A proposed tech utopia called Praxis is looking for like-minded individuals to be part of a new community. It’s turned to crypto to help finance the plans. WSJ Pro Venture Capital reporter Yuliya Chernova speaks to host Zoe Thomas about Praxis and other proposed tech utopias. Plus, WSJ’s Tech Live kicks off today. We’ll tell you what to expect.
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[00:00:33] Welcome to Tech News Briefing.
[00:00:35] It's Monday, October 21st.
[00:00:38] I'm Zoe Thomas for The Wall Street Journal.
[00:00:41] Some of the biggest names in tech, including Reddit co-founder Steve Huffman,
[00:00:45] Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos, and Aravin Srinivas, CEO of artificial intelligence startup Perplexity,
[00:00:53] are heading to Laguna Beach, California.
[00:00:55] We'll tell you what to expect from this year's WSJ Tech Live.
[00:01:00] And then, a tech utopia could be popping up somewhere.
[00:01:05] Plans for technologically advanced futuristic cities are being proposed or planned in locales around the world.
[00:01:12] We'll tell you about one of them and how it's financing this project.
[00:01:16] But first, this afternoon, the Wall Street Journal's Tech Live gets underway.
[00:01:26] The event brings together some of the tech industry's biggest names to answer questions live.
[00:01:32] And it's often a place where news breaks.
[00:01:35] Here to tell us about this year's event is Sarah Costolanos, a news editor on the WSJ's live journalism team.
[00:01:42] So, Sarah, what's this year's big theme?
[00:01:45] You know, this year, generative AI is, of course, top of mind for business leaders.
[00:01:51] Companies are investing billions of dollars in AI.
[00:01:54] And business leaders are really starting to seek returns.
[00:01:58] There's also a lot of uncertainty about whether all of this investment in AI is sustainable.
[00:02:03] So, everyone from tech leaders to musicians and actors, they're really all trying to figure out how AI will impact them.
[00:02:11] What other big topics are going to be discussed?
[00:02:14] Some of our interviews will also touch on how the upcoming presidential election will impact the tech industry,
[00:02:20] since this event is being held just a couple of weeks before the election.
[00:02:25] Election security and cybersecurity is another big theme this year.
[00:02:30] And, of course, we'll be discussing how business leaders are approaching talent,
[00:02:34] how they're thinking about the economic outlook and geopolitical conflicts and issues as well.
[00:02:39] So, Sarah, who are you most excited to hear from?
[00:02:42] So, I don't want to pick favorites, but I will say it'll be interesting to hear from Reid Hoffman,
[00:02:48] as one of Silicon Valley's most prominent figures,
[00:02:51] about his thoughts on generative AI and where he's placing his next best as an investor.
[00:02:56] I'm also really excited to hear from Netflix co-CEO's Ted Sarandos on what's in store for the company
[00:03:03] in the middle of the competitive world of streaming.
[00:03:07] We also have a humanoid robot coming to our stage made by Agility Robotics,
[00:03:13] whose CEO, Peggy Johnson, will be discussing her vision for how humans interact with robots
[00:03:18] and some of the safety challenges there.
[00:03:20] And I would say I'm also really excited for a couple of sessions that we have about how AI is influencing music
[00:03:27] and Hollywood with composer Hans Zimmer, actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt,
[00:03:33] and image generation startup Stability AI.
[00:03:36] You mentioned Hollywood and music.
[00:03:39] You know, there are some folks that we don't always think about when we're thinking about tech.
[00:03:42] For example, football player Colin Kaepernick will be at Tech Live.
[00:03:46] What will he be discussing?
[00:03:47] Yeah, so Colin is a former NFL quarterback who has just recently launched a startup called Lumi Story AI.
[00:03:56] His startup uses artificial intelligence to give creators tools that they might otherwise not have access to.
[00:04:02] And he'll be discussing his foray into entrepreneurship
[00:04:06] and what he's learned on the field that can translate into leading a team.
[00:04:10] All right, so how can listeners who won't be at the event in Laguna tune in and hear these talks?
[00:04:15] Subscribers can visit wsj.com slash techlive2024 to follow along on the live stream.
[00:04:23] And they can also visit wsj.com for the latest, newsiest moments from the event.
[00:04:28] All right, that was Sarah Costolanos, a news editor with the WSJ's live journalism team.
[00:04:34] Coming up, to fund efforts to build a tech utopia, an entrepreneur has turned to crypto.
[00:04:41] We'll have that story after the break.
[00:04:52] This complex financing talk is very exciting.
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[00:05:24] Praxis is one of several proposed tech utopias around the world, planning to build a physical
[00:05:30] tech-forward community.
[00:05:32] Praxis doesn't have a location yet, but it says it has tens of thousands of members in
[00:05:37] its online community.
[00:05:38] And Dryden Brown, the founder and CEO of Praxis, says he's secured $525 million in milestone-based
[00:05:47] financing for the project.
[00:05:49] Here to tell us more is WSJ Pro venture capital reporter Yulia Chernova.
[00:05:54] Yulia, Praxis was founded by this 28-year-old tech entrepreneur, Dryden Brown.
[00:05:59] What does he say the purpose of Praxis is?
[00:06:03] He believes that Praxis needs to exist so that there is a community, a space for like-minded
[00:06:10] individuals to develop technology in a kind of deregulated way.
[00:06:16] This would be done in a zone where there's much less regulation than there exists normally,
[00:06:22] kind of.
[00:06:23] And these people would be developing various technologies like AI and crypto and biotech
[00:06:28] and also have social, cultural institutions that fit their kind of ideals.
[00:06:37] Overall, he's saying that the Praxian idea is that Western civilization is in decline and
[00:06:44] there has to be an effort to revive it.
[00:06:47] So the company itself is based in New York and they want to create this city somewhere in
[00:06:54] Mediterranean or in Latin America.
[00:06:56] How do people become part of Praxis?
[00:06:59] So right now there are about 14,000 people who have joined this Praxis community.
[00:07:06] And the company has an admissions committee of some sort that vet people who are interested
[00:07:12] on various criteria.
[00:07:15] They have to believe in certain ideals.
[00:07:18] One of them is just generally this techno-optimism, believing that technological progress is good
[00:07:25] and should be basically unimpeded.
[00:07:29] And they also should believe in things like meritocracy, self-reliance.
[00:07:36] There's kind of a libertarian streak to the belief system here.
[00:07:41] And they're also looking, generally it seems like, for entrepreneurs and people who have
[00:07:47] built companies.
[00:07:48] You mentioned shared values.
[00:07:50] Tell us more about what those are, according to Brown.
[00:07:53] Some of those values that they would like to see are things like courage and grit and pioneering
[00:08:00] spirit and rugged individualism.
[00:08:03] And I asked the founder, Dryden, how does someone prove that they have those values?
[00:08:09] And he said there are various ways.
[00:08:11] And that could be like in their professional life.
[00:08:13] But it could be also things like scaling mountains or surfing big waves.
[00:08:19] He said that even though surfing doesn't directly contribute to progress of our civilization, it
[00:08:26] does so kind of in a symbolic way in the sense of like man conquering nature.
[00:08:33] What role is cryptocurrency playing in the financing of Praxis?
[00:08:36] It turns out that they are planning to issue crypto tokens at some point, list these crypto
[00:08:44] tokens on a crypto exchange, and then basically sell these crypto tokens to investors and fund
[00:08:52] the project in that way.
[00:08:53] The crypto tokens would represent ownership in the real estate.
[00:08:58] So at this point, they got commitments for up to $525 million.
[00:09:03] It doesn't mean that they actually have money in the bank yet.
[00:09:08] But it means that they have come up and agreed on a structure with these financing partners.
[00:09:13] So once they take certain steps, they would be able to access this money.
[00:09:18] It's also previously raised funding from some pretty big names.
[00:09:22] Who are those?
[00:09:23] The company Praxis has raised funding from venture investors.
[00:09:27] They raised about $21 million from VCs before.
[00:09:34] Paradigm, also a crypto-focused venture firm started by a former Sequoia partner.
[00:09:42] He's a big investor.
[00:09:44] And Apollo Projects is an investor.
[00:09:46] That's a firm founded by two of the Altman brothers, Sam Altman, who's the CEO of OpenAI,
[00:09:53] and his brother Max, and there are a couple other mostly crypto people.
[00:09:59] What does Dryden Brown say the funding will be used for?
[00:10:02] The funding that he has lined up is basically a way to persuade governments with whom they are in
[00:10:12] contact to kind of approve the launch of a project of this real estate development.
[00:10:17] So they need to get government buy-in, and they also need landowners to sell the land.
[00:10:25] So Praxis isn't the only one of these tech utopias being proposed.
[00:10:29] There's Prospera in Honduras, Neom in Saudi Arabia, and East Solano Plan in California, just to name a few.
[00:10:38] Yulia, why are these cropping up?
[00:10:39] The idea of creating kind of a utopian city and community has been, you know, around for a long time.
[00:10:48] That's not new.
[00:10:49] What's new is that there's a lot of wealth in tech right now.
[00:10:53] So people are able to fund some of these ideas to a greater scale.
[00:10:58] How successful have some of these efforts been so far?
[00:11:01] Not successful so far, but they are in development.
[00:11:06] They are trying. Some of them folded and weren't able to raise funding.
[00:11:13] Some have run into legal issues.
[00:11:15] They're mostly in kind of development stage at this point.
[00:11:19] What are some of the concerns around how these tech utopias could impact existing communities?
[00:11:24] Some people are concerned with the idea behind these communities and just the idea of wealthy techies separating themselves from society instead of using their skills and money to improve society.
[00:11:41] So that kind of idea of segregating themselves is concerning to some people.
[00:11:49] That was WSJ Pro Venture Capital reporter Yulia Chernova.
[00:11:53] And that's it for Tech News Briefing.
[00:11:55] Today's show is produced by Julie Chang with supervising producer Catherine Millsop.
[00:12:00] I'm Zoe Thomas for The Wall Street Journal.
[00:12:03] We'll be back this afternoon with TNB Tech Minute.
[00:12:06] Thanks for listening.
[00:12:07] Thank you.
[00:12:07] Thank you.