Paypal Founder Backs Blueseed, ‘Googleplex of the Sea’

January 7th, 2012

Will there be… Plasmids?

BioShock is set during 1960, in Rapture, a fictional underwater dystopian city; its history is revealed to the player through in-game audio recordings scattered throughout the game.

Rapture was envisioned by the Objectivist business magnate, Andrew Ryan, as a laissez-faire utopia for society’s cultural and scientific elite to avoid the oppression of government and religion. He secretly funded its construction on the mid-Atlantic, utilizing submarine volcanoes to provide geothermal power, and was completed by 1946. Despite Ryan’s attempts, a seedier side of Rapture formed, led by businessman and gangster Frank Fontaine, who secretly managed to maintain a black market for goods to and from the surface. Scientific progress flourished within Rapture after the discovery of a new form of sea slug by Dr. Bridgette Tenenbaum; stem cells from the slugs could be used to create “ADAM”, a plasmid that altered its user’s DNA and grant them super-human powers like telekinesis and pyrokinesis. An industry for plasmids was created by Tenenbaum and Fontaine. To meet the growing demand, Tenenbaum devised a means for the sea slugs to be embedded in the stomachs of young girls from Fontaine’s orphanages, named Little Sisters, producing large quantities of ADAM.

Via: Wired:

Blueseed says U.S. immigration law is choking the flow of “bold and creative” entrepreneurs into Silicon Valley. So it’s building a floating IT fortress where entrepreneurs can be bold and creative right next to Silicon Valley without actually setting foot on U.S. soil.

To get around the government’s immigration choke-hold, the much-discussed startup plans to sail foreign innovators 12 miles off the Northern California shore, into international waters. Once there, governed only by loosely enforced maritime treaties, these entrepreneurs can ply their trade without worrying about worker visas or various other immigration regulations. And they can live in San Francisco. Ferries will shuttle them back and forth.

This is more than just an idea. Big-name venture capitalist and PayPal founder Peter Thiel just sunk some cash into the Blueseed crusade, and on Tuesday, the company released detailed mockups of its floating incubator (see the above image gallery, given exclusively to Wired).

Gabriel Jack, an immigration attorney at law firm MJ Law in Silicon Valley, tells Wired the notion is legally sound — though he points out that workers on the floating incubator will need valid visitor visas, which can be good for up to 10 years. “There’s nothing in the [visa] law that says how often you can visit the United States. If they make it clear that they work in international waters and are using a visitor visa to stay on land,” he says. “I don’t see how the immigration department can do anything about it legally.”

But there’s more to deal with here than just the law. Last week, Wired sat down with the Blueseed’s three founders to get the low-down on its plan to take the TechCrunch set on an eternal boat ride.

2 Responses to “Paypal Founder Backs Blueseed, ‘Googleplex of the Sea’”

  1. Noble says:

    As long as they have a few Big Daddys to patrol the ship, and I’m sure they will, all should be well.

    Genius idea really, for the people who will take the most profit off of it (ie, probably not the immigrants).

    I am Andrew Ryan, and I am here to ask you a question. Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow?

    ‘No,’ says the man in Washington, ‘it belongs to the poor.’
    ‘No,’ says the man in the Vatican, ‘it belongs to God.’
    ‘No,’ says the man in Moscow, ‘it belongs to everyone.’

  2. tal says:

    “To get around the government’s immigration choke-hold,”

    Ha ha, that’s a good one:

    High Tech’s Indentured Servants-As Silicon Valley prospers, foreign workers are trapped in a tricky
    waiting game.

    http://www.programmersguild.org/archives/lib/Abuse/rh200007indentured.htm

    The Modern Indentured Servants
    http://www.employmentpolicy.org/topic/19/blog/modern-indentured-servants

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