Erick Brimen | Will Próspera Survive Its Own Success?

Timothy Allen: A fairly good entry point might be the ABC film that went out recently, the one from ABC Australia. I watched it last night, and I get a bit disappointed every time something comes out now, because I could have predicted every single scene in that film, as you probably could as well yourself. It followed a very simple trajectory. It took all the normal talking points. It didn't push any real boundaries, I didn't feel, even though a lot of people were saying it was pretty neutral. I didn't think it was neutral at all. I thought it came in with the billionaire utopia and it ended up on Trump, basically, having spun the election for Honduras so that Próspera could carry on existing, which seemed a bit rich.

But I think the whole subject of PR, the media, rumours and all this stuff is a big issue. And I'm wondering what your current view on it is, because I think about it a lot. I don't know whether there's a correct way to do this. Certainly the amount of misinformation and what you would call bad press, even though I think bad press is quite good press as well, and especially when you read some of it, it reads like a manifesto for something pretty good. It's just that the way they report on it, they're kind of assuming you think it's bad. So what is your current opinion on what's going on in the media sphere with regards to Próspera, and what people think about it outside of our world?

Erick Brimen: Well, look, for sure, mainstream media will tilt towards a negative spin. But the biggest risk a project like this has is becoming irrelevant and not being top of mind, because the facts of the project will always speak louder than the false allegations to people who could, in fact, benefit from and contribute to the project.

So to be put on the radar, as long as the stories are not just 100% fake and negative, to be put on the radar on the neutral, even slightly negative, can generally be turned into a net positive. Indeed, a lot of the narrative that they assume everybody's going to take as a bad thing, to a subgroup of people who know how the media works, they will see past it and through it and be like, huh, maybe something interesting is happening, because ABC travelled from Australia to Roatán. It elevates the importance of the project.

And that, I think, is critically important, because far too often, given the nature of what we're after, people simply don't believe that it's actually happening. That is the first challenge, that it's real and that it's actually happening. And it's better to be real and controversial than to not exist and be irrelevant.

Timothy Allen: I agreed. I was playing around this morning just looking at previous media occurrences referencing Próspera over the last year, and then over a year ago. I was trying to work out whether anything was changing, whether it was getting better or whatever. And certainly the only thing that turned up, because it was a pretty chaotic set of data, is that there's a big difference between English and Spanish speaking, number one. Spanish speaking is often negative, often. The English speaking is kind of like 50-50 currently.

Erick Brimen: That's what you're running at, is 50-50, which is pretty good, actually. It's surprisingly impressive. Given the state of mainstream media and just global ideology, unfortunately, to have 50-50, it's pretty impressive.

Timothy Allen: What did you think of the ABC one, then, you personally?

Erick Brimen: I saw a short version of it, enough to understand where it was going, and also to identify that there were some gross mischaracterisations, which we spoke proactively with the crew about. We said, look, our only hesitation is that you will spin things and lie. You can highlight things you think are negative, but you must say the truth.

And so we got our legal team on it. They received a letter with the facts as shared with them and as amply substantiated. And they're currently in a period of time where they have an opportunity to fix it, or else face legal action.

That's part of what we have chosen to do across the board. With outlets that are credible and seem to come in good faith, after discussing our concerns and our intended path ahead, where if they defame or intentionally mislead we will take legal action, we are on the side of giving them a shot. And when and if they choose to do defamation, then we'll pursue it. We've actually been somewhat successful against big outlets, whether New York Times, Bloomberg. These are institutions that have had to retract themselves.

I think that's not the cheapest approach, but it might be the best approach if you can afford it, because not engaging is somewhat unrealistic. As I said, there's a way to thread the needle where the net is positive because it's relevant. And engaging with everybody is also not worthwhile. So if you pick serious outlets that have something to lose if their reporters just go off the rails, it gives us somewhat of a balanced position, I think.

Timothy Allen: I looked at the YouTube version of that ABC one and it's such a disaster. You see the misinformation on the top of the screen, and then the comment section, which is even worse. I wouldn't say it's disheartening, because I look at it and I think it doesn't matter. This thing's happening. This thing's going ahead. It's actually going to win, because good ideas win in the end. But it really is tiresome seeing people just doing the same thing over and over again.

In this last twelve-month period there were two big ones, Channel 4 and ABC. And they even pretty much interviewed the same people. The narrative followed this. Literally it looks like the Australians just looked at that film and went, okay, well, we can contact this guy, we can contact that guy, and they did the same thing. The only difference with the ABC one was the Trump connection, which I thought was proper misinformation, because they interviewed a guy near the end and he said that Trump intervened in the election, which meant that Próspera survived.

Erick Brimen: I think the public record of what he said over time is available. I'd rather refrain from commenting too much on Honduran politics. I think that he, as others, are legitimately interested in making sure that whatever project is going to emerge can do so with legitimacy and being a positive development for the country. And when all they have are the innuendos or false allegations, it gives them pause and concern.

But so far, 100% of the people that come with concerns, engage, do their own research, leave at worst neutral, and generally more often than not realising that it's a net positive. And then sort of finding themselves in an awkward position, because they might have said something against the project before they knew, where they can't necessarily go out and fully endorse it for political or other reasons. But deep down they know that it's a good thing, and at a minimum neutral, and in some cases find ways to support.

Timothy Allen: What I found, the difference between the Spanish-speaking media and the English speaking. Spanish focused on sovereignty. Their big attack vector was, it's taking away sovereignty. The English speakers were all tech billionaires. And both of them are, as far as I can understand, pretty indisputably wrong on both counts, not least when they call Próspera a billionaire paradise, or whatever they call it. I don't say I know many billionaires, but I certainly know some rich people who would choose not to live in Próspera, of all places. It's not the place that they would instantly think, this is my paradise. But it's interesting that those are the two ways. The sovereignty one, which once again I think you can indisputably say is incorrect. Is that right?

Erick Brimen: Of course. And it's not only incorrect, it's quite literally the opposite. But it does take a deeper understanding of what sovereignty even is, where it comes from, and how it gets exercised, to understand that what Próspera does in partnership with governments is to enable a greater exercise of individual sovereignty by the citizens, as opposed to the opposite.

But I think these two themes are a reflection of where the cultures are and come from. In Latin America there is a colonial history where, once the countries here secured independence, it is kind of their precious, most valuable thing. And anything that could threaten it is automatically a big risk. So those who want to attack a project know that those are the soft spots, and the thing that people react most aggressively to. That is how they're going to attack it.

In the English speaking, I think that unfortunately the lashing out against the extremely wealthy tech billionaires is a reflection of a tendency towards socialism that we're seeing. So obviously they are the target. And when culture is detached from deeper philosophy that understands how value creation is a virtue, then they'll use that as an angle of attack.

But if you double or triple click and you see who's ultimately promoting these attacks, you'll see a uniform group of individuals with an ideology that is fundamentally collectivist. They have a different worldview than that which we seek to amplify, which is to empower the individual to seek their maximum potential and to be able to benefit from it through voluntary trade. And that doesn't need to be a political label. It's just a worldview of individualism versus collectivism. We're amplifying the former and they want to amplify the latter.

Timothy Allen: It's the part I have the hardest time with in talking to my normie friends about anything like this. And it's surprising how deep it runs, the fact that somehow, by pursuing individual rights, you're doing something bad. It's quite astonishing.

I come from what I would have said was a pretty open-minded culture, and it took me a while to realise, because I had to choose my words wisely when I described, say, a private form of governance. Even now, when I think about it, I know, whoa, that sounds crazy. In fact, in the ABC film they interviewed a guy who was an economist, and he said, oh, the libertarians want the states of the world in their current form to disappear. And he was talking about the state of politics in Honduras as if it was this utopia. Obviously we all knew that it wasn't the greatest place to live, and what was happening here was potentially at least showing a better way. Yet people were defending the state, or defending the status quo, even though it was bad.

Erick Brimen: I think it's worth qualifying when you say people are defending the state. Again, you've got to go and see at the source who's defending the state, and you'll see that people like this individual, who is part of the machine and has lived off of it, will defend it. There's a mixture of incentives and ideology that lead a person such as that to, I think, actually believe what he's espousing, in part because he depends on it.

It's also worthwhile recognising that this emergence of anti-capitalism, anti-free markets, does have some legitimacy in it. In a lot of what we think are free market economies there's actually a lot of cronyism that happens. And when individuals or companies can enrich themselves truly at the expense of the general population, because they are leveraging coercive powers of governments to do so, it is right and proper to reject that. It's not okay. It's immoral, it's coercive, and we should also stand against it.

Too often, I think people that defend individual liberty don't acknowledge that what is being performed in a lot of these economies is not true free market capitalism. It's a hybrid at best, with a lot of socialism embedded. And what people don't like is not the freedom, it's the coercion part of it. But walking them through to understand that at the source of that injustice that they perceive, and sometimes are direct victims of, is not a free market entrepreneur. It's a coercive government that, through any number of means, is imposing a product or a service, or disallowing competition. If they're not taken through that, they just associate it to what's on the surface.

Obviously, statists are going to blame the, quote unquote, greedy tech billionaire or entrepreneur. But at the source it's really the coercive power of the state that is being weaponised to enrich unscrupulous business owners or leaders.

And I know that the Genesis story is not the most relevant here, since you've talked to so many people, but on a personal level, for me, that's what clicked at some point. I didn't get to these ideas based on some libertarian ideology, or even through philosophical books or economic books. It was a very firsthand experience of how I saw my country of birth supposedly having a combination of democracy and capitalism, actually still having a tremendous amount of poverty with wealth concentration, and me likewise feeling that something is off, like this is wrong. It can't be that a few control so much and that others don't even have the opportunity to compete.

But I didn't have the language nor the understanding that at the source of that injustice is not the business person. They can be complicit, but in reality it's the use of coercion, which is in the hands of government as we currently have them structured.

So I guess I say that to, on the one hand, say it's not surprising, but I think there's a bit of hope, because this is not ideological. It's not that complicated. But until it's put into words and people can have the mental model that clicks, it feels like a battle of ideology. It's in fact something very pragmatic, very practical. It's not about libertarianism or socialism. It's just about justice, and whether or not you like to have things imposed upon you, or if instead you want to have choice. And when you take it out of the political conversation and you bring it down to this very basic set of facts, I think most people ultimately get it.

Timothy Allen: Do you know why the libertarian utopia meme grew so fast? I've only been following Próspera for like four years, and obviously there are lots of libertarians who believe in Próspera. But in the sense that, and I'll always use Morazán as an example, it's built on libertarian principles and no one's ever heard of Hoppe inside Morazán. The service is good, so people go there. That's the long and short of the model. Here's a product, I'm offering it to you. Do you want it? Yes. All right, let's sign an agreement and let's work together. So where did all the libertarian stuff come from? Was that there, or did that come accidentally?

Erick Brimen: Look, at least as it relates to Próspera, we have many members on the team that are definitely, or where I think their ideology has evolved in part as a result of the project, historically libertarian leaning. And I think in a traditional paradigm of how government is structured, if you want individual liberty and free markets, then you lean libertarian.

What Próspera has sought to do is kind of alter the paradigm a bit, and consider the possibility that it need not all be in that continuum of, say, left to right, collectivist versus individualism in a traditional public government structure. That if you introduce a new dimension, of public versus private, and you have a tremendous amount of choice, it kind of doesn't matter so much.

And the best analogy I can think of is the hotel industry. Does it really matter that some hotels are basically all inclusive? You pay a bigger price and then everything comes included, versus some other alternative that gives you the bare minimum and then you've got to pay for everything extra. It doesn't matter, because you have choice. If you like the all inclusive, you go to Sandals, and if you want the bare minimum, maybe you go to a hostel or something that just gives you a bed and the rest you buy out on the street.

Obviously, the challenge is when you have no choice. So once you add that dimension of true choice, these labels stop meaning as much, because you are no longer bound by, limited to, a coercively imposed system. You have choice. And in that choice, why not have a city-scale project that feels more collectivist? If everybody signs up for that, why not? It's going to Sandals. And obviously you see Scandinavian countries where they do have a lot of freedoms, but you pay a ton of taxes and you get a much thicker stack of services.

So I think that the libertarian meme comes because a lot of people that have been affiliated with Próspera had the emergence of this vision come from the frustration of a coercive government, and the libertarian ideology that results from it. And that's just the way it is.

I, for one, I don't consider myself a libertarian in a traditional sense, because we're building outside of that paradigm. Of course, I strongly believe in individual freedom. And I think in the end that's probably one of the most important human virtues that we should aspire for, because nothing can really emerge through virtue unless you have true individual liberty. If you don't have choice, even if you're doing the right thing, if it's coerced, so what?

Timothy Allen: You mentioned then that you reckon a few people on the project, their idea, they were libertarians, it's evolved somewhat. Can you tell me how it's evolved? I'm very interested in that. What is the evolution beyond, say, I don't know, I'm not a libertarian either, so I can't quote all the libertarian rules, I know roughly speaking. But what would the evolution be? What has that person arrived at?

Erick Brimen: Well, look, I think a libertarian is very preoccupied with making sure that government is as small as possible, that it does the least possible, that taxes are minimised. And that is because in the paradigm of how governments have traditionally existed, maybe that is the best, or the least bad, of the structures.

But once you transcend and think of governance as a service, and you decouple the service from the institutions of government, and you introduce the possibility that at least part of the stack of the governance services are done in some sort of public-private structure, then you start to think of it more as a service. And just like with any other service, some providers are going to be very integrated and others are going to be minimalistic. So it stops mattering so much how much of the stack is included in whatever price they're going to charge for the service of governance.

What matters more is that we change the paradigm and introduce, in the provision of governance services, alliances that work, partnerships that work, between the so-called public sector and the private sector.

And I will add, it is somewhat irresponsible, might be too strong of a word, but not refined enough, to say things like private governance. Because unless you define what governments do, you can easily put it all in one bucket. And for some of those layers, the idea that those services will be in the hands of a private and for-profit company is repulsive and dangerous.

For example, unless you're very well read and understand anarcho-capitalism and how insurance companies might neutralise the threat that private armies will take over, you will go straight to East India Company and say, whoa, we have tried that. And that did not work out, because many parts of the East India Companies of the world, indeed, I wouldn't support. Individual rights transcend the profit motive of a company, even if they have the coercive power. So if you put it all in a bucket, it's very hard even for reasonable people to swallow that pill.

But if you start to decouple, and you slice the layers of what governments do, and you say, hold on, okay, assume that you put off to the side, say, national defence, and assume you put off to the side the public justice system, and assume you put off to the side national diplomacy, and a lot of these things that people do in fact associate with the sovereign powers of a nation state. And you say, let's just talk about commerce, how to do business. Not your culture, not family laws, not the territory, just how you engage in commerce. The trade of goods and services in a manner that maximises the collective wealth creation.

And how much innovation do you need to do at that level today, when there is a very well-proven system that has worked pretty much everywhere that it's tried? So if you bring it down to just that part of the stack, now you have a bigger space to discuss what's a big deal in terms of doing a public-private partnership. I mean, you have companies running airports, and airports, you might argue, are extremely sensitive, both for security reasons, for safety reasons, for all sorts of reasons, and just running the day-to-day rules and the enforcement thereof is not nearly as controversial.

So I think the evolution, to your point of why libertarians that join Próspera transcend the typical political label, is because we realise that in the end we're creating a new paradigm in which the label doesn't matter as much, because you have choice, you have competition, and we're seeking to align the incentives of what makes the private sector very efficient with the quality control that a government that is representative in nature can do better than if you have an East India Company type of setup.

Timothy Allen: Do you personally think it's a brand new paradigm?

Erick Brimen: In its current form, yes. Elements of it have been done before, and perhaps every part of it has been done before. But packaged the way that Próspera has done it, I think it's innovative and brand new.

The idea that what emerged out of Hong Kong, or what created Hong Kong versus what Hong Kong was. If you separate those two things, obviously what gave birth to Hong Kong can be extremely controversial. Opium wars. It was imposed by a big colonial power kind of saying, this is not mine, I'm going to run it. That way to get there, I wouldn't support, at least not in the modern era if you can avoid it. But you now have a special jurisdiction with international best practice. Obviously, the proof is in the pudding.

So is there a way to get to a similar outcome, but through voluntary agreement, where the nation state actually is significantly better off from the start, and where you're leveraging where a representative government at the nation state level has a very fair and perhaps uniquely valuable role to play, and a private partner that is going to run things very efficiently?

And if structured in what we at Próspera call the socioeconomic development enterprise, where its profit is derived not from individualised transactions but through a collective of economic development over time in a given territory, then I think it hasn't been done this way before. You've had public-private partnerships for critical assets and infrastructure. Obviously, you've had highly differentiated special jurisdictions like Hong Kong and Dubai. But merging those two things in the modern era has not been done before.

Timothy Allen: Something I was thinking about this morning with regards to the partnership with the government is that Próspera has just been through a big four-year cycle of a bad government, so a bad relation with government, let's say. What I was thinking about this morning was, do you think that the legal protections worked, or do you think the government just changed?

I'll tell you why I ask. I've thought, great, this proves the model. This is amazing. The socialists wanted to come in and shut you down, and actually Próspera is still here and things are happening. Great. Proves the model in one sense. But then also, if you look at it, there was a regime change, which was arguably something separate. And I'll be honest, I don't know about you, but I breathed a sigh of relief. It was like a very close football game. It was two-all and someone won in the last five minutes, and it's like, look, we can celebrate, but we were lucky, if you see what I mean.

What do you think about that, in terms of the regime change, which has obviously been favourable? How much do you think the legal protections on Próspera would have worked? How much can we say that they've worked?

Erick Brimen: I think they're fundamentally necessary, but substantially insufficient by themselves. You must have them, but they're not the silver bullet.

I think what we are learning by building is that politics, which gives rise to a particular administration, is complicated, multidimensional, and that there is, in a weird way, a tremendous amount of value as an instrument of peace preservation for various interests to kind of battle it out through a political process. Because what is the alternative? The alternative is a lot of violence and civil wars all the time. If the only way you can drive change is by killing the other guy, that, I think, net net, will result in far more value destruction.

Now, of course, I'm not celebrating what happened in absolute terms, but as a continuum of a model that has to mature and perfect how it partners, how it communicates the partnership, and what it prioritises at various cycles of development, from idea to, twenty years later, a city-scale project that everybody recognises, let's say, as successful. It's been very valuable. There's no other way to go through what we're going through and see it from the inside than going through it.

I think the jury is still out. Obviously, I'm very optimistic about the current administration, and, let's say, solving the dispute not only amicably but in a manner that results in something that potentially is far better than would have been had there not been a dispute. It's like you're putting the model to the test. If you're astute and you have a long-term perspective and you are committed to true value creation, not political ideology, as I believe we are, then we have in our hands an opportunity to emerge out of a controversial phase stronger and better than ever before, and than we could have ever been, say, seven years after we started, because we started building in 2020.

And when we achieve that, that will be a massive accomplishment and way more valuable than, say, having found what we think is a silver bullet. I don't think there's anything that is a silver bullet. I think you have to contend with the fact that everywhere there are multiple layers of interest with varying degrees of power and influence. It's not static, but directionally there are different types of groups that play a different role in the politic as it's generally applied, at least in democracies.

And to succeed with a long-term project that will be around for multiple administrations, you have to go deeper than what's at the surface in an electoral cycle. Because behind that, upstream from the politicians and whatever is popular in a given ten-year cycle, there are other dynamics of influence and interest. And those are the ones you have to align with. Your roots have to go deeper than just surface-level politics.

Timothy Allen: Have you thought what Próspera might look like now if the election had gone a different way?

Erick Brimen: Candidly, it would probably still be very similar to where we are right now.

I think that, again, removing political labels and thinking of the actors involved that really move the levers of influence, I think ultimately they have utilitarian objectives to reach. They might wrap it around a certain ideology that can be popular and convenient and get them to power, especially in a population that unfortunately is largely poor and it's easy to weaponise against those who have a lot more than they do.

But ultimately, especially in a second cycle, where the massive arbitration that we are engaged upon will almost certainly be decided. I think they fairly well knew that during the first four years. These are seven-year arbitration proceedings. Unfortunately, they take too long. But in the second cycle, that thing's going to be decided. And massively increasing physical hostilities would have just sealed the deal for them to almost guarantee they lose that arbitration.

And so, not that political actors are rational in a traditional economic way, but they have their own rationality. They want to stay in power. They ultimately want to keep enough people satisfied for them to remain in power. And if possible, for them to claim certain victories, they obviously want to add to their political points. So the win-win outcome would have been a negotiated resolution. It would have had different colours and flavours and labels. But ultimately, unless they wanted to end up with a massive claim against them, which would have made their lives super hard to finance public affairs and all that, a settlement is always what was going to make most sense. And that's the path that we're seeking to optimise for right now.

Timothy Allen: I didn't realise this until I looked into it last night. Is it true that the previous government actually left ICSID? Presumably that was them trying to say, well, look, even that doesn't matter then. Any legal way that you would like to strong-arm us doesn't matter any more. The constitution is unconstitutional. ICSID doesn't matter, we're not even in it any more. Is that true? There's a lot of the whole story that I missed while it was happening, I think.

Erick Brimen: So the prior administration did withdraw from the ICSID convention, allegedly largely because of the Próspera suits, although in reality we were just one of like sixteen that were filed. Ours was the largest and perhaps most well known. But they clearly made a pivot when it comes to respecting or not respecting contracts and obligations, because you have sixteen different organisations from Scandinavia to locals.

Timothy Allen: Sorry to butt in. Were they all connected with the same thing? Why were they looking for arbitration?

Erick Brimen: Well, for various claims of expropriation or violation of contractual obligations by the state. Some might have been energy generators that had a price.

Timothy Allen: But to do with the ZEDEs, for example?

Erick Brimen: No, no. Of the sixteen, probably a maximum of two or three might have had something to do with the ZEDE regime. The vast majority of them didn't have anything to do with the ZEDE legal system. It had to do with a pivot in public policy that those that filed the claim felt was a violation of contractual obligations or legal obligations by the state towards them.

But to your point on ICSID, they withdrew. Arguably it was a moot issue, because there are several other ways by which a private investor in Honduras could nevertheless end up in ICSID arbitration. So it was probably 60% a political move, and maybe they thought they could gain some advantage by it. But this administration has rejoined, I think, and that's a move to be celebrated.

Ultimately, one of the most powerful ways for a state to project confidence to investors is for them to agree that if there is a dispute, a neutral third party will hear the case and adjudicate it. And that's what ICSID is all about. There are other forums in which an investor and a state can arbitrate, but ICSID, as far as I understand, is the most well known and the one that has the most successful record. And it's not always pro-investor, by the way.

It turns out that, generally speaking, if you end up in arbitration, given how costly it is and how long it takes, there must have been quite outrageous actions by the state, because it doesn't make financial sense for an investor to just go and file an arbitration. So more often than not, there's a there there on the claimant side. But it seems quite fair.

Now, even if a state wants to ignore the ruling, given the way the international financial system works, those claims have real economic value. And you can look at countries like Venezuela, who attempted to just completely ignore rulings and over time have to pay. Argentina is another example. It might take longer than the claimant would like, but as markets do, then there's a secondary market to sell the claim and you can get pennies on the dollar. It depends on the specifics, but it can be from single-digit pennies to sixty cents on the dollar. And then the other person is specialised in the collection side and they don't mind waiting five years through all sorts of legal and interesting procedures to get paid.

So as I said, it's insufficient by itself, but it's essentially necessary to have strong legal protections that include being part of a neutral dispute resolution mechanism.

Timothy Allen: What do you think is the most powerful aspect of Próspera's nature that allows it to protect itself from that kind of event? There aren't that many. If you look at the pitfalls of running Próspera, there's only a few ways it can go wrong. One is nobody turns up. One is it gets shut down by the government. And that's pretty much it, really. It fails economically and then dissolves, or the government come in and shut it down. So with regard to the government side, what's the best thing you have, which other projects could potentially learn from, that means that you protect yourself the most from that outcome?

Erick Brimen: It's to abandon the notion that there's any one thing that you can and need to do, and if you do it, you're fine. It's multidimensional. It's dirty and hard. And there isn't a one size fits all. Different countries are going to have different power structures. I think we're starting to sort of map out the phenotype of, let's say, the realpolitik behind the scenes, and how interests are ultimately at play. But there isn't a silver bullet.

I think in the aggregate, though, there's a combination of things that have to be part of the ingredients. First and foremost, you have to be a good faith actor seeking to create real value for the local population. In some cases, maybe through monarchies or corrupt governments, maybe an operator that truly is seeking to build an enclave for foreigners with zero benefits to a local population, they could get away with it, maybe. But even then, I think a monarch has to face its subjects and you have to show that there's a benefit for them, but certainly in a democracy. So first and foremost, you'd better be building a project that fundamentally seeks to, and over time in fact creates value to, the constituents of that government.

Number two, you need to have the legal protections and the stacks of contracts and international treaties that apply. And that's a complicated stack of options that you can add to each other. We've mapped out about ten. And obviously, if you have all ten of them, great. But you've got to have some. Otherwise it's probably not worth it.

And then you have to, and I'm not saying we've done a great job at all of these, but part of the process enables us to learn, you've got to map out and align the interests of multiple stakeholders that are way below the surface of what you normally see in politics. Everything from the substantial economic interest groups of the country to the grassroots organisations that exist to advocate for something they care about. You kind of have to map them, understand which ones are legitimate, because we have never, nor would, do business or transact through illegitimate means, whether it's corruption or just something that's fundamentally misaligned with the basic premises of, say, individual liberties.

But mapping that, and trying as best as possible to align the nature of the project and its success with the legitimate intentions of those groups, that's the hardest part. And I think that if it's not a silver bullet, but if you wanted to, out of these three categories, point to one that is the thing that makes it or breaks it, it's that. Because you can have everything else sorted, but if everybody actually sees you as a threat and does not want you, eventually they're not going to care about the other stuff.

Timothy Allen: Yeah, I think I agree with that. And that brings me on to one of the questions that I've never felt like anyone's answered well enough for me, and this is most probably because there is no answer to this. Talking about Crawfish Rock, for example. Where do the rights of people who live in Crawfish Rock stand with regards to if they decide, I don't want a large city built next to my village, say?

Because obviously, if it's pure property rights you're talking about, I'm not sure what the legality of it is. I'm kind of looking for the moral answer. My conclusion has always been, look, sometimes shit happens. There isn't an answer to this. You can't please everyone, but you can please 95% of people. And the Crawfish Rock one is a bone of contention, and it also is because so many of the Western media, when they come in, use that as a sort of, and I know the stories about who really cares over there and what's been going on and stuff. But let's just assume that there is a genuine, because I think there is, I think if you're a Crawfish Rock resident there is a genuine reason to be pissed off. If you like your village as a nice fishing village, say, and you don't want to potentially have a big city next to you. So what would your answer be to that?

Erick Brimen: Well, I think the first thing is to recognise that in theory property rights exist as black and white. In practice they exist in a continuum of, let's say, a collective understanding and agreement that certain rights are to be respected. So it's not a sharp line. You can write it as a sharp line, but clearly it isn't.

And you can see this. Forget Crawfish Rock first. Go to New York City, go to any US planning and zoning. Whatever happened to property rights, if you can't do with your property what you want, as long as you're not verifiably creating negative externalities on those around you? You have very wide areas where somehow we've accepted that you own the property, but you can't really exercise full liberty upon it. Zoning and planning is a perfect example. And so, in some ways, you could argue that when there's structure, there's a less conflicting pathway through which to resolve those differences. And in the absence of that institution, you have kind of what you get here, which is both good and bad.

The second thing is that, even if you accept that property rights are kind of a fuzzy concept and that it requires some sort of collective agreement, that you're never going to, as you say, please everybody. And that is where, as dangerous as the concept of democracy is, it's useful to some extent. Because if you acknowledge that you can't convince absolutely everybody, you've got to have an alternative mechanism by which to say, well, look, we've reached a threshold above which it's legitimate, even though some people don't like it. And that is where consultation processes go through. That is where, if there are institutions adjudicating just how far the property rights go, you go through a democratic type process.

Fortunately, we very comfortably clear any reasonable standard of, say, popular support, even within Crawfish Rock. When we did a consultation, a town hall, open forum consultation, to Crawfish Rock, before we started moving any dirt, something like 85% of the adults showed up and almost unanimously voted in favour of a project being done.

Does that mean that that is the be-all and end-all? Of course not, because opinions change, because people have criticism about, oh, well, but you didn't invite, I don't know, CNN to monitor the thing. There's all sorts of things that can happen over time. So the entry point of having public legitimacy is never a fixed target. But if you're a good faith actor and you understand that, you do as we have tried to do.

And obviously there's enough people in the village, very few, but they fit the prototype of what some NGOs are looking for in order to justify their fundraising and make themselves appear as if they're helping people. And so they get a lot of attention. But any good faith journalist that goes, and perhaps incognito, goes and talks to people, the vast majority of Crawfish Rock is happy with what is happening and could happen here. Because there's no negative externality and there's no threat that it will change their lifestyle, if they want to live and continue to live exactly as they are. There's nothing that we can even do, even if we wanted to, to change that.

Timothy Allen: Well, apart from, obviously, this area will evolve. If you go thirty years into the future.

Erick Brimen: Right, but nobody's going to force them to sell. So you might say the temptation to sell will go up exponentially, because now they can get a million dollars for their half-acre lot, whereas twenty years ago it was worth nothing. Let's just say. If they sell, it's their choice. Now they have a million dollars with which to build somewhere else if they want to. If they don't want to, they don't have to.

Timothy Allen: I suppose the reason I ask is, for example, I live on a remote farm, and if someone came to a neighbouring field and said we're going to build tower blocks here, I wouldn't want that. And I appreciate there's nothing I can do about it, really, except move. I can complain, but I also know that some battles are worth fighting, and sometimes it's just bad luck that you've entered this situation. You might need to find the upside. The upside might be you wait a few years and then your property is worth a lot of money, like you mentioned there.

But that's the part that I always get stuck at, is somebody in Crawfish who's, I don't know, a 65-year-old woman who enjoys sitting on the harbour every evening and doesn't want loads of big buildings next to her. But like I say, I've made my peace with it. I just was interested to hear what your position was, because my peace is, look, life is like that sometimes. People are trying to work within the law, trying to work within, you know.

Erick Brimen: They're competing interests, even within an individual. I started by saying there are legitimate institutions that help adjudicate where the boundaries of property rights are, because you can write them black and white, but in reality they're going to be fuzzy. But even within an individual, there are competing interests.

That 65-year-old lady might have kids and grandkids, and I bet you that part of what she wants is for them to live a more prosperous life as well, or at least have more opportunities than maybe she had, whether they pursue them or not, to have the option. And so you have the trade-off of being able to look at 360 degrees and see nothing but grass or trees, versus only being able to do it at 180 degrees, because if you look back you start to see some buildings, but have ocean views. With the added benefit that maybe her kids and her grandkids are going to have more options and more freedoms as a result, whether they choose to live there or not.

And so it's fuzzy. At least the way, let's say, in a very personal way, because I recognise the challenge, and also it's kind of against my own principles and values to impose things upon others. That's kind of what I believe. So how do I live with it? I live with it by saying, well, look, are you fundamentally doing something good? Not by my standards, but in general standards. Do the vast majority of people that have some stake in it, formally or otherwise, do they support it? Okay.

And then, are you willing to be flexible so that, within reason, if you're going to get from A to B, sometimes there is a more optimal way to get there that is not a straight line, if you want to take into consideration the opinions and desires of others. And so if you're willing to be a bit flexible, and we are, then I think you check all the boxes of both doing something fundamentally good, and in a manner that respects the integrity of legitimate concerns of others.

And I don't know that you can do much better than that, because I think the alternative is what? Nothing ever changes. There's no development, no growth, no improvement. And if we were already in a context where there is a lot of individual liberty and prosperity, it would be one thing, but we're not. We're not in that context. There's a tremendous amount of need and upside. And so something has to change. And change is not always welcomed. But there are ways to drive change, as I mentioned, that you can tick some boxes, and then it's more than ethical. I think it's desirable.

Timothy Allen: I think that is actually the conclusion I came to. It's a case of, the greater good is the wrong word, it's, am I doing my best and am I thinking of everyone possible? And other than that, there is no utopian way of doing it. There's no perfect way to do it.

Erick Brimen: So I would assume internally we have sort of a win-all. We have several paradigms, but one is to try to do things that are win-all approaches, where we win, where the direct counterparty wins, and where reasonable third parties that we can think of and have some stake in it, even though they're not at the negotiating table, they also win. And I think if you use that as a guiding principle, more often than not you're going to end up on the right side.

Timothy Allen: The problem is, and this is where I see it all the time, is that if someone wants to take a dig at Próspera, especially in the media, in the Western media, it's such an easy one. And it's very hard to communicate a sort of feel-good way of saying what you've just said. Because basically, at the end of the day, the answer to that question is, we do our best, but sometimes you can't please everyone. But that seems to back up the kind of cries of NGOs saying, well, people are getting disenfranchised. And it's very hard to communicate that.

Erick Brimen: I don't think that you can prevent that narrative. But what you can do is amplify the good things that are being done. And I think most people can then judge and say, well, okay, some people claim less than ideal conditions, but look at all these optimal things and positive things that are being done.

And now, to be honest, I always resisted that sort of public PR, do good things to appear good. I've always felt there was something disingenuous in it. But I must admit, I obviously see the utility in it. And I guess the way I'm coming to terms with it is, it's not that you fake doing good things just for the PR value, though that works in the short term, and a lot of companies, a lot of groups do just that and sort of win the PR battle.

But if you understand that there is a value-for-value exchange in a politic where public opinion matters, and you do believe that you can do better by fronting some of these, say, social efforts that eventually were going to be addressed but that you can accelerate, and you do it in the context of value-for-value, then it's perfectly fine. In fact, it might be the necessary thing, to be more public about it. And that is something where we have miserably failed from the beginning.

But I think more and more, and maybe if you follow our social media and what we make public, we're trying to shine more light on the things that are happening anyway that are good and people would generally recognise as positive, and maybe being more proactive about contributing in some areas of, let's call it, for lack of a better word, social needs, where we can contribute in a manner that has a positive return for the project, both financially, morally, and from a public opinion perspective.

Timothy Allen: Something else I was thinking about this morning, and ended up talking with Oliver about, was the fact that most recently I've been thinking not about the failures of these projects and the pitfalls of them failing, but more the pitfalls of them succeeding. A lot of people don't think about it. When you're fighting a battle, which is basically the story of Próspera, it's also a fight of recognition, of being allowed to exist, of all these kinds of things, you focus on the win, or you focus on the smaller wins, but you never think about the success.

And actually the success of a project like this is going to be a huge undertaking. Because is Próspera going to survive? As in, the Próspera that you know, your vision of Próspera, say, is XYZ. When there's a hundred thousand people living here and there's a lot more input, you think, all these people with all their ideas. That's the more interesting thing, I think, is to wonder, does it survive that? Does Próspera survive that? What does it become at that point?

Erick Brimen: Well, it's worthwhile maybe introducing a distinction of what Próspera is and isn't. The way you're describing it sounds very much like a singular place and location, like a city.

Timothy Allen: Well, no, actually, I meant, I know ideology is the wrong word, I meant the reason that Próspera exists. The reason it exists is because, maybe it goes back to what we were talking about at the start, that really all this is, is a project which makes a better place to live than over there.

Erick Brimen: I went to Babson College, and everybody there studies entrepreneurship, but I focused my major in development economics. For me, Próspera is just an economic development project. It's a tool by which to lift people up and accelerate wealth creation. That's all it is. We can go at length about philosophy and tactics, but when it's all said and done, it's an economic development tool and strategy.

And that happens all over the world all the time, with various degrees of success or failure, and obviously costs. And generally it's a niche that has been controlled largely by multilaterals and governments and charities. And as a result, often when they are really involved, there are negative externalities of destroying market forces and creating dependencies. Look at Poverty Inc. and Africa, and many terrible examples in Latin America as well.

But fundamentally, what you're trying to do is to create conditions for countries and for people to do better over time. And it's not just an altruistic thing. And I think maybe that is our core innovation. Ultimately, helping people reach their potential sounds very altruistic. And indeed, when you have no way to internalise the positive externality of doing that, all you have is altruism.

But what if you could invent a business model where you are able to internalise the positive externality of creating generalised prosperity? And that's fundamentally what we're doing. Because if you crack that nut, then the best dynamics of self-interest and the profit motive get activated to do something that is truly, let's say, for the well-being of a common population, not just of a particularised customer.

Yes, you ultimately transact on a customer-by-customer basis. But the nature of governance services is that the positive externality tends to exceed, over time, the transactional value. So the problem has been that we haven't had a business model that can monetise that aggregation of positive externality. So therefore you end up with public and for-politics institutions, as opposed to private and for-profit institutions, offering the service of governance.

So what happens when we succeed? Well, hell, I think we would have demonstrated a better way to drive economic development that is not so controversial when it's all said and done. It's a public-private partnership, and it's not at the expense of some of the fundamental institutions at the level at which they remain legitimate, at least in my book, for a nation state to exist. But enabling a partnership for the other area, going back to the stack of all the layers of what governance is, where it makes perfect sense to partner with a private provider.

Timothy Allen: Go fifty years in the future. What would be the thing that you would most like to survive that fifty years? Would it be the contract? What would set Próspera apart in fifty years' time, when it's a thriving metropolis, say, or whatever?

Erick Brimen: Maybe I'll answer a different question, but hopefully in less than fifty years, but certainly by fifty years from now, a telltale sign that what we're after has succeeded will be something along the lines where, in the future, from time to time governments will recognise that a new city is required, or that there's an urban development need. And just as sometimes they do RFPs for, say, a public-private partnership for an airport or a bridge or a road, the first RFP they're going to do is for governance services.

They're going to say, look, our urbanisation is one where we want to catalyse new developments. And instead of defaulting to some public and political institution figuring it out, they're going to do an RFP, and they're going to designate a general area, and companies like Próspera or Bechtel or Jacobs, and then many others that we can't imagine right now, will submit bids to say, well, here's how we propose to set up the governance layer of that future city project. And here is, beyond governance, what we're prepared to do. And that could include infrastructure investments. It could include real estate development projects that catalyse a sort of minimally viable ecosystem of activity.

When that happens, we'll know that the paradigm has shifted. And with that shift in paradigm, the acceleration in prosperity is unimaginable, because right now that is the fundamental thing that's holding back prosperity across the world. And I don't mean just from, oh, let's lift poor people up. I mean limiting cutting-edge innovation. It is governance in the end that is the biggest limiting factor, and can be, and often is, like in the US and in other places, often is net net an accelerant to human prosperity. So how do you get the best of governance by getting the best of the public and the private sector to work together? I think the paradigm looks something like that.

Timothy Allen: Is there something that you would consider was a symbol of failure in the future as well? How would you decide, okay, this isn't working?

Erick Brimen: Well, if I and a critical group of people just give up. I think there's no failure until you give up. You can crash a whole bunch of rockets à la SpaceX, and as long as you stay with it and eventually figure out how to land the damn thing, you will eventually succeed.

There's no doubt in my mind that the model is the way of the future. The exact contours of where the boundaries are, I think those are being drawn, more so than by just hypothesising around it, by people trying it. And if they're good faith actors, I think eventually they'll understand where the boundaries are and how to optimise. And there's not going to be a one size fits all model.

The key is to change the paradigm. That governance can be provided as a service in partnership between governments and the private sector. That is the key. How much of the governance stack is done in that partnership, I think we have yet to define exactly where optimal is. We know what is too controversial to be viable. When anybody thinks it's the full stack, it's certainly not viable right now. And I don't know that it will be in the next hundred years. I don't know beyond that, but it probably is irrelevant for my lifetime. But certainly the boundary can evolve in the next few decades. But somewhere there's a boundary, and above that it's perfectly reasonable. In fact, it would be stupid of a government not to pursue it through a public-private partnership. That's the key.

Just like with the four-minute mile. It goes from impossible, to done for the first time, to now a bunch of people do it, to now it's the minimum standard. Like if you can't do that, you're not even worth being a contender.

So right now governments are facing a lot of hardship, resource constraints, capability constraints. There is a growing human population. There is an increasing need for good governance. And the way we're doing it has substantial limitations. As we prove a far better way to do it, I think in the next ten to twenty years, I don't think it will take much longer, we'll go to a click where obviously if you're not doing this, you're not trying hard enough.

Timothy Allen: Another thing me and Oliver spoke about this morning was that when you look at the major projects, and I'm including his project in Georgia back in the day, all of them have someone who's quite obsessive about the project and does it. And I think it's fair to say in Próspera, you're that person. And I know there are plenty of other people that have done all kinds of stuff.

Erick Brimen: Right, right. There are.

Timothy Allen: But the truth is, if you were really brutally honest, you're that guy in this project. What I wonder, and I asked Oliver this, I said, if Erick left, would the project fail? I won't tell you what he said, but what do you think?

Erick Brimen: It depends when. I would like to believe that there are enough people at the ready to substitute whatever value I bring to the project. But I think, as with a lot of ventures in an early stage, if the founder is not there, it could fall apart. So I think we still have, let's say, a high level of key man risk in technical terms. And I'm not super happy about it. But it won't always be that way. And I don't think it will take much longer for that risk to be neutralised, at least as it relates to a particular location.

Timothy Allen: How much of your role do you feel comfortable relinquishing? Or do you think it's important to be that obsessive founder guy until the day you drop?

Erick Brimen: No, I hope not. And I think I will always be involved in some dimensions. But there's a big difference between being involved because you want to versus the project needing it. And maybe you're better than most in some dimensions, but the existential, the viability of a project needs to go beyond depending on its founder, when it makes sense. And that's a very fuzzy concept.

I can't say I've been the best delegator in every dimension. But I do think that it's maybe out of necessity, or maybe out of higher pain tolerance. There are certain aspects of what this venture requires that quite clearly have benefited from or needed my direct intervention. And it is not, say, running a hotel or even doing master planning, and that's a big spectrum, from very operational to very much high-level planning. I know I'm not, and probably never will be, say, world class at any of that stuff.

But there's a dimension at the frontier of trying to solve the fundamental necessity of making this and projects like this work, which is in the statecraft department, which is in figuring out, in the politic as it largely exists in the world today, how do you fit this into that? And it's messy. And I couldn't tell you right now that we've figured it out. I can tell you that we're on our way, and I know more than I imagined even existed in fields of knowledge now than I did ten years ago. And frankly, I think the industry is very early, in that most people don't know what they don't know in this domain.

So I'm not worried for, say, job security when it comes to what this project will need, and that I can contribute more than my interest, what I can contribute to the project, and let's call it a movement of people that actually want to make the world a better place, both for individuals at stake and for the broader human race.

Timothy Allen: I'm not sure I was alluding to the fact that you might lose your job, more to the fact that, going back to what I was saying, the thing to think about is when Próspera succeeds, not when it fails. I've been following it a few years and I've spoken to a lot of people. What I see now is the nature of it is a rather decentralised blob of things happening, but it's driven by an individual as well, which is obviously very important. But that means that the decentralised nature often has to get, no you can't, yes you can, no you can't, yes you can. What's important, apparently, and this is well, apparently, because we don't really know, is that someone needs to be quite resolute about where the thing is going. And I would say that's normally, when I'm having conversations, people refer to you.

Erick Brimen: Look, I think in some ways this is not that different from a venture, a startup venture of sorts. And the relationship between the founder or the founder team and the venture throughout its history, even when it goes well past startup stage. In some cases, for some reason, I can't say I've mapped out exactly why, in some cases the founder is no longer involved, doesn't need to be, and the company thrives very well. Let's say Apple, for example. Apple for the longest time was very dependent on Steve, and he left, and the thing crashed, and he came back, and it started growing. But it seems like, at least for a while, he was able to leave it behind to Tim, and now another CEO.

But other companies are still very strongly founder-led, whether it's Oracle or Meta or Google, or whatever it is they call themselves.

Timothy Allen: Alphabet.

Erick Brimen: Yeah. They have a very strong founder personality involved. And I guess there's no formula that has proven itself to always be right under all circumstances. In some cases you need a strong founder that stays for a long time. In others, they start, they exit, and they go and do other things.

And I'm not sure what it will look like in the case of Próspera, other than I hope that the model gets replicated. And that regardless of, let's say, in a success case for Próspera, what that means for the role of the founder, that there are multiple successful projects around the world.

Timothy Allen: It strikes me as a hard thing to move on from. It's not like you build a new model of governance and then sell it and move on. It's like you're kind of married to the idea of a new model of governance, right? You would have thought.

Timothy Allen: What is Próspera now, as we sit here now? Is this what you expected it to look like when you go back? At this point, forget what you think it's going to be.

Erick Brimen: I was hoping to be much further along by now, probably ten times further along, in a certain dimension. The one that is easy to envision when you think of building a city-scale project, because you're seeing buildings and people and that.

But there's another dimension that I didn't even consider fully in the beginning, or I did, but at a very superficial level. And in that dimension I've seen a tremendous amount of progress. Statecraft, and just kind of understanding the world. I'm not even saying solving it, just knowing that there are walls and boundaries, and then trying to make sense of it.

But no, I would say that we're much further away from where I was hoping to be now, seven years into the project, since we started building this building, actually, in May 2020.

Directionally, yes, a lot of what we have here was one way or another part of the vision. The specifics, as in which industry in particular has found a higher value niche here, I could have told you from the beginning, sure, like healthcare. Because it's such a highly regulated industry, it follows that if you have more optimal regulations, you have arbitrage value for all involved. And so clearly that's proven to be true. Did I know that Bryan Johnson was going to do gene therapy? And maybe that was relevant for a period of time, and it won't be the thing that matters five years from now.

Timothy Allen: What do you think will matter five years from now?

Erick Brimen: That we don't get stuck in just a niche, and that it isn't simply about accelerating those that are already at the frontier of innovation and wealth creation. What will matter is that we prove that you can have a diversified economic hub, for lack of a better term, where there is direct participation from both local and foreign, sophisticated and basic, cutting edge and traditional industries.

Because in the end, the idea of having, say, industry-specific industrial parks, that has been done before. And undoubtedly, if you pick a niche and give it some key advantages, it will make a huge difference, enough to be a prosperous niche of something. What hasn't been proven quite yet is that you can be horizontally diversified, and that if you focus on just some core basic governance services, you will have multiple niches and you will have a rather broad spectrum of people benefiting.

And I think ultimately a project of this nature needs a social licence to operate, regardless of what the contracts say. And in a democracy, that licence to operate comes from the population realising that they, as a constituency, stand to benefit.

It's fine, and I think it's welcomed, for non-nationals to participate. It's fantastic. And over time people become part of the local community. It takes some time. You can even become a national if you want, like in the United States, a melting pot, and you become an African-American or Indian-American or Italian-American. There's always the American part. I think in projects like this you'll have a similar dynamic.

But it's absolutely critical to ensure that it is in alignment with the political currency that sustains the political system upon which you are going to be dependent, unless you want to take a different route of, say, wars or civil disorders. And that's definitely not what Próspera is about.

Timothy Allen: As far as the grand plan goes, correct me if I'm wrong, it involves obviously Próspera here, this part expanding, the physical part, the mainland part, them becoming very much connected. And what about the wider world implications of Próspera, the platform, the place, the governance model? I know I haven't spoken about that for a while, but that was always part of the plan, to have a network of Prósperas. Are those all still things that are part of the big plan?

Erick Brimen: Yes, not necessarily through Honduras Próspera Inc., but in terms of a vision, for sure. Absolutely. And there is such a thing as a Próspera International that is at various stages of conversations and explorations and prospecting elsewhere around the world.

And just as, if I were to ask, where does it make sense to catalyse more economic development? Everywhere. It follows that if the key for more prosperity is better governance, then better governance has a place to go everywhere. Whether it's catch-up growth or pushing the frontier of innovation, in almost all cases governance has either a limiting or enabling role to play.

Timothy Allen: It's interesting though, because when you describe it like that, it just seems like another business model, another plan. But actually, Próspera is kind of, for many people, especially because we're here just before the Free Cities Conference, there's people coming to Próspera, it's like some mythical place. Because of the ideas behind it. They're things that people think about long and hard and have been debated and thought over, and now this physical manifestation exists. I think it's underselling it to say it's basically just a place where you create a better place than over there, and then people come and everyone's happy, kind of thing.

Erick Brimen: That might be unfair in the following way. Every entrepreneur that is pouring their guts into the creation that they have chosen and that they're passionate about, for them that's almost like a religious act. It's a sacred process of creation. And anything that is done at that level of profound commitment is very, very special. But it's also a business. One thing doesn't mean it's not the other.

Like the SpaceX example. Wow, going to Mars and innovating in private space industry. It is potentially transformational for humankind, extending human consciousness into the galaxies. Amazing. And then at the end of the day, you're building rockets, you're putting satellites up there. You've got to charge somebody so you can pay your costs.

They're not one or the other. It's perfectly fine to do both. In fact, it is ideal that you have both. A sort of traditional, normal business model so that you can have sustainability and profit, and yet, when it's all said and done, the consequence of what you're doing can be transformative. And I think that's a sweet spot. Otherwise you're kind of in the think tank, la la la world, or you're just in a widget business that doesn't mean anything to you and will improve the lives of some, but maybe it doesn't have transformational value.

Timothy Allen: The funny thing is, I'm doing a talk at this event coming up, and I decided to see whether there was a difference between what I spoke about a year ago and what I spoke about in the last year. And obviously I used AI to analyse every transcript and stuff, and you know what it spat out? It's so funny. And I won't be giving away the talk, but I'm going to mention it in the talk. It said, a year ago you were talking about the ideas behind Free Cities. This is a very compact version of it, it said it much better than I'm saying it. And it said, this year you've been talking about, why can't we get good coffee, why are there roosters here, why are there, you know.

And I know it's a bit of a generalisation, but it is true. I think 2026 has become the year that, certainly for me as an outsider, and I know if someone like yourself has been following, you've been dealing with this stuff for years, but for me there are a number of projects, not just Próspera but other ones, which are now dealing with the on-the-ground boring things about creating these places.

Erick Brimen: Yeah, I think it will probably be remembered as potentially a turning point for many projects.

Timothy Allen: I know from my experience, because I have data from my experience of speaking to people, that it was all theory, and now it's nearly all practical. Hardly ever have a theoretical conversation. That could be a factor of my own journey in this space as well, obviously, but I'm not going to frame it like that, because I think it's quite interesting. What do you think? Am I drawing too many conclusions?

Erick Brimen: I think directionally you're 100% right. I still perceive the industry, if we can call it that, to be at a super nascent stage. And I have stopped spending as much time as I used to, say ten years ago, seven years ago, kind of surveying the world of projects. So I don't think I'm up to the latest on every project.

But I think there are still very, very, very few projects that are actually dealing with the uniquely differentiated layers of what it means to build what we're building, which is in the governance layer. Building cities is a known craft. Cities are built all the time, you could say, or districts. And there are companies that are super great at that. And you can do better, and you can call them smart or whatever. But the building, the physical space, I think that has been innovated upon. And as always, there's room to grow.

But figuring out the statecraft dimension of this, how do you inject inside of pre-existing political systems this new idea that could easily be seen as disruptive and not in the interest of those that control the levers? That is where the creation of this space has to continue happening. It's happening. And perhaps out of ignorance, I'm not familiar with many projects that are really contending with it, for better and worse. But they're closer than ever, and there are some that are. And so that is transformative compared to five years ago.

And by the way, operationally, it's easy to make the mistake, which we have made, to say, well, the special part of it is governance, so everything else would solve itself. And then, where's the coffee? And the internet's not great. And so the boring stuff has to get done, and it's easy to neglect it when you're at the frontier of what I just described.

So in our case we've had to say, okay, we do need to actually focus on operational excellence in a traditional sense. And there are ways to do that, and challenges, because the best in the world at doing that are not as compatible with a frontier jurisdiction that is under political threat. They don't want to mess with it. They'll go to where they feel it's stable. And their job is real estate development and they'll get their 25% IRR no matter what. And so it's a bit of a challenge to get world class in an unstable, or perceived to be unstable, political environment. And thus it follows that you kind of have to fill the gaps. But I think those are growing pains.

Timothy Allen: Do you think you're finding the right people then, you personally, at Próspera?

Erick Brimen: Look, I think we have had some of the best and brightest in the world that are deep into this space. And some of them come and go, because it's tough. It's not pretty when you go under the hood and deal with just whatever basics, energy, water, coffees, etc. And day in and day out dealing with just the crap and the inefficiencies and misaligned cultures and attacks. Fill in the blank of all the issues that come inherent in a place that has a lot of room to go when it comes to having generalised prosperity.

It's that way for a reason, and it's mutually reinforcing, that you get an outcome because of some inputs, and then the inputs, it's just like a cycle. So we're trying to break that. But in the meantime, you are dealing with a lot of that nonsense.

And some of the brightest, especially now with AI. I think our biggest competition for talent is just AI in general right now, where you can go and build amazing things, make a gazillion dollars relatively short term, or at least that's what people think. So yeah, we've had some of the best, but we still have a lot of room to grow. And developing a well-rounded team, I think it's always going to be a challenge for something as undefined as this has been in terms of where the key success factors are.

Timothy Allen: With regards to this physical Próspera location itself, long term, who are you aiming for to come and sort of use this as their frontier? I mean physically, people. There's a big debate, it's not even really a debate, but there are differing opinions on who you should attract to your city. There are people who say, look, we're creating a place which will be better than over there, so we want everyone to come, locals. And then there are people, and Próspera kind of, I used to think it fell into this mould, it was more like, okay, we're using our regulatory powers here to try and attract not necessarily local Hondurans, because they're just not necessarily involved in this kind of business, but people who see this as a frontier. Personally, in the end, I ended up realising, well, just invite everyone. Really, just really invite everyone. But I don't even know whether Próspera has been down that route yourself. What is the current thinking?

Erick Brimen: So for attendees of the conference, they will be the first conference that, when they drive into our project, will see St John's Bay at the entrance. And that is a brand that we have conceptualised for years now, and only recently said, okay, we're launching it. Because this location is built on the Próspera platform, but the location is not Próspera per se.

And when you have a multi-hub vision and you want to actually compete and be great at serving some target market, you have to focus. What's the target market? And people go to places based on what they're looking for, and companies too.

So we've launched St John's Bay, and St John's Bay is focusing primarily on young families where at least one of the adults is an entrepreneurial leader, and therefore have commonality of interest with others around them, and can appreciate and benefit from the ease of doing business that, no matter what, Próspera is all about.

Does it mean that that's all we're after? Of course not. In that definition you have all sorts of applications of being an entrepreneurial leader. You can be at the cutting edge of some technology like biotech, or you can just have a scuba shop, and that's what you love to do, and it's a business and you do it successfully. But you know what? People at both extremes are creators. They have to deal with payroll. They have to deal with uncertainty. They celebrate. You're in the builder's mode. And so we want to build a community that is cohesive. And I think that's the commonality.

And then the family element is, there's just something that happens to your brain once you have offspring and you're thinking in a multiple-generations sense. And again, it doesn't mean that we won't serve young people, not married, of course not. But when we think at least on the eastern side of the development, what had historically been known as Pristine Bay, the resort, we want to make sure we have parks and we have a great school, the best on the island. And I think over time it would just be a fantastic school internationally. And so we'll build a community around that.

Now, why? Well, I know that jobs are not created by government, and they're also not created by simply having good rules on a piece of paper. Jobs are created by entrepreneurs and businessmen and women that set up enterprises and have to employ people. So if Próspera wants to demonstrate that when you do certain things right you drive generalised prosperity, and for lack of better terms prosperity still comes largely attached to productive work, i.e. jobs, then it follows that, yes, you create the platform, but then you've got to bring the job creators for them to do factories or R&D centres or scuba shops. It doesn't matter.

And so the math works right. And what we achieve is, say, for every entrepreneur there's ten local hires. First, we're in balance with the legal commitments we've made to Honduras that at least 90% of the labour force is Honduran. But it's kind of a nice ratio. Some will be solopreneurs and that's fine, and others will hire hundreds or thousands of people. But if on average, especially in the early stages, we can optimise for that type of lifestyle, I think this is going to be a wonderful place to live.

And I live here. And I think I'm part of the target market. I have a young family, I'm an entrepreneur, and I love sharing with others that have similar experiences, that care about how their kids are going to be raised, the values and the principles that we're injecting into their beautiful little brains, the fun that we want them to have. And we also have stress, running the thing we're trying to build. And that just creates a wonderful community environment. So St John's Bay will be focusing on that.

On the mainland, it's probably going to be a lot more industrial and, say, low-cost labour, for lack of a better term. And there we have to cater to the people, some of which are going to live here or at least spend part of their time here as they go visit their call centres or their factories or whatever it is that they have on the mainland, where energy is cheaper, land is more plentiful, access to labour is easier. And so I think that's a nice combo in the short term.

Where we physically are, the Beta building inside of the Beta district, this has emerged as more of a bohemian, cutting edge, younger crowd. Biohacker culture, robotics. And I think that's beautiful. And what we'll probably end up doing is lean into that, or at least let it continue to evolve in that general flavour.

The integration between this and the other, I guess it's yet to be seen. We happen to be somewhat physically separated, just because of how things have evolved. And I guess maybe these are separate. Maybe St John's Bay is the young family place and everything's optimised for that, and this is where the renegades, the pioneers, the young and hungry come, and they are going to figure it out one way or another. Cutting edge or otherwise, we'll see.

But I think St John's Bay, I have very high conviction around, because I can see how that is financially sustainable, profitable, and how it's always going to have value, even in the age of AI, perhaps even more so in the age of AI and robotics. Being human means something, and it's analog primarily. And it requires you to share with others that are going through similar experiences, not be interacting with agents or robots all the time.

Timothy Allen: Last question. We've been talking a long time. Going into the future, do you envisage being involved more in Próspera, this place, this physical place, or the wider Próspera idea, the worldwide one?

Erick Brimen: I don't think there should be a trade-off. As St John's Bay evolves according to the vision I just described, I think it would be a fantastic place to live for somebody like me for the next ten years, easily. And from there there's no reason why I cannot engage in international business and efforts. You still always need a home base. And I think in a success scenario this is going to be a fantastic, very differentiated for the better, location.

Timothy Allen: But the Próspera idea, the franchisable one, I'm not sure that's the right word, is that part of the very big picture? Has that always been something to aim for, if you see what I mean? Therefore that's kind of what's driving all these different stages.

Erick Brimen: Yeah. So Honduras Próspera Inc. obviously is very focused on getting the Honduras Próspera effort off the ground and proven. Done well, it's replicable. And call it IP, or however you want, the thing that is not the physical location can be replicated elsewhere. So it's both. You've got to prove it and perfect it. Nail it and then scale it, I guess. And that's what we're doing right now.

We're very much focused on, if we were SpaceX again, we're still wanting to make sure we can land the rocket. Until we figure that out. Everybody else can launch rockets, but we're about landing it. And in this case, anybody can build a physical location, anybody can start on the political side, but can you survive and thrive and be better off as a result of the controversy? That's the stage we're in. And I think we are within striking distance of reaching it. And when we do, the acceleration of this hub will grow exponentially, and the capacity for the model to be replicated will also be substantially higher. Does it mean that it's not possible without it? No, but it's always better to build and prove in success.

Timothy Allen: Erick, many thanks. I'm going to leave it there. I think that's a nice place to end. Thanks for spending some time. Very informative. I can't believe it's taken this long to actually end up speaking to you. I seem to have spoken to everyone else, even Oliver now.

Erick Brimen: He's a real OG, right?

Timothy Allen: Yeah, he sure is.

Erick Brimen: He's been an inspiration to me, and I was always very honoured that he decided to join our team from the early days. His wisdom and experience have been very instrumental, foundational actually, for how we've set up some of the legal structures and the operational structures as well.

Timothy Allen: Great. Well, thanks for stopping by, and hopefully do it again in a few years' time. Let's give it a bit of time for some things to evolve. But I'm always a very keen observer of the Próspera project, so thanks.

Erick Brimen: Thanks for the work you're doing. I like how you, at least in my opinion, have a fairly decent balance between pushing on the boundaries of the cutting edge ideas, and maybe even a little bit of the controversy, while keeping it grounded on the reality of what this is about. And the real challenges, not just the abstractions of it. So thank you for that.

Timothy Allen: Well, not to babble on too much, but I've been on a journey as well. I would say that I came in, I didn't really know shit when I came in. Peter asked me to do it because I've got a media career. And I thought at the beginning, I'll do it because I enjoy talking to people. I must admit now I'm at that point where I'm pretty, I wouldn't say I'm obsessed with it, but it's very important. And in fact, I think the market of living together is probably the most important market to be involved in.

Because I come from the Bitcoin world, and I feel like I'm not battling any more. Going back to what we were saying earlier about, when you're having the fight, you're just looking for the win. I felt like that with Bitcoin for a long time. Now it's boring. It's life. It's normal life. I do it all the time. Yeah, there are some teething problems with it, and this, that and the other, but we've won.

And I feel like the market of living together is a very similar thing. It's just much more grey area. The digital realm is black and white, very easy to navigate. But here it's never ending, and there are no answers. Like you say, there's no silver bullet for doing this. It's an ongoing process.

Erick Brimen: Well, and the Bitcoin analogy is really good, because I often say we are to governance what Bitcoin is to the financial services industry. You can't focus on trying to fix finance from within the existing institution, so you do something from the outside. And if you're smart, you make it somewhat compatible.

The difference, however, is that Bitcoin is a technical solution to a political problem. What we're doing is a political solution to a political problem. And you live in the world of humans, and it's not as easy to just say, write it and it will work. You've got to deal with interests and influences. And so it's a different challenge, maybe harder in some ways.

But at the same time, human nature is such that when the paradigm clicks, as with the four-minute mile and so many other examples, it spreads. And that's what keeps me optimistic.

Timothy Allen: Just one second. I was just going to say, I had one more question to ask you, which was, what did you just say at the end then? I had something really important to say. The paradigms, once they click. Is the paradigm governance as a service?

Erick Brimen: Yeah. That's the paradigm. Governance as a service in public-private partnerships.

Timothy Allen: Right. So that's good to hear. That's what we should be communicating. Basically. Constantly.

Erick Brimen: Constantly.

Timothy Allen: Governance is a service, but it doesn't often get offered as such. And it's never thought of as that. If you took a cross-section of my friends at home, none of them would say that. It would be the complete opposite, in fact.

Erick Brimen: Yeah, that's the journey. And by the way, not to criticise or anything, but saying the future of governance is private, it's a narrow sliver of it. And it will continue to have resistance, because people don't understand what governance even is. I think service is a more accurate part. And truly, service can be done publicly or privately, but it tends to be better provided when it's privately. So it's sort of inherently embedded into it.

Timothy Allen: Right. Yes. Good. Thank you for that.

Erick Brimen: I've got to go. That's my next guest coming in now. Thank you so much.