

Blueseed: Visa-free startup platform on a ship 30 minutes from Silicon Valley - mjfern
http://www.slideshare.net/Blueseed/blueseed-visafree-startup-incubator-on-a-ship-12-miles-from-silicon-valley

======
Xion
This is really sad.

No, no the whole idea about building a floating incubator. It's the fact that
immigrant & visa laws are so ridiculously outlandish that it's perfectly
conceivable to devise an elaborate and expensive "hacks" to circumvent them.
Along with IP, this is probably the most visible area where U.S. law is
stiffing innovation rather than fostering it.

------
goatforce5
IANAL, but I probably have more experience than many regarding immigration
issues.

If you sell everything you have to live on this ship just outside of the US to
sort of get access to a part of the US that the current visa system says you
can't have access to, you may find you have a hard time demonstrating you have
non-immigrant intent when trying to go to shore for meetings or R&R.

[http://www.visapro.com/Immigration-
Articles/?a=1575&z=31](http://www.visapro.com/Immigration-
Articles/?a=1575&z=31)

Keep in mind that every entry to the US is at the discretion of whatever
border agent you happen to get that day, and pre-approved visa in your
passport is merely a guide and not a guarantee of entry.

------
derda
I see big problems in taxes and bank accounts.

1\. Taxes:

So you incorporate on the BVIs or a similar tax heaven, because you don't want
to pay taxes. You are not even using the infrastructure of a country, so that
doesn't even feel morally wrong. But crucial parts of your company lay within
the USA (servers, some investors, consultants, bank accounts..). There have
been tax cases before (at least in Europe) where it has been argued that a
server equals a permanent business establishment and therefore is taxable (I
can not find an English language article on the quick but I remember a case
where a german hat incorporated in Cyprus and used german servers). So that
would be a mess.

2\. Bank accounts

Does the country of the boats registration or the country you choose to
incorporate have a stable banking system and currency? Can you get a Paypal
(or whatever payment provider) account for this bank account? Or will you go
for a US bank, which again leads us to (1), also I dont know how hard it is to
open a bank account in the US on the name of a foreign company with no entity
in the US. What will potential costumers think about bank accounts in county
x? What happens if the US tightens rules on money laundry, making your
transfers a pain?

Many questions will have to be solved on the way. I really hope the project
succeeds, especially if it pushes US law-makers to think about their visas.

~~~
anateus
1\. You don't have to be a citizen to incorporate in the US. Y Combinator
requires everyone to incorporate in the US regardless of their home country.
It doesn't seem like Blueseed will have a similar requirement, but they should
probably advise their startups to do so for the sake of it _much_ easier to
get investments.

2\. Once you have a US corporation, you can have a US bank account.

So while the issues you raise _could_ be problems for some companies, it's
actually fairly straightforward and cheap (there are costs to your agents in
Delware and a few similar items).

 _edited for style and coherence_

~~~
derda
The slides said "you choose where to incorporate" (slide 26).

I know its pretty easy to incorporate in the US, but AFAIK as soon as you do
business with the US (rent servers from US company, have US-bank account) you
are subject to the IRS (I don't know what rules apply). Why pay taxes and/or
waste resources (tax consultants / lawyers) to a country that didn't want your
business in the first place?

~~~
anateus
Because the primary point of Blueseed is to allow easy access to investments
from Silicon Valley. Getting invested in without a convenient corporate and
financial structure. I think the IRS is an acceptable tradeoff based on the
vastly greater availability of investment in Silicon Valley vs anywhere else
in the world.

------
jamesu
I'm not sure i'd want to be on a boat full of programmers and entrepreneurs.
Just imagine the sort of arguments one could get yourself into.

Also how will order be enforced? One cannot assume everyone will be nice and
benevolent. What happens in a medical emergency, can you get to the nearest
hospital in time (assuming the onboard facilities are insufficient)? The lead
programmer just fell overboard during a storm, what happens?

~~~
mseebach
> What happens in a medical emergency, can you get to the nearest hospital in
> time (assuming the onboard facilities are insufficient)? The lead programmer
> just fell overboard during a storm, what happens?

This problem has been solved for cruise ships. I don't know the details of
how, but surely the same issues and solutions apply pretty directly.

~~~
wisty
Cruise ships are _really_ big. They can have thousands of passengers (mostly
elderly) and thousands of staff. It's pretty much guaranteed you'll have a few
heart attacks. They have full-time doctors and nurses, and on-board hospitals.
If someone dies, they hide them in their cabin (assuming they were not
sharing) until they get to the next port. If someone's sick, they look after
them until they land, though they can call for an airlift in extreme
circumstances. They generally aren't _that_ far from land (because cruising
through empty oceans is boring).

The law is either the nearest country (if you're 12 or 24 nautical miles away,
depending on the circumstances), or the law of their flag state (if they are
in the high seas). Generally, they avoid making arrests, and throw trouble
makers out the next port. I think their registered home state generally turns
a blind eye on what they do.

~~~
mseebach
So, a meaningful solution would be to have a small, but well equipped clinic
on board. Required staff can be airlifted in from the mainland within minutes
in emergencies - an airport helicopter transfer in NYC costs $1,600, so the
cost isn't prohibitive. Regular appointments can be attended by the doctor
taking the ferry.

The "avoid making arrests, and throw trouble makers out" approach seems
viable. Make sure companies on the boat post a bond for their employees that
will cover throwing them out (sending them to their country of citizenship or
the ships flag state for trial) if they won't/can't leave on their own.

------
cicloid
Actually this idea sounds to good to be true. Almost like a geek "The Boat
That Rocked", but at the end, immigration or customs could be the pain in the
ass for the residents of this ship. Not so much on how feasible it is, but
more on the "they will make life hell for the residents on some kind of
blacklist".

It all depends on the mood of third parties.

But actually this is the greatest hack to the immigration laws available.

~~~
rdl
I strongly suspect the ICE people will be relatively favorable toward this --
it's not skirting any of the laws they care about (drugs, terrorism). You can
EASILY win the PR battle to say this is creating wealth in the USA. All the
ship administrators need to do is run a law abiding California-registered corp
on shore which pays all costs for a private dock, etc., and to comply fully
with SOLAS, USCG, and such -- allowing inspections freely, and generally being
respectful toward the local maritime community. The big issue is going to be
whether existing customs/immigration facilities have the kind of hours the
blueseed people want; if not, they have to pay for extra federal service.

I ran tech ops on Sealand 2000-2002 (which is basically "The Platform That
Rocked"), and due to a great relationship with the local pilots and the Royal
National Lifeboat Institution, there were zero problems with them. This wasn't
the case in the 60s/70s, which is why they got treated badly.

~~~
_exec
(Offtopic) Out of curiosity, do you think SeaLand's goal of becoming a
datahaven was ever realistic? do you think other datahavens will come up in
the future?

~~~
rdl
Physical datahavens only really have meaning if it gets you associated legal
services (payment processing, incorp, legal); once banking is fully
virtualized, you can do purely online entities too. So yes, datahavens will
happen -- they will just be a mix of strongly-associated-with-physical-
jurisdiction things, and virtualized things.

The USA is basically a datahaven today for many things, and has been for a
while.

~~~
bobds
I would love to read more about Sealand. Any sources you would recommend? Most
articles I've stumbled upon weren't very informative.

~~~
rdl
slashdot had a bunch of things; I did a Q&A there, and maybe 10 other articles
got posted. That, the wikipedia article, and the wired article are probably
the best overall information.

------
nico_h
This is a really interesting idea, but they will have to be very careful about
the culture and laws they enforce, especially with regards to wages and
working hours.

Who pays the rent? What if the team member wants a private cabin and not
sweatshop style accommodation? (Maybe I am thinking about the wrong
demographic?)

\- What happens when you want to leave and your visa is expired/revoked ? This
sound like a place where you could _really_ get _stuck_ , with all the
associated potential for abuse.

\- They can make a killing on the price of coffee, food and entertainment for
all these people.

Minor quibble: the 1GBps link seems small distributed over all the
companies/person they imagine.

~~~
ypcx
Minor quibble? The 1Gbps (notice the small 'b') is a f*cking disaster. My ADSL
connection has about 10Gbps (1.2MB/s), and that is so-so. Imagine you are
working and need to download a 600MB Linux ISO, or something like that.
Disaster. Makes one question their logic and the whole project.

~~~
eurleif
>My ADSL connection has about 10Gbps (1.2MB/s)

10 Gbps = 1280 MB/s.

------
sthatipamala
The demographic of startup founders is severely lacking in gender and racial
diversity. I don't know if I would want to go for months only seeing 1000
similar people (mostly men) with very similar occupations. In the end,
entrepreneurs are people too and this would be a very bizarre society.

~~~
mseebach
You can go on "shore leave" as often as a US tourist visa allows. I recall
having read in a previous mention of Blueseed that they could set up
connections to ports in Mexico and Canada as well, although I'm not perfectly
sure how that would work - a ferry would take a long time. Seaplanes perhaps?

~~~
redcircle
And as often as your wallet can afford the trip --- travel by boat isn't
cheap. I noticed that they didn't mention the cost of the boat taxi; either it
is a free shuttle, partially subsidized, or in worst case you'll cover the
actual cost of the boat trip (a ferry in Seattle cost me $20 one way when I
was there years ago; gas prices have gone up since, boats get horrible
mileage, and they depreciate quickly and need lots of upkeep in salt water).

~~~
mseebach
Washington State DOT disagrees with you. Walk-ons are 4.50-7.50 one way.

<http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/ferries/pdf/CurrentFares.pdf>

~~~
jarek
Strictly speaking I believe these prices are state-subsidized just like other
ways of moving humans around.

------
Kilimanjaro
I vote for buying an old house in Cabo San Lucas and setting up a kick ass
startup hub in front of the beach with all the modern amenities like huge
teleconferencing walls and all. People could just cross over for a weekend on
a tourist visa just for the really important face to face meetings.

~~~
minimax
Cabo is 1500 miles away from SF. Vancouver is closer to SF than that.

------
codemac
So, the big sale here is the 30 minutes to... the shore of Santa Cruz? From
there to Palo Alto is another hour (or more)? Unless they mean the Ano Nuevo
Bay, which you'd have to drive even longer to get into the valley.

The real cultural wins they talk about in this slide deck don't come from the
formal interactions planned ahead, but the random ones. The other day I was
having an americano while doing some research in a cafe I'd never been to, and
I accidentally got into a conversation with someone I'd never met before about
writing compilers, changing python syntax for domain specific VM performance,
and our favorite keyboards. The conversation has sparked at least a week of
creativity and thought.

Anyone who's worked in technology outside of Silicon Valley (RTP, what up!)
knows just how amazingly drastic the difference is. You're not going to be
able to co-opt it on a boat 1.5-2 hours away.

But maybe they will. I'm going to bet against this, but I hope I lose my
money. Success being a function of birthplace and parental wealth/race is a
tragedy.

~~~
SoftwareMaven
If the boat had the right kind of people on it, you could see a lot of those
benefits without leaving the promenade deck.

~~~
nirvana
Which means the project (or at least that benefit) could be obtained anywhere
simply by attracting a lot of startups. Cabo San Lucas, Berlin, doesn't really
matter to me- just make the cost of living cheap, the visas easy to get and
the regulatory burden relatively low and I'll sign up.

------
zerostar07
Can someone elaborate on how this is better than working remotely from back
home? It doesn't sound like there's going to be a lot of action on the silicon
deck, with people always coming and going to the shore. Why don't they just
setup a remote mini incubator in a lawless region of the world where people
can join online?

~~~
wladimir
Though I'm not sure about the "lawless" part, I like that idea more.

I've always found the blueseed idea backwards. Come on, live on a boat just to
be able to work in some country? I wouldn't do that unless I had no other
choice. And it's horribly inefficient and expensive too. I surely hope that
petty geography issues will become less important in the future, as
international cooperation through the internet increases.

------
lolcraft
This looks like a insanely juicy target for pirates and drug lords. Incredibly
easy target to take hostage, with lots of cash, rich people, passwords, intel,
hardware, and lots and lots of real state to grow coca or poppy. Static, big,
protected by few and very stressed PMC, and no fear whatever of retaliation.
If they resist, just threaten to sink it down with one torpedo, or a cheap
SCUD.

Hell, this is looking like an elevator pitch for a "counter-startup". Anyone
interested?

~~~
outworlder
International waters or not, who would be so stupid to pull such a stunt so
close to US territory? Or, in fact, close to any nation with a sizable navy.

Also, we do not know which flag they will sail under, but it my bet is that
they will adopt the US flag. My understanding is that such an act would be an
act of piracy against the USA itself.

Furthermore, they wouldn't be THAT far from land. Even in the impossible event
that they government turned a blind eye to the fate of the ship, they would
not want some armed terrorist skimming their borders.

While the boat wouldn't be far from the land, any potential attackers would be
an ocean away. I assume the boat would be fairly safe. It is not like they'll
be sailing next to Somalia.

------
mark_l_watson
What is bad about this idea: the weather. As a kid, I used to sail about once
a year from San Francisco Bay to San Diego. The weather off shore at the
planned site is not always so great, based on my personal experience.

Otherwise, an interesting idea!

I have done some good and creative work at sea. On the last cruise my wife and
I took which lasted 25 days, many days were spent at sea and I found the
public areas like the library were great places to both write and do some
work. On sea days, spending 3 or 4 hours a day "working" didn't detract at all
from enjoying the trip - given my tastes, it made the trip better. Except for
shore tours which can be very expensive, the costs of spending long periods of
time on cruise ships is not as much as you might think: the trick is to make
reservations at the last minute and get jaw-dropping good deals.

What I am saying is that some people would probably really enjoy living and
working on Blueseed, perhaps even some US citizens who want to partner with
others in startups.

------
phatbyte
You are trying to hard and you are doing it wrong. Instead of doing this why
don't you contact your congress people or whatever you guys have in the US and
try to change the immigration laws ?

I'd rather cut my wrists than to spent my time on a boat full of prima-donas
that want to "change the world".

I would love to move to SF one day, but I want to have living quality as much
that country as to offer ,which isn't that good if you come from Europe, let's
be honest, but it's probably one of the best places to live in the US, and not
some artificial thingy floating in sea,

Again, if the US doesn't want us there because of our potential/skills, well
then, I suggest we stop putting it in this big pedestal and start creating our
own startups on our own countries or countries that want us there.

Question: Does YC fund foreign startups, if not, why ?

~~~
zerostar07
Is there a place in europe where you can have the same level of freedom and
entrepreneurial atmosphere that is not choked by bureaucracy and regulation?
Cause i 'd love to move there, even without VC money.

~~~
doodyhead
Ireland is very pro entrepreneurship.

It's easy to set up a new company, the overhead is minimal and there are lots
of financial and other supports available from government agencies like
Enterprise Ireland:

<http://www.enterprise-ireland.com/en/>

We have a very low corporate tax rate and the government recently introduced
R&D tax credits to encourage innovation:

[http://www.bdolimerick.ie/department.php?pg=/Research%20and%...](http://www.bdolimerick.ie/department.php?pg=/Research%20and%20Development%20Tax%20Credits.php)

Not to mention a very strong academic community, plenty of funding available
for academic collaboration and the presence of a huge number of prominent US
tech companies including Google, Facebook, Twitter, eBay, PayPal...

[http://thenextweb.com/insider/2011/11/26/what-attracts-
big-t...](http://thenextweb.com/insider/2011/11/26/what-attracts-big-tech-
companies-to-ireland-hint-its-not-just-low-taxes/)

~~~
doodyhead
(in reply to nirvana)

The Irish startup visa program has recently been amended to make it easier to
qualify:

[http://founderware.co/ireland/ireland-launches-startup-
visa-...](http://founderware.co/ireland/ireland-launches-startup-visa-
program/)

You now only need to invest €70k ($91k USD) to be granted residency. This is
down from the old requirement of €300k.

Taxes here are quite reasonable. Corporations are charged 3.1x less tax here:

[http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/03/us_companies_pay_the_...](http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/03/us_companies_pay_the_highest_t.html)

On average, UK taxes are generally higher:

[http://www.nationmaster.com/compare/Ireland/United-
Kingdom/T...](http://www.nationmaster.com/compare/Ireland/United-
Kingdom/Taxation)

And it compares favorably with the US as well:

[http://www.nationmaster.com/compare/Ireland/United-
States/Ta...](http://www.nationmaster.com/compare/Ireland/United-
States/Taxation)

------
dsrguru
First of all, this certainly sounds like an interesting idea, regardless of
whether or not it comes to fruition.

However, I don't know him personally, but everything I've ever read that was
written by Peter Thiel had a really obnoxious tone. Assuming he's like that in
real life (and it's possible he isn't), I can't imagine people wanting to be
stuck on a boat with him. I'm dead serious. If he's just backing the project
financially, I could really see it working. But if he's making appearances,
his writing really makes him sound like the most arrogant SOB you could ever
meet. I really could see this project failing if one too many stressed out
entrepreneurs living in close quarters got into a yelling match with him.

------
twelvechairs
So they are going to buy/build a 1,000 passenger ship (and a ferry, and a
helicopter), fit it out top to toe with custom designs (including gym, pool,
sports facilities, and apparently enough to keep you from going crazy), staff
the thing (including security), maintain it, ship food (and people) back and
forth from the mainland, etc.

And where exactly do they make their money? A bed on this thing is going to be
mighty expensive....

~~~
zyfo
Rent and equity from startups. They mention this in the deck.

~~~
twelvechairs
Ok. Sorry my sarcasm hasn't come through. I read that. The point of what I'm
saying is that I dont think that is possible.

As a back-of-the-fag-packet calculation: 1,000 beds, if you are extremely
lucky and well prepared 80% paid occupancy (staff, as well as unoccupied
rooms), at $1,600pcm (their website mentions this as an average). ~$15m a year
gross income. Minus operating costs, of which there are many large ones listed
above, salaries etc. you'd be extremely lucky to be making a couple of million
a year. Considering the ship alone is going to cost you > $50m for anything
servicable (let alone the fanciful designs on their website), I think you'd be
lucky to pay it off in 20 years.

~~~
mseebach
First, paying off a house in 20 years is pretty decent, and people make those
investments all the time.

Second, this is Peter Thiel throwing money at his ideals. He's probably more
concerned with generating publicity for the ideas than making a perfect
investment.

Third, they are also taking equity. A single or two good buy-outs or IPOs
could pay for the whole thing.

~~~
potatolicious
> _" He's probably more concerned with generating publicity for the ideas than
> making a perfect investment."_

And that's the problem. This strikes me as a Bioshock-y move - a libertarian
who's sick of the "oppressive" government getting in his way, so now he's
going to create his libertarian government-free paradise floating in the open
seas.

... and has less to do with actually funding startups. The startups in this
case seem like a means to an end, and as a startup I'd be very unsettled by
that.

Not to mention, I can pay similar rent here in SF and _not_ give up a big
chunk of equity _just to have office space_.

------
richardw
If this works out, can we expect thousands of equivalent boats offshore of
every desirable country in 10 years? What are the (legal or otherwise) limits?

------
bloat
I should read Ballard's "High Rise" before boarding this ship. Or maybe Lord
Of The Flies.

I can picture the marauding feral packs of founders roaming the halls of the
ship, ducking for cover behind burning barricades fashioned from Aeron chairs,
hurling broken macbooks at interlopers from unfriendly decks.

Murder will be done on this boat.

------
bambax
This is really like the movie Good Morning England:
<http://www.imdb.fr/title/tt1131729/> in theory as well as in execution.

It seems the timeframe is very optimistic (1 year to find a boat and adapt
it??) but if it works it will change the world.

~~~
phatbyte
Change the world ? really ?

------
ctdonath
This seems another in a category of proposals so grand and outlandish and
controversial that a small team can make a tidy living for years researching &
promoting something which will never happen. Conjure up a plan with a price
tag having enough digits, and you'll attract enough interest to live on for a
while.

Same category as the libertarian-utopia "Oceania" project, the billion-dollar
indoor ski resort near Atlanta, the bridge spanning the Strait of Gibraltar,
and a half-dozen mile-high skyscraper projects. 1% of 1% of $1,000,000,000 is
nothing for someone who could move that kind of money, but it's enough to keep
me happy for a while. So, we buy a used cruise ship, park it in international
waters, and ... hey, for 1% of 1% of total cost I'll give you a workable plan.

------
seclorum
Shades of Stephenson'ian dystopic vision pierce my subconscious. I hope nobody
ends up "listening to Reason" out there on those woolly waves.

Seriously though, wouldn't this be considered "economic terrorism" by the US
Gov't, eventually, if it does well?

~~~
ypcx
Don't worry, if US doesn't like it, they will outlaw it, and the ship will be
named Titanic and towed to Somalian waters.

------
martingordon
Wow. It's been exactly one year (3/14) since an action was last taken on the
bill: <http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s112-565>

------
snambi
This is really cool. It would be awesome if US citizens and residents can rent
a room in the ship for 2-3 months and work from there. The rent is cheap and
you get the amenities of a cruise ship. Plus US citizens and residents can
travel to SF by ferry in anytime they want. Besides it would be difficult host
so many entrepreneurs in the city in one place for a long time. Ship is a
great idea. Similar idea can be applied to certain types of education too.

------
fletchowns
Well it certainly doesn't sound like it's going to be environmentally
friendly.

~~~
rdl
Why is that? High density living is inherently FAR MORE environmentally
friendly than low density suburban living.

No daily commuting. Small rooms, relatively efficient hvac. The only downsides
are generating power/water locally (using diesels) and fuel for boats to/from
(I really doubt they'll use helicopters much; they're really expensive,
especially to operate over water). So probably somewhat more environmentally
friendly than a similar number of people distributed across the Bay Area, but
less efficient than everyone living in a Yscraper.

~~~
fletchowns
This isn't your typical "high density living" though. You need to transport
food and water out to the ship, and you would need to transport trash and
human waste back to the mainland to be processed. In the process, you will
burn an ton of fuel. This thing would also need some pretty substantial power
generating facility to handle a boat full of computers, so they would probably
be running the cruise ship engines 24/7 to generate the power, which is also
terrible for the environment.

~~~
rdl
You can run multiple sizes of engine/generator to produce power and
propulsion. You have big engines for moving the ship, which are usually off,
and a smaller power generating system which powers maybe 150% of the normal
electrical load, plus small thrusters for staying in position.

Diesel is expensive -- that alone will cause them to be fuel efficient and
thus relatively environmentally friendly.

~~~
fletchowns
That's not how large boats work though, they are running the engines
constantly, even when they are sitting in port loading/unloading cargo.

~~~
rdl
Right, but this is purpose speced for long-term stationary operation. FPSOs
and other ships like that DO operate in that manner. Naval ships do, too. The
reason other ships don't is that they're in relatively constant motion, and
even those are switching to use shore power and aux power, since they have
switched to more expensive fuel (diesel vs. bunker), fuel has gone up in price
(what, 3x?), and environmental regulations apply.

Big marine engines are crazy (like 100k horsepower?), but that's not what you
would use for this purpose.

------
stfu
It is a bold idea, it is "slightly" crazy, but it is worth giving a shot.
Things like this push the status quo and capture mainstream media's attention
to cover the issue.

------
rms
I really hope this is going to work but am fearful that the system is just
going to crush them in short order. I suppose that is a battle worth fighting.

------
devgutt
Put the ship in movement, in a different country in every 3 months, and
definitely it is a good idea.

------
linjunhalida
That is what bioshock did.

------
nirvana
I love the initiative. But man, what an amazing amount of effort to hack
around america's broken visa situation. This should be embarrassing to every
representative, senator and the president.

Worse, I'm half afraid if they build it, the US will just unilaterally declare
that its borders extend out 20 or 50 miles into the sea. (they've done this
with fishing rights in the past, I believe.) Or if they can't extend the
borders, I don't expect the DHS to be very friendly to these people. ITs very
obviously a hack around US's sovereignty and therefore will be perceived as a
threat. Britain barely tolerates sealand mainly because of the genteel culture
that appreciates eccentrics. IF Sealand was big enough to grow and be a real
economy, it wouldn't be tolerated for very long. The US has less of a
tradition of tolerance for these kinds of experiments.

I do think starting with a cruise ship is probably a good idea-- there are a
lot of used cruise ships and they depreciate quite a bit over their working
career. You could get a really nice ship really pretty cheap because there
isn't much else of a market for them outside the cruise industry (and scrap
doesn't pay that much.) I say this with some confidence because I've priced
out cruise ships in the past for another idea (that was just an idea, not a
project.) Eventually a lot of the ships become nearly free, and sell for the
cost of a couple months moorage. Though of course on the older ships,
renovations become expensive. TANSTAAFL. But old ships approach scrap value.

The sad thing is, if Peter Theil wanted to create a startup incubator City,
and was willing to do it in Chile, the Chilean government would probably loan
him all the money necessary to buy the land (say an hour or 2 out of santiago)
and let him go to town. He could likely import as many startups as he wanted.
A chilean residency visa for a year isn't that hard (costs about $1,000) and
can be renewed each year and eventually you can just get a permanent residency
visa if you want.

It just seems wrong to see people trying to bring startups to a country that
clearly doesn't give a damn about them... when there are other countries that
truly do give a damn.

Silicon Valley is a result of a historical confluence- the WWII industry,
schools and all that. It won't be replicated and the government of California
and the USA generally seems to take it for granted. (I read yesterday that tax
receipts in california dropped %22 last year because of businesses leaving the
state.)

I think the silicon valley of the next 50 years won't be in california... I
think it would be better spending the effort building it somewhere that has a
chance (notice how the tolerant regulatory environment of blue seed was one of
its big attractions.) Whatever you build won't be just like silicon valley...
but if it has a good visa policy, it will start attracting the best and the
brightest from all over the world, because, frankly, most governments are
hostile to business one way or another (even when they don't intend to be.)

~~~
zerostar07
Starting with a cruise ship is a good idea because it can set sail to other
countries if it needs to, like a pirate.

------
adgar
It's a brilliantly cool idea... but I'm just _trying_ to imagine the gender
dynamic on that ship, and I can't come up with a way it could be very healthy.

~~~
mthoms
Which leads directly to another opportunity for Blueseed to bring in revenue,
if you catch my meaning. Imagine: for an extra $500/month you could have one
or two nights of 'companionship' with a lady brought in from shore.

------
PaulHoule
Not everybody feels that way about immigration laws.

Outside SV, many regard H-1B Visas as a force that creates downward pressure
on wages and working conditions for software developers.

One thing we do know is that immigrants form "networks" in SV and other
places. There's no doubt that some of these networks are highly innovative but
it's also clear that many immigrants are motivated to bring as many of their
friends from the "old country" as they can -- and this consideration might
affect their decision and hiring practices more than rational and economic
considerations.

The truth is that the social fabric is strained to the breaking point in SF
and SV. You can't walk 25 feet in SF without tripping over a homeless hippie.
I don't know exactly how, but the overheated venture capital culture has got
something to do with it.

Something I never hear about is that SV investors might consider starting a
secondary center in, say, Kansas City or Mumbai.

~~~
eshvk
Let me try to deconstruct your points:

1\. I believe that by law an H-1B professional's salaries have to be
competitive so that they don't undercut the market. In fact, I recall in my
previous company that they posted salaries drawn for each H1B position.

2\. Re: The networking point. This happens everywhere. Immigrants don't have
some sort of magical cultural bond that non-immigrants don't. There are huge
networks formed by ex-frat house members, club members and family friends that
go on to take over the upper rings of society. (The US political society
anyone?)

3\. The homeless situation in SF is complex and ascribing it to one factor:
The fact that a lot of money is pouring to the bay area is not a very
convincing factor. Some competing "reasons" are that SF has nicer weather
(thereby attracting people from other parts of the country), is generally more
hospitable to homeless people (This might be off base but I believe benefits
are better).

~~~
bandy
Prof. Norm Matloff at UC Davis has done the research on the H-1B situation and
it boils down to this: wages, age discrimination, and (effectively) indentured
labor. <http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/wel.html>
<http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/h1b.html>

Do you truly believe that when an industry writes legislation that they
haven't left loopholes in the resulting laws large enough to navigate the
Queen Elizabeth II through?

