Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
So I read a fabulous article over on the website
for the Foundation for Economic Education feed dot org FEE
dot org and the title of the article is why
I left Silicon Valley for a Honduran startup city and
the author is Lanas Hameli, and it's it's just a
(00:21):
fabulous piece. And I'm not really gonna gonna gonna read
it to you because he's my guest now and and
we're going to talk about it. But for a young
guy who's you know, in Silicon Valley with a with
a work visa, US visa, to give up all that whatever,
whatever Lana's thought that was going to be for him
(00:42):
to move to this sort of freedom zone within Honduras
is pretty remarkable.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
So, Lanas, thanks so much for for being here. It's
great to have you.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Uh And and you're in Honduras right now, right, so
maybe they'll have a small delay, but that's where you are.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
I I in prosper in ondur Us, that's right right.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
In fact, do you even think of yourself as being
in Honduras or do you just think of yourself as
being in prospera.
Speaker 4 (01:09):
Well, I guess I think myself as being in both
you know, on prosperous, you know, quite special jurisdiction.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
We have you know, our own legal framework.
Speaker 4 (01:18):
We rely on you know, nineteen sixties American common law.
We have our own you know, legal framework on top
of that as well. But obviously we're inside of Honduras
and we're probably very closely with on Duras, and we're
not the country in ourselves. We're alreays, you know, special
economic zone with very high levels of legal autonomy, but
you know, inside of Honduras.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Okay, so you just described some of what makes prospera special,
but many of my listeners might not have heard of it.
I had Joel Bomgar on the show a few years back,
but I probably have a lot of new listeners since then.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
So just do a little.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Bit more of a description of the theory of Prospera
and then the and also you know, the logistics and
how it really works.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
So the theory of prosperous really you know, taking a
first principal support thinking. Okay, if we start from scratch
without all of that thousands of years of ticketed that is,
you know, making up a modern institutions and governments, What
if we start from zero and basically think what what
is the legal framework and what is the societal construct
that leads to the most growth and the most human prosperity.
(02:26):
So that's kind of the fundamental question and in kind
of and we've tried to be very empirical in trying
to answering that.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
And obviously you can see threads through that.
Speaker 4 (02:35):
You know, very strong property rights protection, very strong protections
of individual liberties in general is key for any sort
of flourishing or you know, economic advancements.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
So that's really the theory.
Speaker 4 (02:48):
And then how we implemented here we have a few
we have around one thousand acres and as we bought
here in Honduras.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
And we have.
Speaker 4 (02:58):
You know, set up up that we can implement these
very deep performs. So for instance, we rely on we've
showsen to rely on, you know, in nineteen sixties roughly
American common law as the base framework. But then the
companies that then come here and operate, whether it be
in energy or biotech or crypto, they can.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
Choose their own legal framework to operating.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
So that.
Speaker 4 (03:23):
Really opens up some new applications that's never been been
possible before.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
I can give you an examples in biotechs.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
So biotech is one of the largest industries here in
Prospra and and by the comes the community can create
their own legal framework and foundation. So let me ask you, actually,
can you guess if you to get FDA approval in
the US, like to get approval to offer your drug
in the US, can you guess what the cost.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
Is on average for that.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Two billion.
Speaker 4 (03:58):
To be so not including the science parts, just the
permitting part of like test testing it and going through
this this legal.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Okay, three hundred million.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
That's right, Actually it is three million.
Speaker 4 (04:12):
Okay, As if you start a new biotech company in
in in the US, you basically have to waste three
hundred million dollars US for the administrative steps essentially.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
And that obviously you know direct that's just that leads
to less medicine. That's than what we should have available.
Speaker 4 (04:34):
So here in prosperot cost around three hundred thousand dollars,
so it's a thousand next difference.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
So the the.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Is there a particular regulatory regime that the biotech company
or companies in Prospera choose to operate under that's best,
Like do they choose Switzerland or do they choose England
or they choose can't What do they choose typically or
is there no typical answer?
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Yeah, a good question.
Speaker 4 (05:01):
Typically they they basically create their own mixed match of framework.
So they take some of the best parts from from Switzerland,
some of the best parts from Delaware, and some of
the best parts from Singapore, that's say, and then they
create their own legal framework. And the only thing that
we from Prosper acquired is that we require these types
of companies that operate in regulated industries to have insurance.
(05:26):
And because remember we still operate undercome a lot, right,
so if you screw up, you can be stood, and
so it's important. But so basically to have an insurance
company underwrite your biotech company or energy company or your
crypto company, you you need to be, you know, a
serious player advice. They will not underwrite you because it
just doesn't make financial sense. That's everything we require on
(05:49):
our end, just to find an insurance provider and and
and yeah you can you can go from there.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
I just want to just ask Americans who are listening
to imagine this. I mean, imagine if you could set
up a business without all of the state and federal regulations,
not without all well, let's say actually without almost all regulations,
still some framework in common law. You're not allowed to
cheat people. You're not allowed to defraud people. You're not
(06:16):
allowed to kill people. You're not allowed to you're not
allowed to hurt people and take their stuff, to use
a libertarian kind of line, right, So you got that baseline,
And if you're not allowed to cheat people, then it
seems like much.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Of the rest, you're not allowed to cheat and hurt people.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
It seems like much of the rest should be left
to companies to do what they want to do. But
of course almost no place does that, and Americans have
gotten so used to no place doing that that we
just let.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Them get away with it. All right, let me just
switch gears here with you for a second.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
So the piece that you wrote Lanis for for Fee
is very personal kind of piece, and I'm fascinated by
your story, right.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
So to us a little about your story, and actually,
let me ask.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
You a personal question. I don't think I saw in
the article where you came from, and obviously your accent
doesn't sound like Denver. And I'm going to take a wild,
wild guess here because the only person I've ever heard
speak who had an accent that I thought sounded pretty
much like yours is Mark Laar, the former president of Estonia.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
So were you from anywhere near there?
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Quite close? I'm from Sweden.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Okay, close enough, not quite close enough, but all right,
close enough? Yeah, okay, So tell us your story. Like you,
you you were in Silicon Valley and you had a
US visa, and like you, whatever that was going to
be for you, you gave it up. What were you doing?
What did what were your hopes and dreams? And why
did you give it up?
Speaker 3 (07:49):
Yeah? For sure. Yeah. So I had an AI agent startup.
Speaker 4 (07:55):
We were kind of building AI to basically automate human
white collar work, or at least the poor parts of
white color work.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
So we had, you know, raised five million dollars for that.
Speaker 4 (08:06):
I have gotten my my US O one visa after
nine months or so of application, and yeah, we're moving
from Francisco to set up a headquarter.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
I guess I've just been really burdened during.
Speaker 4 (08:19):
The last I would say, you know, eighteen months or so,
by the state, the by state of the world. I've
been you know, reading a lot of history all throughout life,
and it's just been very.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
Clear that you know, having.
Speaker 4 (08:34):
Having you know, good living conditions, not being you know,
not having not living in a subsistency economy. Essentially, it's
very rare, Like typically through history people live in subsist
subsistency conditions. You know, many of the kids died before five.
They have all sorts of cricling conditions, And it's just
this kind of.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
The kind of.
Speaker 4 (08:56):
Institutions were built on this liberalist foundation that has an
abled us to you know, reach the high levels of
the wealth that we have currently, and we were just
forgetting about it all over the world. We were implementing
exit taxes, wealth taxes, we were implementing all sorts of regulation. Obviously,
the they if you if you would do a short
of the cumulative spending or just you know, the annual
(09:18):
spending of governments, it's it's kyrocter kyroketing currently. So I
was just really burdened by that, and I didn't see
an option to do something about it before I found
I guess the free cities movement that was specifically is
the one that actually ask land because I never believed
in this theory that you can work form a broken system.
(09:40):
But there's there are too many different incentives, you know,
if you were from their federal government. I mean, it
would be great if it would happen, but it's just
such a hard job. It's much easier, in my opinion,
to start from scratch and build something better. And that's
kind of opportunity that proper represented. So it was when
I sa not too hard of a choice to just,
(10:02):
you know, leave everything and go here instead.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
Well, and I should have mentioned before, folks, so want
is to just move there? He works at and for
Prospera as the vice president of growth there.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Uh so.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
And and by the way, it's p r O s
p e r A if if you want to learn more,
let's see what's the whole website to make sure we're
going to the right one.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
Excite prosper dots co.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
There you go Prospera dot c o if you wanna,
if you want to learn more.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
So yeah, I'm I'm so fascinated by the whole thing.
But one one more personal thing.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
So you you were setting up some AI stuff, you're
you're a young dude.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
You gave that up to move to Prospera.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
And I doubt that Prospera has the money to pay
you a big salary every year, So did you make
some money doing AI or like, how are you affording
to do this?
Speaker 3 (10:58):
And yeah, for sure.
Speaker 4 (11:00):
So so before this agent company, I had previous companies
within so I started off dropping out of college. So
I started in college in twenty nineteen, you know, immediately
found out that it was this giants gun and so
I quickly dropped out and started this a company.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
In e commerce.
Speaker 4 (11:20):
So this was prett GPT right, so you could only
really make quite boring startups at the time. But it
was an AI AI in e commerce, and we grew
it quite well. It went to a cumminary where it's
twenty billion and the company is still going. It's around
thirteen places or so, but it's very sales heavy. So
me and my co founder we brought in an external
manager to just oversee the sales, but we're still kind
(11:42):
of advisors and and the shoulders there.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
But then also so yeah, so.
Speaker 4 (11:50):
But then also, you know, it's not that expensive to
live here and prosper because we have you know, we
don't it's very ship to build her. For instance, the condo,
the Amstead, and currently it's around for four hundred square
feets and I pay around five hundred and fifty bucks
per month. Hm, I had the same condoing since of
Francisco and that costs almost four k.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
I bet, so that's an apex.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Okay, So you're the You're the Swedish Mark Zuckerberd.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
So that's pretty good.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
Do you You're you're down there by Roatan, which is famous
for for scuba diving and especially for looking at at
micro you know, small creatures, night diving.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Not so much the blue wall kind of stuff. Do
you do you dive?
Speaker 4 (12:37):
I'm I'm beginning my my my journey there. I guess
I did some snorkeling. I guess some weekends ago.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
But yeah, I haven't had so much time for uh
huh for vacation yet. I'll get there. I'll get there.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
So what's your vice president of growth? So I'm guessing
vice president of growth means your job is to encourage
entrepreneurs to come to prosper instead of businesses.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
So what's the pitch?
Speaker 1 (13:06):
I mean, I think we get the concept, but like, literally,
what do you say? What if I were a businessman,
I'm going to start a widget factory and I hate
all the widgets regulations in the United States.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
What are you going to say to me?
Speaker 3 (13:21):
Sure?
Speaker 4 (13:21):
Yeah, So I guess the piece is different if you're
in a normal industry versus regulated in traditionally regulated industry. Right,
So if you're in a traditionally regulated industry like biotech,
like energy, like building buildings in general, then the difference
is you know, off the kind of difference in quality
that we can provide versus other governance systems is also
(13:43):
you know, measured in the tens to thousand tacks. So
if you're a biotech you can you can offer your
drugs here a thousand times cheaper and instead of twelve
years to text to three months. If you're in if
you're building buildings, you know in the worstern world, can
take yourself years to do environmental review and get permitting.
And we got through the soning requirements here with there's
(14:06):
not basically such process.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
What if if I wanted to uh develop small nuclear reactors?
Speaker 2 (14:13):
Could I do that?
Speaker 3 (14:15):
S the morstar are you know amazing? And yah? You
know in a regulated industry where we do require insurance.
Speaker 4 (14:22):
Yeah, and and some some very basic inspection on the site.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
From that the insurance company would carry out of.
Speaker 4 (14:30):
Course, but yeah in principle where we definitely like clean
energy and the you know, nuclear is one of the
best clean energy sources, so of course.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
The whole thing is just so fascinating. All right, one
one more question, So let's imagine then let's imagine I'm
in biotech, and so then my question to you, Lana says, Okay,
I love the idea of being able to develop my
drug in less than a year for less than a
million dollars or whatever the numbers are. But being in
(15:01):
this deregulated zone, how can I feel confident that my
potential customers in the rest of the world will trust
my drug?
Speaker 3 (15:13):
Hm hmm.
Speaker 4 (15:14):
Yeah, Well, so going through the through the FDA hoops
is actually no guarantee at all. Like typically what the
drugs that you are sold and the companies that develop
them are just they just don't have any liability because
they've shicked all of the boxes, right, They've they've paid lawyers,
they've done going through the entire process to be check
(15:36):
check marked and verified, and they are kind of they
can do no harm from here. Basically from a legal perspective,
it's hard to do it is you have to prove
a very malicious intent, whereas in prosper we don't really
check the box. You we have this ensure that basically
have you pay a premium based on how risky or
drug is. And so the companies here have very high
(15:58):
incentive to not only shack a box, but actually follow
up and be super diligent with a safety profile, all right,
because they don't they don't shack a box in the
spine or a way. They have to really make sure
that they are not there is riscal getting, you know,
suitor or something like that.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
And what about on the so what about on the
effectiveness side? Normally when you're looking at rugs, you're looking
at effectiveness and safety. Right, So you talked about the
safety side. I can see that, but again I don't. Again,
I'm pretending to be a biotech businessman here and I've
got about a minute.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
But so I'll just repeat the question.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
How can I convince a potential customer in France that
that my you know, a hospital system in France, that
my drug is safe and effective since we developed.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
It in this low regulation environment.
Speaker 4 (16:48):
Yeah, well, you know they do trials here as well, right,
so you can you can show them the results from
the trials and say here we did we did the
trial with this mount of people. This is the safety profile,
this is the efficacy profile, and then they could you know,
take the decision from there. One of the big drivers
of the trial cost is administrative burden. So if you're
(17:11):
on trials in the States, you know most of it
is just filling out paperwork and doing this this work
or there. It's very easy and cheap to make trials,
large scale trials. So if anything, you have more data
on the safety profile and i ficacy profile here just
because cheaper to carry out.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Let me let me sneak in.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
One listener question, how can you prevent people from creating
bad things that they wouldn't be able to create in
their own country, like some kind of weapon or something like?
How do you prevent bad things from being done there?
Speaker 4 (17:42):
Yeah, what we do have we do have a security
first here, so you know, when you sign up or
when you move here, you basically sign an agreement of
coexistence with prosper So you're not the subject here. You're
a contractual party and we have rights and obligations, right,
so your and you have rights which includes stabila rights.
We include the entire use of VILA rights, and we
(18:04):
also have a number of other rights that you're constructed
the have. And then ALI end we have obligations, right,
So one obligation is to provide for good security services
and make sure that you're not in a position where
other people can.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
Yeah, I can hurt you feasibly.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
Yeah, I think we got to wrap it up here,
but I just want to say to listeners, I think
most people in the Western world have become completely unused
to freedom, and I think freedom makes a lot of
people nervous, and I think that's a shame. And you know,
if you go to my blog today at Rosskominsky dot com,
you can read this article that Lanas wrote, why I
(18:45):
left Silicon Valley for a Honduran startup city. And I
wanted to have this conversation not just because prosper is interesting,
but because Lanas's story is inspiring. I mean, you look
to me like you're around thirty or something. I don't
know how old, jar maybe less, And how old are you?
Twenty seven?
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (19:05):
Okay, So this dude, already successful at a young age,
leaves all that to move to be vice president of
growth at a startup free enterprise zone in Central America.
It's because there's freedom there and there's good ideas there,
and that stuff is just so missing in the United
States of America. It's not entirely absent, but it's it's
(19:29):
not where it should be. And you know, maybe you know,
with Ramaswami and Musk who have their own flaws, but
those are the kind of people who sometimes have this
kind of thinking, and maybe maybe those guys will inspire
a little prosperal like thinking in America. I don't know,
but Lanas, I think you're you know, inspiring and it's
it's really good to talk to you. Hopefully I'll meet
you in person a week and go scuba diving one day.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 4 (19:52):
Thanks so much for having me, and yeah, it would
be it would be great to have you down here
as well.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
All right, thanks so much.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
That's Lanasameli, vice president of Growth of Prospero
So I read a fabulous article over on the website
for the Foundation for Economic Education feed dot org FEE
dot org and the title of the article is why
I left Silicon Valley for a Honduran startup city and
the author is Lanas Hameli, and it's it's just a
(00:21):
fabulous piece. And I'm not really gonna gonna gonna read
it to you because he's my guest now and and
we're going to talk about it. But for a young
guy who's you know, in Silicon Valley with a with
a work visa, US visa, to give up all that whatever,
whatever Lana's thought that was going to be for him
(00:42):
to move to this sort of freedom zone within Honduras
is pretty remarkable.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
So, Lanas, thanks so much for for being here. It's
great to have you.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Uh And and you're in Honduras right now, right, so
maybe they'll have a small delay, but that's where you are.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
I I in prosper in ondur Us, that's right right.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
In fact, do you even think of yourself as being
in Honduras or do you just think of yourself as
being in prospera.
Speaker 4 (01:09):
Well, I guess I think myself as being in both
you know, on prosperous, you know, quite special jurisdiction.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
We have you know, our own legal framework.
Speaker 4 (01:18):
We rely on you know, nineteen sixties American common law.
We have our own you know, legal framework on top
of that as well. But obviously we're inside of Honduras
and we're probably very closely with on Duras, and we're
not the country in ourselves. We're alreays, you know, special
economic zone with very high levels of legal autonomy, but
you know, inside of Honduras.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Okay, so you just described some of what makes prospera special,
but many of my listeners might not have heard of it.
I had Joel Bomgar on the show a few years back,
but I probably have a lot of new listeners since then.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
So just do a little.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Bit more of a description of the theory of Prospera
and then the and also you know, the logistics and
how it really works.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
So the theory of prosperous really you know, taking a
first principal support thinking. Okay, if we start from scratch
without all of that thousands of years of ticketed that is,
you know, making up a modern institutions and governments, What
if we start from zero and basically think what what
is the legal framework and what is the societal construct
that leads to the most growth and the most human prosperity.
(02:26):
So that's kind of the fundamental question and in kind
of and we've tried to be very empirical in trying
to answering that.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
And obviously you can see threads through that.
Speaker 4 (02:35):
You know, very strong property rights protection, very strong protections
of individual liberties in general is key for any sort
of flourishing or you know, economic advancements.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
So that's really the theory.
Speaker 4 (02:48):
And then how we implemented here we have a few
we have around one thousand acres and as we bought
here in Honduras.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
And we have.
Speaker 4 (02:58):
You know, set up up that we can implement these
very deep performs. So for instance, we rely on we've
showsen to rely on, you know, in nineteen sixties roughly
American common law as the base framework. But then the
companies that then come here and operate, whether it be
in energy or biotech or crypto, they can.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
Choose their own legal framework to operating.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
So that.
Speaker 4 (03:23):
Really opens up some new applications that's never been been
possible before.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
I can give you an examples in biotechs.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
So biotech is one of the largest industries here in
Prospra and and by the comes the community can create
their own legal framework and foundation. So let me ask you, actually,
can you guess if you to get FDA approval in
the US, like to get approval to offer your drug
in the US, can you guess what the cost.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
Is on average for that.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Two billion.
Speaker 4 (03:58):
To be so not including the science parts, just the
permitting part of like test testing it and going through
this this legal.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Okay, three hundred million.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
That's right, Actually it is three million.
Speaker 4 (04:12):
Okay, As if you start a new biotech company in
in in the US, you basically have to waste three
hundred million dollars US for the administrative steps essentially.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
And that obviously you know direct that's just that leads
to less medicine. That's than what we should have available.
Speaker 4 (04:34):
So here in prosperot cost around three hundred thousand dollars,
so it's a thousand next difference.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
So the the.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Is there a particular regulatory regime that the biotech company
or companies in Prospera choose to operate under that's best,
Like do they choose Switzerland or do they choose England
or they choose can't What do they choose typically or
is there no typical answer?
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Yeah, a good question.
Speaker 4 (05:01):
Typically they they basically create their own mixed match of framework.
So they take some of the best parts from from Switzerland,
some of the best parts from Delaware, and some of
the best parts from Singapore, that's say, and then they
create their own legal framework. And the only thing that
we from Prosper acquired is that we require these types
of companies that operate in regulated industries to have insurance.
(05:26):
And because remember we still operate undercome a lot, right,
so if you screw up, you can be stood, and
so it's important. But so basically to have an insurance
company underwrite your biotech company or energy company or your
crypto company, you you need to be, you know, a
serious player advice. They will not underwrite you because it
just doesn't make financial sense. That's everything we require on
(05:49):
our end, just to find an insurance provider and and
and yeah you can you can go from there.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
I just want to just ask Americans who are listening
to imagine this. I mean, imagine if you could set
up a business without all of the state and federal regulations,
not without all well, let's say actually without almost all regulations,
still some framework in common law. You're not allowed to
cheat people. You're not allowed to defraud people. You're not
(06:16):
allowed to kill people. You're not allowed to you're not
allowed to hurt people and take their stuff, to use
a libertarian kind of line, right, So you got that baseline,
And if you're not allowed to cheat people, then it
seems like much.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Of the rest, you're not allowed to cheat and hurt people.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
It seems like much of the rest should be left
to companies to do what they want to do. But
of course almost no place does that, and Americans have
gotten so used to no place doing that that we
just let.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Them get away with it. All right, let me just
switch gears here with you for a second.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
So the piece that you wrote Lanis for for Fee
is very personal kind of piece, and I'm fascinated by
your story, right.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
So to us a little about your story, and actually,
let me ask.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
You a personal question. I don't think I saw in
the article where you came from, and obviously your accent
doesn't sound like Denver. And I'm going to take a wild,
wild guess here because the only person I've ever heard
speak who had an accent that I thought sounded pretty
much like yours is Mark Laar, the former president of Estonia.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
So were you from anywhere near there?
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Quite close? I'm from Sweden.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Okay, close enough, not quite close enough, but all right,
close enough? Yeah, okay, So tell us your story. Like you,
you you were in Silicon Valley and you had a
US visa, and like you, whatever that was going to
be for you, you gave it up. What were you doing?
What did what were your hopes and dreams? And why
did you give it up?
Speaker 3 (07:49):
Yeah? For sure. Yeah. So I had an AI agent startup.
Speaker 4 (07:55):
We were kind of building AI to basically automate human
white collar work, or at least the poor parts of
white color work.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
So we had, you know, raised five million dollars for that.
Speaker 4 (08:06):
I have gotten my my US O one visa after
nine months or so of application, and yeah, we're moving
from Francisco to set up a headquarter.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
I guess I've just been really burdened during.
Speaker 4 (08:19):
The last I would say, you know, eighteen months or so,
by the state, the by state of the world. I've
been you know, reading a lot of history all throughout life,
and it's just been very.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
Clear that you know, having.
Speaker 4 (08:34):
Having you know, good living conditions, not being you know,
not having not living in a subsistency economy. Essentially, it's
very rare, Like typically through history people live in subsist
subsistency conditions. You know, many of the kids died before five.
They have all sorts of cricling conditions, And it's just
this kind of.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
The kind of.
Speaker 4 (08:56):
Institutions were built on this liberalist foundation that has an
abled us to you know, reach the high levels of
the wealth that we have currently, and we were just
forgetting about it all over the world. We were implementing
exit taxes, wealth taxes, we were implementing all sorts of regulation. Obviously,
the they if you if you would do a short
of the cumulative spending or just you know, the annual
(09:18):
spending of governments, it's it's kyrocter kyroketing currently. So I
was just really burdened by that, and I didn't see
an option to do something about it before I found
I guess the free cities movement that was specifically is
the one that actually ask land because I never believed
in this theory that you can work form a broken system.
(09:40):
But there's there are too many different incentives, you know,
if you were from their federal government. I mean, it
would be great if it would happen, but it's just
such a hard job. It's much easier, in my opinion,
to start from scratch and build something better. And that's
kind of opportunity that proper represented. So it was when
I sa not too hard of a choice to just,
(10:02):
you know, leave everything and go here instead.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
Well, and I should have mentioned before, folks, so want
is to just move there? He works at and for
Prospera as the vice president of growth there.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Uh so.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
And and by the way, it's p r O s
p e r A if if you want to learn more,
let's see what's the whole website to make sure we're
going to the right one.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
Excite prosper dots co.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
There you go Prospera dot c o if you wanna,
if you want to learn more.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
So yeah, I'm I'm so fascinated by the whole thing.
But one one more personal thing.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
So you you were setting up some AI stuff, you're
you're a young dude.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
You gave that up to move to Prospera.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
And I doubt that Prospera has the money to pay
you a big salary every year, So did you make
some money doing AI or like, how are you affording
to do this?
Speaker 3 (10:58):
And yeah, for sure.
Speaker 4 (11:00):
So so before this agent company, I had previous companies
within so I started off dropping out of college. So
I started in college in twenty nineteen, you know, immediately
found out that it was this giants gun and so
I quickly dropped out and started this a company.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
In e commerce.
Speaker 4 (11:20):
So this was prett GPT right, so you could only
really make quite boring startups at the time. But it
was an AI AI in e commerce, and we grew
it quite well. It went to a cumminary where it's
twenty billion and the company is still going. It's around
thirteen places or so, but it's very sales heavy. So
me and my co founder we brought in an external
manager to just oversee the sales, but we're still kind
(11:42):
of advisors and and the shoulders there.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
But then also so yeah, so.
Speaker 4 (11:50):
But then also, you know, it's not that expensive to
live here and prosper because we have you know, we
don't it's very ship to build her. For instance, the condo,
the Amstead, and currently it's around for four hundred square
feets and I pay around five hundred and fifty bucks
per month. Hm, I had the same condoing since of
Francisco and that costs almost four k.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
I bet, so that's an apex.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Okay, So you're the You're the Swedish Mark Zuckerberd.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
So that's pretty good.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
Do you You're you're down there by Roatan, which is famous
for for scuba diving and especially for looking at at
micro you know, small creatures, night diving.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Not so much the blue wall kind of stuff. Do
you do you dive?
Speaker 4 (12:37):
I'm I'm beginning my my my journey there. I guess
I did some snorkeling. I guess some weekends ago.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
But yeah, I haven't had so much time for uh
huh for vacation yet. I'll get there. I'll get there.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
So what's your vice president of growth? So I'm guessing
vice president of growth means your job is to encourage
entrepreneurs to come to prosper instead of businesses.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
So what's the pitch?
Speaker 1 (13:06):
I mean, I think we get the concept, but like, literally,
what do you say? What if I were a businessman,
I'm going to start a widget factory and I hate
all the widgets regulations in the United States.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
What are you going to say to me?
Speaker 3 (13:21):
Sure?
Speaker 4 (13:21):
Yeah, So I guess the piece is different if you're
in a normal industry versus regulated in traditionally regulated industry. Right,
So if you're in a traditionally regulated industry like biotech,
like energy, like building buildings in general, then the difference
is you know, off the kind of difference in quality
that we can provide versus other governance systems is also
(13:43):
you know, measured in the tens to thousand tacks. So
if you're a biotech you can you can offer your
drugs here a thousand times cheaper and instead of twelve
years to text to three months. If you're in if
you're building buildings, you know in the worstern world, can
take yourself years to do environmental review and get permitting.
And we got through the soning requirements here with there's
(14:06):
not basically such process.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
What if if I wanted to uh develop small nuclear reactors?
Speaker 2 (14:13):
Could I do that?
Speaker 3 (14:15):
S the morstar are you know amazing? And yah? You
know in a regulated industry where we do require insurance.
Speaker 4 (14:22):
Yeah, and and some some very basic inspection on the site.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
From that the insurance company would carry out of.
Speaker 4 (14:30):
Course, but yeah in principle where we definitely like clean
energy and the you know, nuclear is one of the
best clean energy sources, so of course.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
The whole thing is just so fascinating. All right, one
one more question, So let's imagine then let's imagine I'm
in biotech, and so then my question to you, Lana says, Okay,
I love the idea of being able to develop my
drug in less than a year for less than a
million dollars or whatever the numbers are. But being in
(15:01):
this deregulated zone, how can I feel confident that my
potential customers in the rest of the world will trust
my drug?
Speaker 3 (15:13):
Hm hmm.
Speaker 4 (15:14):
Yeah, Well, so going through the through the FDA hoops
is actually no guarantee at all. Like typically what the
drugs that you are sold and the companies that develop
them are just they just don't have any liability because
they've shicked all of the boxes, right, They've they've paid lawyers,
they've done going through the entire process to be check
(15:36):
check marked and verified, and they are kind of they
can do no harm from here. Basically from a legal perspective,
it's hard to do it is you have to prove
a very malicious intent, whereas in prosper we don't really
check the box. You we have this ensure that basically
have you pay a premium based on how risky or
drug is. And so the companies here have very high
(15:58):
incentive to not only shack a box, but actually follow
up and be super diligent with a safety profile, all right,
because they don't they don't shack a box in the
spine or a way. They have to really make sure
that they are not there is riscal getting, you know,
suitor or something like that.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
And what about on the so what about on the
effectiveness side? Normally when you're looking at rugs, you're looking
at effectiveness and safety. Right, So you talked about the
safety side. I can see that, but again I don't. Again,
I'm pretending to be a biotech businessman here and I've
got about a minute.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
But so I'll just repeat the question.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
How can I convince a potential customer in France that
that my you know, a hospital system in France, that
my drug is safe and effective since we developed.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
It in this low regulation environment.
Speaker 4 (16:48):
Yeah, well, you know they do trials here as well, right,
so you can you can show them the results from
the trials and say here we did we did the
trial with this mount of people. This is the safety profile,
this is the efficacy profile, and then they could you know,
take the decision from there. One of the big drivers
of the trial cost is administrative burden. So if you're
(17:11):
on trials in the States, you know most of it
is just filling out paperwork and doing this this work
or there. It's very easy and cheap to make trials,
large scale trials. So if anything, you have more data
on the safety profile and i ficacy profile here just
because cheaper to carry out.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Let me let me sneak in.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
One listener question, how can you prevent people from creating
bad things that they wouldn't be able to create in
their own country, like some kind of weapon or something like?
How do you prevent bad things from being done there?
Speaker 4 (17:42):
Yeah, what we do have we do have a security
first here, so you know, when you sign up or
when you move here, you basically sign an agreement of
coexistence with prosper So you're not the subject here. You're
a contractual party and we have rights and obligations, right,
so your and you have rights which includes stabila rights.
We include the entire use of VILA rights, and we
(18:04):
also have a number of other rights that you're constructed
the have. And then ALI end we have obligations, right,
So one obligation is to provide for good security services
and make sure that you're not in a position where
other people can.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
Yeah, I can hurt you feasibly.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
Yeah, I think we got to wrap it up here,
but I just want to say to listeners, I think
most people in the Western world have become completely unused
to freedom, and I think freedom makes a lot of
people nervous, and I think that's a shame. And you know,
if you go to my blog today at Rosskominsky dot com,
you can read this article that Lanas wrote, why I
(18:45):
left Silicon Valley for a Honduran startup city. And I
wanted to have this conversation not just because prosper is interesting,
but because Lanas's story is inspiring. I mean, you look
to me like you're around thirty or something. I don't
know how old, jar maybe less, And how old are you?
Twenty seven?
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (19:05):
Okay, So this dude, already successful at a young age,
leaves all that to move to be vice president of
growth at a startup free enterprise zone in Central America.
It's because there's freedom there and there's good ideas there,
and that stuff is just so missing in the United
States of America. It's not entirely absent, but it's it's
(19:29):
not where it should be. And you know, maybe you know,
with Ramaswami and Musk who have their own flaws, but
those are the kind of people who sometimes have this
kind of thinking, and maybe maybe those guys will inspire
a little prosperal like thinking in America. I don't know,
but Lanas, I think you're you know, inspiring and it's
it's really good to talk to you. Hopefully I'll meet
you in person a week and go scuba diving one day.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 4 (19:52):
Thanks so much for having me, and yeah, it would
be it would be great to have you down here
as well.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
All right, thanks so much.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
That's Lanasameli, vice president of Growth of Prospero
The Ross Kaminsky Show News
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