-effective housing. And as the LA. housing market has skyrocketed, we've been looking a lot more towards multi-family buildings. 

[00:14:22] Jackson Steger: Sure. And just to paint a picture for the listener. So, the Brooks property, where I live, there's this central courtyard, and then on either side of the courtyard are four pairs of two houses. And the front house has like a kitchen downstairs and a few bedrooms upstairs, and then the back house upstairs are their bedrooms, and then each back house has a different amenity. So, one has a yoga studio, one has a gym, one has a movie theater, and one has a coworking space. And so, I thought that was just such a perfect situation. How much renovation had to happen for that, if any? Was this just like a needle in the haystack property, or how much did you develop it yourselves?

[00:15:04] Robert O'Neill: Yeah, obviously when you're creating that density, you have to upgrade some of the systems in a building. So, it wasn't a cheap thing to change over, and we put a big investment into that property to get it to where we felt like it would work. But I think any building that we go into, it's not if we take something existing, it's never going to be perfect. When I first looked at Brooks, I was like, I don't know how this is going to work. If you would've seen it before we got in there, everything was closed off together, there were walls off, they just looked like kind of small townhomes. There were no walls anywhere in the building, like the second floor, the third floor, no walls. We had to build everything to make it work, and I think it definitely turned out pretty well. 

[00:15:42] Jackson Steger: Yeah. I'm curious you keep using this language “we” and I want to talk about the financing. We don't have to do hard numbers, of course, but I'm just curious, who's the team behind this project? How did you attract folks to the project? I see on your website you have a page for real estate investors. Was there a certain group of investor you tried to attract? It seems to me that it was at the time, probably such a novel idea. Was it difficult to pitch?

[00:16:07] Robert O'Neill: Yeah, I mean we raised funds for our first few rounds to raise for our Brooks property. It was friends and family. And then after we proved, you know, because it was a different concept for a lot of people. And after we basically proved that there was demand for this and we could build a property like that, we raised an outside venture around right before COVID started. So, we were thankful that we were able to close that. Before, I think a lot of coliving companies had difficulty and during COVID. And during COVID, before you got there, we didn't know anything of what was going on, and obviously we have such dense, we just told everybody, listen, if you feel uncomfortable, like we're just going to let you out of any agreement we have, and you can just go home. Obviously, you may have lost your job, you can't get anywhere. So, we basically went from full capacity to 40% capacity over in a course of a month.

[00:16:55] And then we couldn't move people in for six months because there were no testing, there were no vaccines, there was no way to safely move people back in. It was definitely a difficult time. But yeah, so we raised a venture around. What we realized since then is that a venture money into real estate is not the most effective use of funds. So now we're talking to real estate investors that want to own the property with us as a partner.

[00:17:19] Jackson Steger: Yeah. This is exactly the question I was about to ask. We've seen this at Cabin. And so, does the scale of venture really match what a real estate project is able to return? And yeah, with real estate investors, what are the expectations that you're trying to set regarding returns for future properties? 

[00:17:35] Robert O'Neill: We have two concepts for any future development. One is more of a multi-family building with a small coliving component, because one thing for real estate investors is they like things that look like everything else, even though…So, if you try to talk to people about dense coliving or shared bedrooms, there's no product type for it in the debt markets, there's nothing they can compare it to on the equity markets. Those are the challenges that we have, but we can return greater income, any multi-family deal, and we can be in better locations than any ground up opportunity there would be because based on the density we have. So, we're able to return higher amounts to investors. but especially a lot of the real estate investor base is on the older side and it's hard to remember that this is really appealing. It was probably even appealing for them when they were younger. But when they're older, it's a hard concept to wrap up your mind around. 

[00:18:34] Jackson Steger: I think my dream situation is, are you familiar with Radish at all in San Francisco? Sorry, I guess it's technically in Oakland, but Phil Levin, who is full-time at Cabin and has also been on this podcast, operates a community out of Oakland that no one has private enclosed spaces in the larger bedroom. Everyone has their own bedroom, but they do have this five-building compound that's a mix of really interesting, like there will be one building that's four one-bedroom apartments, one that's a five-bedroom house, one that's a two-bed and a three-bed apartment, and there's a big communal building with an industrial kitchen and like a daycare on top, and…Anyway, I love the idea of that in Venice, because I love Venice and I love the beach, and that’s like a personal vision for myself down the road. But for something like that, you do need to start having more cops. And so, have you been able to identify a community of other people working on this sort of more novel development, or where have you gone to just learn on this kind of subject matter?

[00:19:36] Robert O'Neill: There are some groups, like coliving groups, (00:19:37) One. I don't know if you're familiar with them. They have a kind of international coliving group, a monthly call, and there's people from Europe and Asia and the U.S. and all kind of discuss what's going on in their markets, which is always kind of interesting to hear. For us, specifically, there's not any real community in L.A., but I think pre-COVID we’ve tried to bring together a few coliving companies and then create a consortium and make sure that everybody had high standards on the community, just so it would be well looked upon. After COVID, some of them aren't here anymore. I think it's a rebuilding phase in the coliving world at least in L.A. for new companies here. 

[00:20:18] Jackson Steger: Awesome. Cool. I have one last question to take us out. There's this term that I'm trying to make a thing. We'll see if it actually pans out, but the term is ‘vibe scaling’. There's this basic idea that, you have a tech background, you understand this. Someone like a WeWork comes in and Adam Neumann has this language that's super community oriented and very ambitious, but then ultimately the WeWork at scale will never have the same density of community and passion that the very first WeWork has. And I've now worked at a several different early-stage tech outfits that have engaged in vibe scaling to one degree or another, and I'm just personally wary of venture-backed vibe scaling. 

[00:20:00] But at Cabin, one thing that we are trying to think about as we contend with potentially being a vibe scaling organization is cross-pollination. So, folks who have had a good experience in one of our iterations of the thing, which for us is also coliving, and then having them also be at the second iteration, and the third iteration, and just having a core group of people that are able to bring the successful pillars of your N of 1 to your N of 5 and 10 and a hundred. 

[00:21:32] Brooks and Penmar to me felt like two different worlds in terms of like they're setups are pretty different, there's just different groups of people, and you got across like a street, a busier street, to get there. So, how do you think about maintaining a consistent Haven-ness between both Brooks and Penmar? And then how are you thinking about scaling the vibe for other properties that you might build in the future?

[00:21:59] Robert O'Neill: Yeah. And I think even at Brooks, house to house the vibe is different, you know. It's interesting, it's hard to scale. Sometimes you have a big personality that moves in but it kind of dominates the space, and you can see the energy shift, interesting to watch, and then people gravitate towards the energy that they, some people, I think you’re house 4, it was more of the louder house. And then you have something like our house 2, which is everything is pristine, and everything is quiet, and everybody goes to bed early and wakes up early. And you will get a lot of requests from people saying, hey, I feel more attuned to the house 4 people. Can I move? Or I feel house 2 is my vibe. And it's cool because everybody gets along, but the way they live their life, they kind of gravitate towards that. 

[00:22:49] But in terms of scaling it, I agree with you. We've thought a lot about seeding the communities with existing members just to set expectations. We haven't gotten there yet, but I think that's an important way to make sure that when you're starting a new community, somebody just doesn't come in and dominate and change the tone of everything. And I think really focusing on your first 5 or 10 members and really being, like working with them, and even if they're existing Haven members, they understand the part that they're going to play. Or if they're new people, keep on drilling into them of this is the tone that we're setting for new people because it's really like the tone that you start from the beginning is it resonates for months afterwards. I think that's the most important part for us. And then being consistent across the community events, and our community events reinforce our values every time we have them. We try to re-instill that every time. 

[00:23:40] Jackson Steger: Yeah. Does it make sense for Haven to expand throughout Los Angeles first, or do you think maybe the better approach is have a few flagship locations across major U.S. cities, or even international cities?

[00:23:55] Robert O'Neill: I think there's enough demand within Los Angeles, and I think there is, for instance, we've had people who moved to Venice and say, hey, I work in the entertainment industry and everything's more East and I love it, but I can't live here. And I think there's probably six areas within L.A. that we're targeting of like areas we think a Haven would work. And we think we can do two or three more with just within Venice, and we have the demand for that. There's other areas in L.A., like West Hollywood adjacent Silver Lake, Echo Park, Koreatown, Beverly Grove, all these areas that we think can support our Haven. And L.A. .is so big, it's just like moving to a different city anyway. And the difference between Silver Lake and Venice is worlds apart. I mean, you cross more people going from Venice to Silver Lake than you do probably going to the south of South Dakota to the north of North Dakota because just there’s a lot of people and a lot of different personalities. We're focusing just on L.A. for now, and I think our idea is we want to do one test market within the next two years.

[00:24:58] Jackson Steger: Awesome. Cool. Robert, anything to plug? If someone is listening to this episode and they're like, wow, Haven sounds awesome, I want to check it out, where should we send them? 

[00:25:06] Robert O'Neill: Yeah. Definitely you can check us out online either at our website at www.havencoliving.com or you can see us on Instagram @colivingathaven. Those are the two main ways to get in contact with us, and you can always set up a tour and talk to our community managers and see what the community is about. 

[00:25:22] Jackson Steger: Awesome. Thanks so much. Appreciate you coming on the show. 

[00:25:24] Robert O'Neill: Yeah, thank you. 

[00:25:25] Jackson Steger: And I hope to see you at another Haven property soon.

END OF TRANSCRIPT

** **

In doing so, we are starting to imagine the first civilization-scale game that is played both online and offline. This IRL RPG (in-real-life role-playing game) is a wild experiment in bringing people together in both virtual and physical environments.

Like other world-building projects, Cabin consists of people, places, an in-game currency, and ways to level-up.

In the rest of this article, we’ll detail how to engage with Cabin and describe the “game mechanics” that we believe will best enable the internet’s brightest minds to gather in person and solve some of our biggest problems (like housing and loneliness) through novel, emergent bottom-up human coordination.

Roles - Choose Your Character

The first thing one does in most games is “choose your character.” When you onboard to Cabin, you’ll have the opportunity to choose a role for yourself (you can choose more than one if you’d like). Roles are how you can create association, identity, and reputation that build social capital within Cabin and its neighborhoods.

There are currently six roles that make up the Cabin ecosystem:

• Creators are artists, developers, writers, dreamers, and makers who come to Cabin to explore and design things that have never been done before.

• Residents live across the Cabin network, cross-pollinating neighborhoods with culture and ideas. They live and work remotely and help support neighborhoods financially.

• Builders create the physical environment of neighborhoods. They design and build structures for living, working, and connecting with other members of the community.

• Naturalists come to Cabin neighborhoods to regenerate the environment and help communities live with the cycles of the natural world. They grow plants, food, animals, and culture.

• Hosts create containers for people to come together IRL and form deep, lasting relationships. They make sure everyone is having a great time in their neighborhoods.

• Caretakers are the heart and soul of Cabin neighborhoods. They own and operate properties in the network and build communities that flourish.​

Here is how each role can engage both in-real life and virtually:

Creators

In Real Life: Creators can apply to be a Creator-in-Residence. Creators in Residence live in Cabin neighborhoods for free and work on any project of their choosing. They are selected by the community each month and anybody can apply via publicly describing their creative project on either Twitter or Instagram.

Online: Cabin hosts regular accountability circles where creators can give and receive feedback on their creative projects. These are not mandatory, but are helpful ways to accelerate one’s path to achieving their creative goals.

Residents

In Real Life: Residents pay for rooms on Cabin properties. They usually have a remote job/company/creative endeavor that they work on for part of the day, but they are free to set their own schedules and do their own thing. Cabin neighborhoods have nature out the front door and typically include amenities like saunas, gyms, cold plunge pools, and campfires. If you’re interested in moving into a Cabin neighborhood, you can apply here today.

Online: Residents are welcome to the same community-wide forums that other roles share, which include a regular community video call and several active channels in Discord.

Builders

In Real Life: There are two main IRL opportunities for Builders.

1. Builders can come to neighborhoods for a Build Week, which are ad-hoc 1-2 week projects where a team quickly erects a structure on a Cabin neighborhood in exchange for free room and board. Past Build Weeks have facilitated the creation of a sauna, a pergola, and a bathhouse.

2. Builders can apply to be a Builder-in-Residence, in which they provide 15-20 hours of weekly work over the course of several months to help build tiny cabins and other projects in exchange for free housing at a Cabin neighborhood. They also lead Build Weeks.

Online: Cabin has a regular call for builders led by a former Builder-in-Residence. Please join the #builders channel in Discord to learn more.

Naturalists

In Real Life: There are two main IRL opportunities for Naturalists.

1. Naturalists can come to neighborhoods for a Grow Week, which are ad-hoc 1-4 week projects where a team of naturalists restore or help build local regenerative systems. There is an upcoming grow week at an orchard on the Portuguese island of Såo Miguel.

2. Naturalists can apply to be a Naturalist-in-Residence, in which they provide 15-20 hours of weekly work to help develop or restore local regenerative systems in exchange for free housing at a Cabin neighborhood.

Online: Gardeners, farmers, and folks interested in permaculture are welcome to join the #naturalists channel in Cabin’s discord. We discuss plants we’re growing, grass we’re touching, and crops we’re nurturing.

Hosts

In Real Life: Hosts can apply to become a Host-In-Residence, in which they provide 15-20 hours of weekly work to create warm spaces and lead the logistics of gathering at a neighborhood.

Online: Hosts gather in Cabin’s discord to meet other gatherers and spacemakers.

Caretakers

In Real Life: Caretakers own and operate Cabin neighborhoods and usually reside on their properties for most of the year. They collaborate with builders and naturalists to improve the physical environment and collaborate with hosts to ensure that everyone living on a property feels comfortable and safe.

Online: Later this year, Cabin will introduce THE NEIGHBORHOOD RACE, which will be a way for prospective and current Caretakers to raise funds from Cabin and their community to develop their neighborhood. Funds must help neighborhoods to do a better job of facilitating Cabin’s values of coliving, creating, and conserving.

Neighborhoods: Choose Your Environment(s)

Neighborhoods are beautiful properties across the Cabin network. Neighborhoods are typically within 90 minutes of an airport and have high speed internet and immersive nature out the front door. They are owned by Caretakers, who develop neighborhoods alongside each of Cabin’s roles.

Cabin currently has three neighborhoods. Neighborhood Zero (near Austin, Texas) is accepting residents for each of the following roles:

• Creator (Apply here)

• Resident (Apply here)

• Builder (Apply here)

• Naturalist (Apply here)

• Host (Apply here)

The neighborhood race is how the Cabin community comes together to create new neighborhoods. Members of the community can pledge support and make financial contributions. Winners of the race get access to crowdfunding tools, advising, and matching funds from Cabin. Prospective new neighborhoods can fill out this form.

There are many people within the Cabin ecosystem who are not currently living in a neighborhood. Our physical communities and our online community can communicate with each other on Discord and in other virtual spaces.

₡ABIN: An in-game currency for the Cabin community

₡ABIN is the in-game currency that allows players to make community decisions, earn rewards, and coordinate with others. It helps the Cabin ecosystem align our incentives to develop neighborhoods that better enable us to create, conserve, and colive. ₡ABIN currently has four core functions:

1. Deciding how we spend our money

2. Deciding which creators we choose for Creator-in-Residence programs

3. Deciding which neighborhoods we onboard to the Cabin network of neighborhoods

4. Granting access to certain channels within the Discord and the Census

Members can hold and interact with their ₡ABIN in a wallet. A wallet is a digital tool where you can store crypto assets (₡ABIN was made on the Ethereum blockchain). Metamask and Rainbow are examples of non-custodial wallets that anyone can use. Reach out to the Cabin team on Twitter/IG if you need help getting set up with a wallet.

Anyone can earn ₡ABIN by participating in the Community Referral Program. Builders, Naturalists, Hosts, and Creators can earn ₡ABIN by participating in IRL events. ₡ABIN is also gifted to community members for their contributions.

Reimagining How We Live

The Cabin ecosystem consists of folks with unique skillsets who share a vision to create, colive, and conserve.

Neighborhood Zero is actively accepting residents for each of our different roles. Our success there can serve as a model for future Cabin properties. By implementing the above “game mechanics,” we’re confident that we can accelerate the pace at which our community can come together to develop thriving neighborhoods.