Telamon Ardavanis | Why Are People Moving to Pop-Up Villages?

Timothy Allen: I checked your website I had never heard of Edge City, Sue me. But I did go to Zuzalu.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Oh no way.¶

Timothy Allen: So I was at Zuzalu Believe it or not I'm not the biggest fan Of Zuzalu I remember thinking at the time, Nah. This isn't working for me but actually it was probably because now I look at the month-long stay. I just did one myself in Próspera um now. I think I get it I get the month-long stay. I still don't think the pop-ups are the greatest idea, because I tell let me tell you why let me tell you why I like, let me tell you something let me tell you why I. I know I like the pop-ups here not the pop-up like so I came for a month, about three months ago Infinita were doing it.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: But it was only you, here.¶

Timothy Allen: No no no well me I was the only one here for a month.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Yeah.¶

Timothy Allen: I just decided right because this year was massive for Próspera. You know with the change of government and everything, and I'm in the you know I'm in the middle of the whole, Free Cities world. So I thought I've got to come here now, like and Infinita were having a uh a summit or whatever. So I thought I'll mix it up with that so I booked an apartment for a month. And I stayed a month and by the end of the month. I realised the importance of month-long stays however I still stand by, what I thought of Zuzalu which was it doesn't work, when the place disappears when you leave that's the thing, and what I like about here is now I'm doing it every year, so I'm coming here for a month every year, until a month away from my family. You know there's lots of reasons to come somewhere for a month. And I I was so productive while I was here, I'm like. This is an important part of my year now, so I'm going to come I'll do it probably in March. This year I'll do another month so it's it's not that everyone's coming for the month, but but when I went to your website and actually. I looked at what Edge City is I I fully understand what you're doing. I think it's perfect I think it's great because quite interestingly. I have a former career as a filmmaker and while I was a filmmaker, through just people asking wealthy people used to ask me, if they. They could come with me on my jobs because I was a photographer. And I used to go to all these weird places, right? And it turned into a business not not by mistake. I ended up realising holy shit I can actually take 10 people, or eight people at a time who just basically want to come and do what I do and when I was looking through your website. I was like shit this was this is what I used to do but you're doing it with kind of like governance, or tech or or whatever and and and it's but it's this it is the same thing, it's the same thing. And I was looking through your list of places. I was thinking okay I can see why you picked that one. Yeah I can see why you picked that one. This is great you know like so you know, or the Bhutan one for example it's like. Yeah this is cool you know and I I don't know. So I I I understand what you're doing I think the business side of it is cool, because the pop-up city side of it. I always thought was a bit more of experimental governance, but what you've done is turned it into a business as well which is nice, and then. I noticed as well as Esmeralda the place that you might be something, making something a little bit more solid and.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Yes. So we often we've done 12 of these now, we've come to very much the similar conclusion and something we don't necessarily publicise, because some of them are not formalised yet um but every location is chosen with permanence in mind, so same same feedback that you have we. We really take into consideration something we've we've heard a lot and felt as a team. It is a lot of kinetic energy that gets put into one place. It is a lot of people's money, times not hours, not a partner's but also the participants to not have a permanent, long-lasting partner that can hold that in some form, uh and also benefit from it it's a waste, um so every location as we're all this one we published, because that's the furthest along. They look very different in in format uh some are with you know, new city projects like you're very familiar with like Esmeralda. We can touch on that some are more you know, special economic zone governance led very similar to Próspera, Bhutan is because of the Gelephu Mindfulness City there, that's the the reason we've chosen that some are more you know, startup campuses. We have another one it's an extension of university campus with a startup accelerator around it, everything is a bit of a smart city slash special economic zone, slash um has some tech startup entrepreneurial angle as well.¶

Timothy Allen: And lifestyle towns I'd say. You do do the lifestyle there's a few of them in there. I noticed nothing wrong with that I'm not I like I say, when I looked at it. I thought yeah that's good that's what I would have done. You know you basically because what what what ended up happening with me. I ended up I did it for 10 years in the end. It became my main source of income in the end, because it was so lucrative over the filmmaking.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Oh yeah.¶

Timothy Allen: Yeah I mean I because basically well the interesting thing, when you actually look at it filmmaking involves getting a direct to me, or whatever a cameraman a couple of cameramen sound. You know bringing them all together going out making a film, and then coming back the budget's not that dissimilar, when you use people. You know like say say you've got a hundred grand to do a to do a film. You might get a hundred grand's worth of income, from your from your clients who want to come with you, same size team same infrastructure same absolutely everything. But you don't have to produce a film at the end of it.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: I'm very curious because we've been exploring. And this is all personal on my side we all act quite independently, within the org and I've been very interested in the experience side of things, I'm very curious how did you organise it? How long would they come with you for like a full duration of a set? Where they have.¶

Timothy Allen: I'll tell you exactly you can have all my secrets mate. So it started like this so I used to work for I work for National Geographic, and BBC and all this kind of stuff. Used to do those kind of jobs where everyone draws, when they see it right and one year. Was about it was like I don't know 20. It was very early on 20s I don't know when it when it was I ended up doing 10 years of this, but so 10 years prior to the end of this, what I used to do I I shot a story. I knew so I made a film out in Mongolia with the BBC, part of a bigger film met some cool people, thought this is amazing one of the fixers I worked with said, look there's this there's this route that the nomads travel in winter, over the Altai mountains no one's ever done it before, no one's ever followed them before uh five days, minus 40. You know 150 kilometres on foot with a thousand animals, do you want to do it? And I'm like fuck yeah of course I do so I shot it, because that's how I used to define stories that was one of my things. I shot it as a photographer BBC published it, next morning six emails. And I was like from people saying take me with yeah, where is this what is and and I suddenly thought. Well okay so basically I went back to my fixer. And I said look um let's do it with I think we did eight people the first time, same infrastructure. I mean it's a big undertaking we this is the middle of winter. We had to create we had to take everything with us. We had to be self-sufficient for two weeks living in gers, at minus 35, 40 which is you know no mean feat in itself. We we created we were 150 kilometres we had trucks, support vehicles everything like but I'm used to that that's how we used to make films, all around the world. You know the thing is you just scale it down a bit, whatever. And it was a massive success.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Did you programme any, components of it? Like did you have to like organise extra stuff to sell the experience?¶

Timothy Allen: Of course yeah well kind of to sell the experience, no because everyone not in the beginning because everyone just wanted to come. And I sold out for 10 years I never once, solicited people. I pressed a button I gave a date when I was going to take. And I used to interview everyone because it it was so oversubscribed for people. I decided right I can interview people for this. And I can get the nice people because you, when you go on an intense trip like that you don't want to get stuck, basically with a bunch of crazy people and every now and then, a few slip through. It has to be said but so basically yeah. So I for example on that trip I thought, I'll. Bat so we had this we had a six day, migration on foot through snow. And you know it's amazing thousand animals men riding camels, across frozen lakes it's it's I mean. You can still see it online it's all over the place, it's been copied ever since but then at the beginning of the trip. I added an ice archery tournament I paid for the bounty for an ice archery tournament, um what else. We you know I just added a few we went hunting with golden eagles, you know like on horseback but these are all things that are very easy to actually sort out, um and and I ended up doing it for 10 years. I only stopped it a couple of years ago, because I was just exhausted. It became part of my life like going on this bloody, 150 kilometre to walk once a year every year. You know with the same family.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: It's genius because you, it's supplementary meaning like. You were going to this trip anyway you had the budget sorted, right. There wasn't any substantial additional cost of every person that jumps on right. So you're gonna there was no like I need to secure five spots to make this work. You were going to go either way right.¶

Timothy Allen: Well no, no no no that's not true the first time, when I shot the story.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Yeah.¶

Timothy Allen: But then it became a business.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Okay.¶

Timothy Allen: But it was so easy to to fill it up. I used to like I say I used to give a date on this date, say. It was always about you know like eight months before, something and say right the email goes out today, first come first serve. And I used to press a button and I used to get like, 20 emails come back almost instantaneously people used to say. They were waiting by their computer but a lot more people do it now, consequently that expedition has been copied a thousand times now, like loads of people do it but but the reason I was saying it is because what happened towards the end of it was my my whole life changed. I stopped being a filmmaker I was sick of it. I photography I just like I want out at the and at the same time. I was becoming a bitcoiner and ended up ended up hanging out with Bitcoiners, and there's a Bitcoin culture. You might not know there is and a lot of it's like, meat eating and and hard money and all this kind of stuff. And they said hey will you take us on a trip to Mongolia? And we'll go and we'll live like nomads because it's a meat eating culture, just eat meat and talk philosophy hard money austrian economics for two weeks. I never actually did it because I was like, holy shit. This thing could just go on forever it could go on forever, but but when I was looking at your website. I was looking at it going that's exactly what I was thinking, like I'd choose Bhutan for example and I'd be like. Yeah because of the special economic zone there and then, tag on a few little things right let's go to a monastery, let's maybe walk to the tiger's nest let's. I I we used to do much more over the top things like that because I did ran ended up running a few more climbed at mogolia's tallest mountain. We did you know and if I'd have been younger for now, a friend of mine actually had prodigy of money he was about your age, probably a bit older. He took it over he kind of franchised it's like he franchised I've trained him up. But I could have I could have ended up, doing something very similar to that.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Incredible. Well if you want to do a bring it back. Um you know we're open to collaborating I think but I do want to I think there's a lot that the website, doesn't give away intentionally not because it's necessarily secret, just because it gets extra confusing there's a lot under the hood that we do the villages are we known for and they're like kind of top of funnel, but there's a lot of few. You know other paths we go down um you mind if I give you a quick.¶

Timothy Allen: Yeah yeah tell me I mean tell me tell, don't tell me tell everyone what it is that you actually do.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: So we.¶

Timothy Allen: Go on sorry.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: No worries uh we're known for the pop-up villages. So we convene people working at the frontiers of tech, science and culture usually in month long these semi-temporary containers that somewhat resemble, university summer campus or an analogy I heard recently, quite often was Learning Man or like Burning Man for geeks for Month.¶

Timothy Allen: Learning Man Oh that good Who came up with that? Jesus learningman That is really good Mind you, there's a lot of women that would be pissed off that it's got man in the title, unfortunately. Mind you, they don't care about Burning Man, do they? Anyway, carry on.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: That's no comment.¶

Timothy Allen: Learning person.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: We do actually have a really high woman ratio. Most of the events almost hit 50%, which for a tech event is really high.¶

Timothy Allen: Can I just tell you something? By the end I was getting 100 women.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Wow.¶

Timothy Allen: Do you know. Well I I I looked into it I asked everyone, because they were expensive right? Obviously um they were mainly 50 to 65 year old women, and who basically had got to that point in their lives, the husband no longer they're either divorced or the husband is like, dude I'm not going on a 150 collar walk. Yeah I did I've been working my I've been doing physical shit my whole life, like but the women on the other hand are breaking free, they've got money or they. You know because you know they're boomers basically and it ended it ended up becoming a joke that it was like, where are all the men? It was all and because it was hard it was five days of walking, through deep snow and shit and stuff but but interesting. Yeah a bit of a sidetrack.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Yeah for us it's more the we mainly attract, the tech science crowd which skews heavily male so we've. And and you know you mentioned a comment there earlier, about you know having a family and living somewhere for a month, is challenging with it's something we really cater for but let me give you the rundown, because I think this is helpful like context. So we do the we do the month and pop-up villages uh we usually do one of the u.s, one internationally. Uh they usually look 30 days long a month, uh everybody's curated and it's normally a dense environment, something that resembles a college town in in its in its in its topography, um at its base that's super simple social engineering. You know curate a crowd dense environment long enough time, interesting stuff happens one of the reasons we've. I think gotten the the Burning Man reference is not because we're a party, people have fun but that's by far not uh it's more on the fringes on the edge. Um we organised events similarly to Burning Man with the camps. So they We put on 5% of the programming, over the entire month, opening ceremonies, demo days, dinners, roughly 5%, hard anything. 95% is by various groups you bring in. And those are your residencies, your accelerators, your artist residencies, your research sprints, your summits, your tracks in between, and then just, individuals that come in. And it's mainly because we curate the experience around four core principles. One, they're supposed to be default healthy, meaning healthy meals, we incentivise workouts every day, spirituality, you know, great social setting. Second, it's all walkable, of course, always, which helps. Second, they are co-created. So everybody has to be, this is not a passive conference to come, just consume. You have to be contributing something in some way or form, and not necessarily just to the event, but just in general in the world, something that positive, that's how we kind of filter the crowd. And that's very loosely defined intentionally, but, but so we, you know, from researchers to philosophers, to professors, to of course, the founders, to people that might've just, sold a company are thinking about something new. We have a wide range, but everybody's putting something, out in the world. And of course, people put stuff out in the world. They want to share it. So it naturally just adds to the experience and kind of fills up the calendar. Third, it's intentionally multidisciplinary. We think a lot of the interesting ideas and relationships, and breakthroughs happen at the intersection of primarily fields. So every week is themed via various topics. So normally, looking at the next one, we have first is governance, new city, special economic zones, policy. Second week is biotech longevity you know um consciousness, third week is more the neurotech hard science robotics, and final week is like blockchain AI etc um that kind of denses the crowd a bit, but most people stay across it uh all the topics stay across it, usually a third of the people stay for the entire duration, so roughly three four hundred people and normally it's a thousand people that come through the month, um thousand? It's quite a bit but yeah we roughly see 250 to 400 that stay the entire time.¶

Timothy Allen: Is that right? Yeah that's good dude.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Quite a bit I mean it's no easy task to attract many people to one place. And it only works with the partners because they're. They are self-running their specific niches you know people will only want to stay a month, if they get a very specific outcome that they're looking for.¶

Timothy Allen: So give an example, say say. I remember zuzalu had the similar makeups like one week was this, one week. I went for the for the new cities and whatever week, or whatever and spoke at the conference and stuff like what, how much of it do you in that in that month, how much of each week are you as a as Edge City, sorting out and how much are you just bringing in sort of third parties, and they're saying right. We'll deal with that.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: It's tough to break down on the week. We usually we organise all the key venues so roughly normally, it's like 10 to 15 venues a main talk space, centred on a co-working space a gym a few partner hotels, and a bunch of workshop rooms wellness spaces etc, um sauna is always important. With a huge sauna culture ice baths ice baths of course as well, um.¶

Timothy Allen: And then I there every night I not like every night for a month, too old for that shit. I am go on my team.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Wim Hof quite old, isn he?¶

Timothy Allen: No he he is he alive or no.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Yeah, he's alive.¶

Timothy Allen: Okay right. I don't know if he's ever gonna die he died in a cold, go on.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Um and we organise like the key. We call them the heartbeats of the month like a weekly demo day, two weekly dinners, you know, a town hall, where we're going to come together and a few of these like, core, core moments. And then mainly we support partners and their initiatives to organise something great. So we're more of a supporting function. Sometimes we'll, you know, we'll have a partner that come in, hey, I really want to see this happen. I don't have the capacity to organise it myself. And that's a lot of our role is like, connecting the dots where we have a large network of people, who've run residencies and experiments and stuff who we can then, hey, by the way, this might be interesting. Here's the funder, here's the talent, here's the operator, and we kind of put them together. So a lot of it is we're coordinating versus then we're running ourselves. And then there's a few initiatives that we, once we go to the next layer, below the villages, which I can touch on in a moment, there we get more involved, because those are kind of the things we're trying to double down on. And then the fourth principle is multi-generational. And that goes a bit, multiple factors. One, we want, like I mentioned, cross-disciplinarity. We think there's interesting stuff the overlap that counts as well as for you know, disciplines but also for nations we've had over 100 countries represented, or every event normally seems like 60, 70 countries, and then generations. We we on a logistical front uh you know. We are trying to incentivise people to stay as long as they can you don't have to the full month. You can come for one day if you want, um but people are families. You know we try to make it easy for them, we've had over 300 kids. We do a lot of kids camps and the future of education, as far as we know we've had five babies conceived, at or because of edge so we've done a part of the population too, um and and then more philosophically like the intention of these containers, probably just kind of prototype and build the future, and use as an experimental bed for new cities for new fields for you know, the social concepts and structures and governance experiments payments experiments, identity experiments um and kind of having the next generation, not having the next generation. There is kind of hypocritical so it's kind of more of a philosophical part as well, and then also just epic to see the kids they like you. They often learn to vibe code and they play on the robotics. We've had kids vibe code games across the month. And they show them to the parents. We've had kids 3D print entire installations that we use at our closing ceremony, from everything down to our toilet in the forest. So it's a really cool summer kids camp programme as well. But those are the four main principles. And these are, we see them more like this is all in a nonprofit. This is all with the mandate advancing human flourishing. Super broad in its intention.¶

Timothy Allen: Are you? You're a non-profit?¶

Telamon Ardavanis: 90% of our activities are non-profit.¶

Timothy Allen: Where does all the money go then?¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Well, the events are expensive.¶

Timothy Allen: Yeah, sure.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: The events go from, you know, depending on the location, one to two mil to put it together.¶

Timothy Allen: I was going to say, with a thousand people coming through, that's no mean feat.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: And then the second layer is kind of really funneling, you know, this is the main value prop of these pop-ups, and maybe you've experienced Zuzalu as well. And you know Zuzalu's V000.1 I think there's been a lot of progress in the last three years is due diligence, due diligence on ideas on relationships on you know, concepts. So we have a lot of people that come either from the PhD space that are coming from theory into practice. And they want a POC and they can run that or they're even still just getting data, and it's a great place to have willing participants, who want to experiment with the future a lot of it is people, launching you know products and startups even large corporations, coming in and doing beta testing of new products, so we've had folks like MetaMask come through. And they have a new feature they want to test it in a small, closed loop ecosystem. And they send an R&D team out and the great thing about having multiple weeks. You know you can come out with the product, get feedback iterate on it come week two and have something new.¶

Timothy Allen: But it's take that as an example in that four four month stay, what was the focus of that event? Just they just turned up for a week where they weren't part of MetaMask.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Yeah, yeah. They came for the entire month.¶

Timothy Allen: But what was the focus of the whole event?¶

Telamon Ardavanis: The entire event? Or their niche?¶

Timothy Allen: No, no, but the whole thing. Why would someone have been there for example to end up doing some work for MetaMask, or doing some sort of product testing?¶

Telamon Ardavanis: It's more of the meta of like trying to experiment with the future. People are really trying to, it's a cross-disciplinary aspect. So we had people that were like, we had multiple cohorts, people that have never used MetaMask in their life before. And we were helping them onboard them for MetaMask's purpose. We had veterans who knew the product really well, and wanted Viva Wave developers building on their new stack.¶

Timothy Allen: Oh, so the whole week was MetaMask. It wasn't that they just piggybacked on the...¶

Telamon Ardavanis: This was an experiment across the whole month that they were running. So they brought their R&D team out for the month. So they were like a partner.¶

Timothy Allen: Right, they were a partner.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: But we see a lot of those. So a lot of them go across the month. So it's usually residencies, which are at least a week long, normally the entire month, when it's like, normally they live together, they focus on a specific topic. Often it's research groups or we do a lot of consciousness research. Or it's a founder accelerator house with more VC backed, and they're like trying to raise money by the end of the month, or it can be very creative with like artist residencies, or just make art the entire month. The second is more theme tracks. That's kind of like the week when it's like more of a conference within, where they're like just normal programming or summits, which is more dense. And then the final one is experiments. We see a lot of people who come with, you know, various types of social experiments, data experiments, proof of concepts. And it's a lot more affordable to kind of, a lot of people come with a POC experiment to then raise a lot more money, after that to then do a follow-on trial.¶

Timothy Allen: And how much of the logistics, like places to stay, food to eat, how much of that do you do?¶

Telamon Ardavanis: We usually have three options. You either come by a partner hotel, which is kind of one or two partner hotels in two different price brackets, where most, roughly a third of the people usually stay. That's super easy. You just tack it on, that's sorted out for. But people often don't like living in a hotel for a month, which is fair enough. And this is more for people that are past the room. We just need some baseline of accommodation on hand. The second is you join residencies, which are these communal houses. They'll either rent out large AB&Bs, they'll rent out, small boutique hotels or several rooms in a hotel. But usually it's a house and they have a house around it. And then it's a great touch point because you're not coming in totally blind. You're already coming in with a group that you're interested in the theme of. And they are kind of organising your initial experience to kind of land. And the third is just to go wherever you want. I think it's tough because we have a huge, economic range. We have a lot of people that are post-economic, that have exited companies, that have billions of their names, that we have a lot of artists, scientists, early founders that have zero money. So a lot of the residencies are funded by, various sponsors that then covers people's attendance.¶

Timothy Allen: Do you do any where you provide all the accommodation? Because we're basically higher out of a whole place.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Yeah some of the hotels we partner yeah.¶

Timothy Allen: Or even. Um I was thinking I mean I did look at your Esmeralda one that seemed like, the whole place is that right?¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Uh we had about 12 venues in the town. We had roughly under like our direct supervision budget, or organisation. We had one large partner hotel with roughly 100 rooms, um and then we had roughly five villas and two boutique hotels.¶

Timothy Allen: What did the local community make of that? It looked quite small. It looked quite... Was it?¶

Telamon Ardavanis: It's, what is it, like a 30,000 person type?¶

Timothy Allen: Oh, right. Okay. It's a decent...¶

Telamon Ardavanis: It's very sprawled.¶

Timothy Allen: So you didn't... Nobody knew it was happening, really. You couldn't tell.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: No, no, no. We do a lot of work in advance. We go a year in advance. Well, we've done three times at Esmeralda already. We had a very... We've... We did a lot of work. Like up to years in advance, we go there, spend time there, talk to the locals. No, it's key. Otherwise, it feels very like neocolonistic type thing. And it's.¶

Timothy Allen: Even in the States.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Yeah, yeah.¶

Timothy Allen: Really? Man.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: The NIMBY not in my backyard.¶

Timothy Allen: Sure.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: It's huge.¶

Timothy Allen: You're using hotels spending money in the local establishments, surely.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: You'd be surprised.¶

Timothy Allen: Well, I do know that feeling. I know that I know I'm very cautious about things like that but I wouldn't call it neocolonialism, right it's more like it's more like townies coming out to the countryside.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: It's more like retirees that are like, wait why is my cafe full?¶

Timothy Allen: Yeah.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Um young people right.¶

Timothy Allen: Yeah but.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: We we usually do open days for the locals, um and we've done a lot of cool initiatives recently, about upskilling local businesses with uh tech. Uh we did one with a partnership with Notion in Esmeralda. Um and we got I think it was roughly 50 businesses, and upscaled with Notion in AI tools all free, and gave them free subscriptions for the month and that that was actually very well received, um and then and this kind of goes to the going on to the bigger picture. We choose these locations based on a proximity to an interesting long-term project, usually real estate sometimes special economic zone but usually it's an ambitious real estate project, ideally normally privately led because it's decade-long projects and if it's a public initiative, Bhutan's a bit of exception. You know you know policymakers change um as this place very well. Um and they the synergy is we look at a bit like we do software. We do people, project programming they do hardware they do physical infrastructure. Uh they do policy they do you know real estate. Um they have the problem of first mover the first move, on especially these rural ones. I think this is a great example as well, uh where we are right now in Próspera um and it ends being a really interesting synergy, where we can bring like hey let's put this event as close as possible to this development, usually they don't exist yet. They normally just purchase the land they just broke ground, they're still going through permitting like they're in this. They they really need the support one for fundraising to pre-sell properties to have companies register there to get the policy across the board to get approvals. So we need to be stellar with the local ecosystem, because we represent that project and they're there for life, uh and that's where we add a lot of value, so so for that Esmeralda was a lot of it was around, like getting the land deal approved by the local community. And we also went to visited our California Forever which you know, notoriously.¶

Timothy Allen: Divisive Yeah didn do it probably that way, People make mistakes. People are thinking out loud. Próspera do the same thing sometimes. The potted history of things that worked and things that didn't. We're learning lessons here, for sure.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: And there's, of course, the, like, once you announce it, the land prices go through the roof.¶

Timothy Allen: Of course.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Yeah.¶

Timothy Allen: Which ones have you ended up you said that you you've always got a keen eye on thinking are we going to stay here for a long time which ones have ended up being places. You either return to or that you think wow we could actually, establish something permanent here.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: They're all a bit different. And I think key things about we are not managing anything on permanent on the ground. We think ourselves the connective tissue mesh to kind of help be the software where we can you know, they what they end up using us for is one. You know awareness to selling properties uh three eventually coming as a programming partner, when they actually have this development uh for um is is the policy side, and raising money. We also help them we bring they bring a lot of investors, they're like hey this is kind of how. It will look like at the end uh you know, and then we do a lot of land tours to their properties, so so to run through you.¶

Timothy Allen: Do people from your pop-ups buy, end up buying there?¶

Telamon Ardavanis: So Esmeralda I believe I don't know if it's on record. But I probably shouldn't give an exact number but of the x amount of pre-purchases, and deposits put down on properties. I think close to definitely over 80 percent has come by our Esmeralda villages.¶

Timothy Allen: And the point is that they all want to live together, or they like the place or because it's not a specific, it's like if you take a bunch of tech people to Esmeralda. Yeah it's not like a tech centre or anything like that is it? It's just it's more like a you've made them aware of a nice place that they like.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Oh yeah it's it's it's more of the the better quality of life, the way I look at Esmeralda is less of the tech angle, it's more of a new urbanist it's a walkable town that is inspired by italian walkable, mountain vineyard villages. It looks very old school very old trad.¶

Timothy Allen: You get a lot of trad wives up there.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Probably. Yeah but I think you also get a lot of the Bay Area crowd, that wants to raise families that wants to be close enough to the office, but not have to deal with uh you know, the the crack epidemic there.¶

Timothy Allen: Really so you. You look you sometimes look for development opportunities.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Every, every location is one.¶

Timothy Allen: No. But I mean as far as like actual real developments. You hear that someone's building a big development somewhere, you'll go up and say hey look.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: That's most my job.¶

Timothy Allen: Wow that's really innovative. I like that.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: And Próspera is a.¶

Timothy Allen: Bit can I just say something? Because what you're doing is is I mean you know, there's a version of this happening every day, at the state level, groups of people, I mean, the Network State do exactly this. High government, there's 20,000 of us. Oh, can we go and live there? Sure. And now, oh, we don't like you, kick you out. Oh, Kazakhstan. Oh, can we have you? You know, I mean, it happens at all these different levels. I would imagine that one, hopefully, if the second order effects, mean that you can actually approach larger and larger, places. You end up with your own city, don't you?¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Yeah, I think our vision in our thing is a bit, it's adjacent and supplementary to the permanent places like, Infinita or Próspera or the new nation attempts like, Network State. We have this Network City vision, which is we think there's a really interesting, arbitrage opportunity by having in all of these places we're getting some upside incentive, and that's kind of where the for-profit kick is. These events are not profitable. They're like, they're, some of them we lose money. We try to break even on all of them. They cover baseline, very lean startup core team and the production team that scales. So we're eight people full time. And then we scale up to roughly 30, give or take with some volunteers, probably some more for the actual production of the pop-up village. And then we scale down to eight people again. And the events kind of keep us alive, just right. We roughly do a third with ticket sales, a third via grant, and a third via, sponsorship donations, corporate sponsors, et cetera. We have a lot of team off-sites and stuff that come with us.¶

Timothy Allen: Who gives grants for things like that out of interest? That's a strange thing to give a grant for, especially for, I mean, all right, you're a non-profit, but.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: It's the sub-initiatives we do. It's never the overarching thing. It's like we want to see, and we run two grant programmes for ourselves, so we act as a fiscal sponsor, which is another way we kind of stay alive. So again pop-up village top of funnel event business, but non-profit doesn't make money below that we have we run three main grant programmes, technically four. We have a fellowship which we run with Long Journey Ventures, they're a big VC fund out of the bay, and that's for under 25 year olds that are doing something interesting in the world that would normally probably just finish college now, and go do investment banking consulting something like you're entrepreneurial. You should be in a different environment instead of going for a month to BCG, come for a month to this wacky concept fully funded, and build whatever you want. And we do that that's one of the programmes, and we have another bunch of the shift grants, where we give. I think I need to refresh my memory I think we still have like it like micro grants that we just give people to like in a shifting point of their career, like I want to try something, they can't come out for a month. Or it doesn't make sense for their, but they're willing to come for a month. They often still come because they want to experience it for a few days, but we give them a bit of money to kind of take that leap. Then we have real research grants. We have a consciousness, full consciousness, total different institute within us. A lot of our donors and people that come to that seems to be kind of at the forefront, like mainly three angles like the woo-woo kind of like what we do a lot of Bhutan, like what is what is consciousness from like the meditational aspect, uh two one is AI conscious of course and then three is more like, the real science hard tech neurotech approach.¶

Timothy Allen: All in one trip.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Or not? That's not necessarily trips that's we're actually giving long-term research cards out.¶

Timothy Allen: I was going to say because that would be a great trip. The consciousness. One week on science, one week on woo, one week on AI, is it conscious? And then the last week you just die of overstimulation.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: But to be fair, every one of our events, has a consciousness residency. So there's normally 10 to 20, normally the research, are some founders that are absolutely cracked working on some really interesting concepts. And like I always volunteer to join all the experiments, because they're like getting research data. So I've had my brainwaves like scanned for a month straight, like last year.¶

Timothy Allen: Are you good? Is there anything in there?¶

Telamon Ardavanis: I'm still waiting on the paper. Actually, I don't know if I want it.¶

Timothy Allen: Certified. That wouldn't actually surprise me.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Yeah, it's official.¶

Timothy Allen: No, it's really interesting. What else do you do? What else does Edge City do then?¶

Telamon Ardavanis: So we have the villages, then we have the grants, then that goes down to next natural step as a venture fund, so right now we act as a venture partner with some of these funds. So we kind of get carry on deals we bring them. Um but we are looking at soon potentially hypothetically, raising our own venture fund we've got a little proof of concept one, where we'll put very small cheques in and then a lot of you know we have a lot of angels, and excellent founders that come to our event. And they want access and again the due diligence mechanism, there's no better way of figuring out a cool deal or cool idea, but am I living a month or understanding a real founder, or even just getting access to the people because.¶

Timothy Allen: Right you're basically, it's like come and come and see my come and see my idea, and then. Well all right we'll we'll fund it then.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: And everybody that comes there has gone through one application process, but then if you get into the specific residencies which are targeted, there's a second application process so a lot of these people are two, three times vetted. And we actually have a really high like quality deal flow, research mechanism where you if you're looking for you know I want to invest a coach in this like trust me. We have some of the best people in the world that have come today if I want to rest and you know early stage founders. We have this fellowship that's gone through three interview process. Um and and you get to just live with them for a month, and just watch them work and then see them demo every week.¶

Timothy Allen: Any aspirations to create as fixed sort of site, and and run it like that?¶

Telamon Ardavanis: So that's the venture side on the real estate side, aspirations more I'm not really we're not ruling it out. We think there is potentially some world where we're like, okay, we've seen enough of these projects that we think we could do it ourselves, but we're not real estate developers. We've found our niche. We're really good at software in social sense, people programming projects that naturally leads to a fund. And we think our niche is somewhat of a mesh that is kind of like the network's vision in a lot of ways, but is the connecting tissue in between. So we're trying to get upside in all of these projects. We've helped launch. We have Crecimiento, I'm not sure if you're familiar with them, ended up turning, there's an idea that came out of one of our events, and that's why we went to Patagonia in Argentina. We helped them launch a digital special economic zone in Patagonia, now it's also an accelerator and a venture fund out of Buenos Aires that was an one that came out of one of our it started out as an idea actually in the sauna, uh when Milei came into office and like this interesting time in Argentina, turned some workshops at the next edge turned into a scouting trip, turned it to a we helped them launch a pop-up there, and then we did our own. So it was like a three-year process and now they got something through. You know the the Argentinian you know regulatory body to have a digital special economic zone, specifically it's for AI and blockchain projects um to build, build their startups. You have to get accepted but to build your startups, and avoid some of the law pitfalls that you would do for being crypto startup. You know various you know um regulation regulations around. You know the taxes of it the the credits. You know so there's a lot of there's a lot of like they're tokenizing a lot of stuff out there which would normally not work in the current. You know SEC regime there um but then we have the Bhutan project which is more of the that's more the only real government-led one we have we think that's a really interesting one, and so we're doing smaller trips there every year we're going back again in March. Um and we have we also have a mentorship programme we send out there, that's another one of the initiatives. We break we send so every two months we send one incredible human that has done something great in the world. And they go out and mentor a bunch of Bhutanese youth. We have one full-time team member out there who's kind of leading that and and planning, but the goal is we're trying to figure out, how to get upside in the project. With Esmeralda you know we doing much of these events, We got equity in the project got a piece of land there. So we have to develop that piece of land.¶

Timothy Allen: You own it?¶

Telamon Ardavanis: We own it, yeah So we building a small, alternative real estate portfolio on the side Another one we're in the early stages on is South Africa, and Stellenbosch outside of Cape Town. It's the best university in Africa. They're doing a new, essentially the extension of the university campus there, built around their startup accelerator, which is actually quite impressive. And there's a new, also urbanist environment around. It's going to be a walkable town around, it's some light industrial. So we're in the early stages of that, getting involved there. We're going to India next, and we chose a location in Goa, because one of India's largest startup accelerators just is about a finish, is in the finishing line of the first phase of the development of a startup campus. It's called the Startup Eco-Ashram.¶

Timothy Allen: Really?¶

Telamon Ardavanis: And it's for their founders they've invested in to actually have a productive place to live and build that has high quality of life, which is a bit of a trade-off, in the big cities in India. So we're working on how to figure that out. So we have some arrangement with all of these where, and then the the goal is eventually to have some I think this really interesting arbitrage that no one's really tackled, but if you. You know think of it like what would a real, sister city network look like? Like right now it's politicians shaking hands and being like, oh great for the media we're sister cities. We might say some students across universities but it doesn't really mean anything, like what would it really mean to have these semi-independents we're not trying to create new country we're not trying to like, but semi-independent interesting zones developments that have a similar aligned community, it's all very aligned in the in the ethos. You know family friendly future focused high quality of life, um but something like what if I buy a property in Esmeralda. But I get the opportunity to house swap with uh South Africa. And I get cheap developer talent out of and can register a company, out of Patagonia. And I get to do you know retreats for free in India. So I think of it a bit of like. We have the events are like Burning Man culture curator, talent curator. You know they're their own little thing that'll continuously attract, and make it interesting these these locations as we go back to them, and sometimes we don't go fully back with the full village. We'll send a smaller group to run a target a residency that very fits the niche that that location is, you know, like for Próspera, would be people in biotech, obviously. So we have the event side, Burning Learning Man. We have the venture accelerator side where there's a lot of, and this is what gets me, personally really excited. Someone who's come from South Africa has jumped through a lot of hoops, and who's still battling various, you know, on and off visa situations to get to the US, because I thought that was what the forefront initially was finance and then, tech. That's where the mecca was for that. We've kind of created a model where we can temporarily, create that density and the advantage you would have for having grown up in the Bay Area in rural parts in the world, like I'll talk about my home country South Africa, but if you're talented ambitious normally our events are like, 40 50 locals in some regard. And we come to your town we're bringing people, from all over the world that might just launch your career. And you can reach out to everybody on the internet. You know that's the incredible thing but to really find a co-founder, an investor and mentor first employee first users. You need to build trust and that you can only really find with intense IRL time, uh and that's the really interesting stuff we see man, we've had a guy there's so many stories like I could go. With the guy that really stands out to me. He he got into one of our grant programmes. It was a Kenyan kid um under 25 year old. We found to come to Patagonia um via the the programme we had he was building a robotic hands to do niche African sign languages for languages that didn't have any, you know, they had no reference for several words, whatever. He was building that. He came to Patagonia. He ended up finding every deaf person in like a hundred mile radius, or something. Came did a bunch of workshops with them, like helped them, showed them, brought their families around. Ended up leaving and raised a million dollars from a NVIDIA grant, after the end of the month.¶

Timothy Allen: Why do you need a robotic hand for... Like what was that?¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Well, because, yeah, they're rural villages. You know, you can't just have a local post.¶

Timothy Allen: So if you don't know sign language. Oh, you mean it teaches sign language?¶

Telamon Ardavanis: It teaches about the family or people could just then, write what they were saying.¶

Timothy Allen: Oh, and the hand did it. Oh, my God. And the hand did the sign language. That's interesting. Why don't they just use a screen? No, I mean, it is interesting, a good idea.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: It's very tactile as well.¶

Timothy Allen: I mean, you know, you could just type it out, and show it to them.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: I'm probably butchering, but there is a niche there.¶

Timothy Allen: No, for sure, for sure. Well, you can also learn sign language as well. Right, that's probably a big part as well. And you can send it in the post. You know what I mean? Like you can send a couple of robotic hands out there. You can use them to speak with, but you could also teach someone in the middle of nowhere, and learn sign language.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: I think the NVIDIA side was less about the sign language. It was more about creating robot hands that had the dexterity to actually do interesting, because notoriously difficult to do hand movements. I think it was more about the research he was doing to do the weird movements, was my understanding of it.¶

Timothy Allen: Whatever, robotic hands mate, robotic hands. Um okay that sounds good so the one thing I just picked up on was you talking about, basically. You know taking a little bit of the attention away, from somewhere like San Francisco um and popping it up somewhere else which is the basically the final boss of all these places I think, Próspera is exactly the same how do you create, something like San Francisco here. And I know many people who don't think you can impossible. You know there's a reason why San Francisco attracts all that talent, the glom was it agglomeration effects or whatever you. I forget what you call it you can't do it. You can't just create a place and um start a San Francisco. You obviously think maybe you can what do you reckon?¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Yes and no I agree and I still you know, I'm actively trying to get my next US work visa for a reason. I think we can temporarily create it. You know, we can get some of the brightest minds to come. We wouldn't normally go to India now to come to India for a week, or two weeks. Like that is already value in itself, not just to go, speak, but actually live somewhere. And we have access to them. And this is like more of a community aspect, where we call it maximising serendipity. And where we design these villages, you're supposed to naturally, bump into people. That it doesn't feel like we're forcing you into a cocktail hour, and then you're supposed to naturally see people at the cafe, because we're all living in this walkable environment. You naturally pop up to the people you're supposed to meet. That's how also relationships build better and ideas iterate better. But then on the permanent side to create something like Próspera, we think we help the development. And again, we're not the development. We can help these projects have an edge and a head start, because I think there's definitely a time value effect here. And I've heard about the advancement that Próspera was made over the last. Four or five years. And the way I think of it is like, let's use Esmeralda, for example. Esmeralda still hasn't broken ground. They're due to break ground. Hopefully, California takes long. This is probably going to be, until we can move our event over, it's probably going to be five to ten years. The city normally attracts the crowd over hundreds of years, right? They create a sort of culture that attracts events, that have people that kind of pass through there. You know, in Austin, it attracts South by Southwest. Miami attracts an Art Basel, et cetera, et cetera. We are kind of front-running that where we can precede, the culture and community that that development wants to have before it even exists. So as Moral, we've done for three years in a row now. We'll likely next year potentially do the upstate New York, or East Coast and then go back and do every two years from now on just to spread our wings a bit. But people know about the project before they've even broken ground, before they've even, passed the final permitting done. So we get to continuously, they use us as a BD marketing arm. They use us as creating the culture and seeing the community that they want to eventually move to their permanent hub. And then they're also somewhat of a smart city. They want to understand your governance models, payment models, identity systems. And we get to use them out to experiment with them, and stuff that works well. They can inherent in the permanence and they get a funnel of instead of having all these companies, pitch you hey put in my you know Bitcoin payment systems, like no let's try it out for a month here, uh and then we'll we'll see if we sign you. You know two years from now um so that's some of the multitude effects. But I think we we can help them have a head start, and to become one of these like tech hubs, or whatever they want to be family hubs or um by preceding it, a decade in advance and that's stuff we're doing with the Bhutan right now, and the government's doing a lot of initiatives themselves, like they're trying to precede that community before. You know the city hasn't even they just started building the airport, um will it ever be a San Francisco? No I don't think it has its own right. But I think it as the world gets more digitalised, globalised decentralised. We won't need to necessarily live in San Francisco. And we see that already with the nomad community, and you'll be able to live in these smaller communities, like Próspera like Esmeralda like the GMC in Bhutan, like Network School and as long as they're connected enough, and have enough interesting people passing through and have enough interesting events coming. You will be fine there and get that density in a different right, um and there's the seasonality aspect of it. And you know I think we'll get to a newer version of that San Francisco will still do its thing uh is my sense.¶

Timothy Allen: Maybe. I mean I mean I've I've I've been very I would have said. Yeah like Próspera is a good example I would have said that if you offer, a good enough regulatory environment and a good enough opportunity, and a nice standard of living people should flock here, turns out it's not as simple as that by a long shot, right? Um and actually the hard part is now getting people to come and stay. I can see I can see the probably the kind of pop-up city, thing is part of the process. I would imagine it part of the evolution of a lot of places. It may even be because all of this stuff so new in the in its current form. This may be the trajectory of a new place, because if you look at what's happened to Próspera Próspera naturally found a niche for events, basically and events have led to longer events like there's, Noma Collective do a family pop-up here for a month. You know they do all this kind of stuff, it's a naturally sort of unfolding thing here's the market, right? What's going to kind of move in and fill that space, the next stage after month longs I don't know, six months long so I don't know it's all part of a process, potentially of leading to the point where people are staying, and and living because not many people are coming to stay, straight away that's a big lesson it's not like you can create a place, and suddenly wow everyone's coming even Network School. Yeah they can attract whatever it is 10,000 people to come somewhere. But they just got kicked out of a country.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: I was there on the last day.¶

Timothy Allen: Really? Right? Okay so so which is great but how many of those people are actually, honestly honestly thinking about establishing their roots especially Kazakhstan, it's freezing in the winter. You know it's like it's not it's not Malaysia. You can't just hang out on the beach you've got. You know in the middle of winter you're going to be burning coal to stay warm. You know but the point is and I'm not saying anything, any of this is right or wrong it's not it's a journey of discovery, about how do you start a new place like, especially a like Próspera we're not talking about just, some big city planners coming in and doing something. This is a massive experiment and how do you, funnel in people who do you. You know how do you get people to stay, um because you know the pop-up thing a lot of people think, it's great but actually nobody stays so it's no good, but actually then they start thinking. Well actually at least you know people are coming now, and and a few of them are staying or it becomes a regular thing, and like regularity leads to familiarity familiarity leads to whatever. You know I see it more like almost like a type of timeshare model. Um.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: And I think it and again this is I think I'm of course. You know pitching my book here but I think that the cumulative value of having access to multiple of these zones and places, ends up being really interesting and the arbitrage of that like I think of a bit like, these are terrible examples but like. I think of them a bit like a lifestyle, career version of what. WeWork meets a Soho House meets a timeshare model, meets a you know Burning Man community culture meets a startup accelerator, whatever something in between there like it kind of touches a bit of everything, where. I think it becomes extra interesting we're like I I'm not gonna live and Próspera for my you know, entire year but I'll live two months at a time, or one month. In you know every six months.¶

Timothy Allen: Your business might be here though. I mean you may I mean this is this I would say this was more likely that you establish your business here, because of the the regulatory environment or the tax environment, or whatever and from that there is a reason to be here to work out of here for a month, like I worked out of here for a month. And I I wasn't I didn't want to hang on the beach. I didn't I was just working like a nutter, constantly. You know but.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: There's no correct me if I'm wrong, but there's no requirement to actually be here if your business register.¶

Timothy Allen: No. There isn't but it depends what kind of business you've got, you know if you've got an office like this is someone. This is Blink wallet's office I've borrowed it but you know, like it's a Bitcoin wallet. Um you know they they they have an office here, why not? You know they you can do things in an office. And they don't really need one they create software. But there are drone companies there are other there are companies that it's good to have an office. I think it is good to have an office, actually. You know.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Maybe I agree I've spent a lot of time in Cayman recently, to.¶

Timothy Allen: Cayman? Cayman.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Yeah it's interesting they've similar but they're required to have at least, a team member there or a director, which is like a proxy director often. But a lot of people end up setting up an office there.¶

Timothy Allen: Well, Cayman's obviously a very well-embedded tax jurisdiction, a good tax jurisdiction. So a lot of people want to be there.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: But it's very lovable.¶

Timothy Allen: Sure.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: I have a lot of friends there that you don't have to spend any amount of time there, and people love it.¶

Timothy Allen: Yeah, of course. And I'm no doubt, I mean, there's a sweet spot with all this stuff, isn't it? This is why Network School in Kazakhstan is an interesting, I mean, I'm gonna watch closely because I've been to Kazakhstan a lot, and um it's it's talk about Edge City it's very edgy, Kazakhstan's edgy let's say freezing cold in the it's a great place. I love it but the tech crowd I can imagine getting a little bit cold feet.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Yeah I love Kazakhstan it's a wonderful place and you know, it's it's so it's so so I love exploring places like that Because they're not the normal place that people go for the reason like, it's freezing in the summer and freezing in the winter, or whatever, you know. Yeah I very curious of the I have a lot of friends there, biology has been a supporter of ours But I very curious on the government association, while also trying to create a new country the that that there must be an interesting, tension to to go around.¶

Timothy Allen: No no not really because you're not well. I I can't speak for Balaji but nobody walks into a country, and says can I have some land? I want to start a country.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Yeah no.¶

Timothy Allen: And actually, at the highest level which Próspera, I would say, is at the most cutting edge of this wedge. It's the complete opposite. They're here to make the government, they're here to do a partnership. You come to a place, you negotiate with the government, and say, look, I can bring capital, I can bring talent, I can bring. Money, I can bring basically tax revenue as well. But I need you to give me a special zone, where I can use the regulatory environment to attract those people, like biotech or whatever and if you're. I mean if you're a socialist government you're going to say no. And they did and they're like this is this is like, neo-colonialism but if you're a free market. You know leader you'll go okay why not? Why wouldn't you? And the only the only downside in that model is you can and this is this is actually in a sense, happening at the other z a which um Morazán on the mainland.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Oh yeah.¶

Timothy Allen: Morazán is built it's kind of like a proper, it's got a wall around it it's a proper, um um Free City that is for honduran workers, pretty much it's it's 100 local honduran workers there. But this is this is there's less hondurans living here, as in the same sense because you get more of it's it's it's a different model, and it's more like startups and all this kind of stuff, but in Morazán it's almost exclusively hondurans that live in there, but it's it's got its own regulatory it's got all the same, characteristics that it can have from from the ZEDE regime, but it's built next to the most dangerous town in the whole of honduras, Choloma it's called and that does make a government look good, when inside the zed houses are higher quality and cheaper, everyone's happy everyone wants to live there and just on the other side of the wall in the government run bit, the gangs run the shit and it's a terrible place to live. So, I mean, but this is a feature, not a bug. This is the feature of a Free City. It makes you competitive. And governments, on the whole, aren't very competitive. Maybe Dubai is a competitive government, you know. They're trying to get you to come there. Kazakhstan is obviously a competitive government because they're trying to attract people there, you know. But most of the governments in Europe and, you know, they don't give a shit. In fact, they're putting walls up to stop you getting out. They're not trying to attract you. They're just trying to stop you leaving, you know. So, yeah, you know, it is a bit of a Trojan horse in a sense, but most projects, there's only probably two projects in the whole world that actually want sovereignty. And they're the really crazy and far out ones, like Liberland in Croatia, where they're like, no, this is our land. No one else is doing it that way. Everyone else is working in corroboration with the government, which obviously makes sense, because all the land's owned. There's no frontiers anymore. Apart from at sea and space.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Yeah, yeah. Is there... Yeah, I'm curious. What would get you to spend more time in a place like Próspera?¶

Timothy Allen: That's tricky because I have a very special circumstance. I have three children and a family and a very deeply embedded life in the UK, so nothing would at the moment there's no there's no possibility that I would come here with my family.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Passing those out though so one would be school environment is that correct?¶

Timothy Allen: If if I if I know it's not even that it's the fact that my life is in the UK, as much as I hate the government where I live on a farm in a beautiful location, and my kids are having the most idyllic upbringing, and and I would never take that away from them, there's no reason to however when if they leave home, at 18, 90 20.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Yeah.¶

Timothy Allen: We're gonna be immediately gonna get out of there.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Oh.¶

Timothy Allen: At the moment. Yeah and whether I choose Próspera probably not in its current state, because Próspera is a place you come to work, and do shit. Um you know I by that point I'd probably be looking for somewhere, because I don't think I'll ever stop working. But I don't necessarily want to work I don't want to be in a startup environment, where everyone you meet in their lift is like, pitching something to you I'd rather be in Florianópolis in Brazil for example, where shit's going down but also I'm on the beach. And I can play volleyball and I can whatever. I think but it's a complicated thing I think on paper. We would imagine people would choose the best place for them themselves to live. But we don't.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: It emotional.¶

Timothy Allen: We don.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Yeah.¶

Timothy Allen: There so much other stuff going on.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: And family ties.¶

Timothy Allen: Huge. But I think you know look at the Emirates, look at Dubai in particular Dubai managed to convince, a huge amount of people to go and live in the middle of the desert, Right? That amazing That amazing They didn it wasn rocket science. You know they started by creating a free zone which allowed common law, instead of Sharia law and then all so the banks could move in so the money could move in so that and then. It just it just moved from there it's not it's not rocket science, how you attract people. But you do have to and look what happened during, when the iran stuff when they started getting bombed, people started leaving what did the government do? Straight away saying hey come back here's a here's a change in the regulatory environment, or here. We'll we'll just that tax is gone for the time being, or whatever. You know that's what a government should be they're supposed to be a service for you, our government's the complete opposite. I mean I don't know about South Africa but the UK. We are basically funding the government with tax that's, that's all we do they don't. They don't really like you they don't they're not they're not trying to incentivise you to start a business, at all. I don't know anyone starting businesses back in the UK anymore, it's terrible.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: I'm very curious because we've looked at the UK for a while to a sentiment there, there's of course incredible talent camera joxford all the all the London being a startup hub for europe, in a lot of ways. Um we have some really interesting institutions there like. I don't know you know the renful 500 years, there's a few interesting parts they're supporting interesting ambitious science, um and innovation. We we actually almost did one last year we ended up cutting it, a bit because of capacity constraints a bit because we couldn't really you know, figure out the long-term narrative in the UK. We were looking at it again.¶

Timothy Allen: What do you mean by that long-term narrative, the as in the trajectory of the country as a whole is this something we're going to keep wanting to come back to is that what you mean?¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Yes and no yes in some way like or do people believe, like do I don't think you guys going anywhere, like in the long run the history is there, London's there etc but like in the current form is this a place people want to invest time and money in? Um and it's a bit.¶

Timothy Allen: I'd say no currently.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Right that was a bit of a concern.¶

Timothy Allen: I mean I I I mix with people like me, and we're not we're not UK haters we're UK government haters that it's it's a terrible, terrible place to be an entrepreneur. They they they they I don't know why I don't know what's going on but I know, people are either leaving or shutting down their businesses, a lot of them running them into the ground, because it's easier than shutting them down because they can funnel more money out of them, no I'm not being funny if there's a if there's a massive tax, when you sell your company. And you end up with you know 40 of it disappearing, you're better off just taking the money out slowly, over a few years and stuff. You know people are doing that.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: That's crazy.¶

Timothy Allen: This is what's being incentivized there, it's it's a horrible horrible situation and exit taxes are now coming, obviously because people are leaving. You know the next stage after exit taxes is an actual wall to stop you leaving which is what happened. You know he's berlin this is this is what happens, when that meant so sort of socialist mentality that kind of yeah we're the government we're losing money. We don't create anything we need your money and no one's borrowing we're not we can't even borrow money, so we're actually do you know what we're just going to take it from you, that's. It's it happens all around the world you know.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Have you heard of Forest City in the UK?¶

Timothy Allen: Forest City? Yeah not the one in Malaysia.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: No I mean, that's. I should have.¶

Timothy Allen: Tell me I maybe know under another name.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Right um I can't tell you much because I have to go check it out myself. But there is a development it's near it's near the cotwells on the water there, just below. Um I couldn't tell you the nearby.¶

Timothy Allen: Forest City? No, I haven't heard of it.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: I'll pull it up after my phone, but I'm curious that's what we're looking at for example, so.¶

Timothy Allen: And that's that sounds like a real estate project, no no ideological side to it or whatever it's just a real estate project. But it sounds like it would be in some nice.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Yeah, okay some smart cities some new development that's aligned in various forms, walkable healthy really? Um.¶

Timothy Allen: Yeah I mean they they are happening there's a few places that are springing up. They they they tend to commandeer a bit of land on the edge of a town, and and pretty much start it from scratch. I I was I was down in portsmouth recently. There's another one there.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: All right yeah.¶

Timothy Allen: Plymouth and it's done in a Georgian style which yeah, my wife hated I always look pretty good I'd rather see that than a bunch of brutalist nonsense. But it looked quite good, actually and the whole thing had I mean, it had a different, kind of mixed vernacular but mostly it looked like Georgian terraces. And you know and I was like yeah, exactly, my wife says no, that's fake I'm like. I don't care you know like a lot of stuff's fake. But it looks good there's a reason why period properties look nice, compared to brutalist boxes and all that nonsense. You know but um no I'll look I mean, if it's just uh if it's just a normal real estate thing. Yeah, I probably don't know about it.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: But I'll, find it sent you off.¶

Timothy Allen: But that isn't, I love that bit about your business model. You just go around the world looking for real estate developments, and then position yourself near them. That's a really interesting.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: I also think the fund angle is quite interesting thing, where we could, you know, normal venture fund has a 220 split, 2% performance fee, 20% management fee. Sorry, other way around, 2% management fee, 20% performance fee. I think we can create a model where with the events, and if we have the real estate supplementing the events, then the event starts the largest cost of the event is the real estate, so as these developments get complete. And we have some long-term partnership incentive so that reduces our cost for hosting them there, so once they're done the idea is to always move the event into these spaces. Um we have proper events that find the deal flow that can cover the team time to do the diligence to do a fund. It ends up being quite interesting fun that probably doesn't even need, a management fee at some point um so it's also like, an interesting fun funnel angle like more of a YC approach.¶

Timothy Allen: Yeah you guys think very differently to me I'd love to I'd love to think like that I'd love to um to have ideas like that and just create stuff out of you know, but it's not my thing. Anyway Telamon look we've we've been talking for over an hour. I think probably good time to wrap it up, have I missed anything? Um.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: No I think that was a good start, I'd love to chat again. I really enjoyed this I would love to invite you to our next one, um.¶

Timothy Allen: Sure.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: This is a bit of a long stretch but uh what we know for now is we'll be in India in october, october 11th november 1st in Goa um there's actually two interesting, new town projects there one is.¶

Timothy Allen: It old. For a year and a half.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Oh no way, what part?¶

Timothy Allen: All over I I just travelled there for a long time basically. And then went all across the malays been to Bhutan, went to Bhutan before you were allowed to go in.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Bhutan, right.¶

Timothy Allen: I'm too old. We only opened up at the end of the eight at the end of the 80s, and then for for the first. I don't know whether they still do this but back in the 90s. They put a hundred dollar per day levy on everyone going into the country, which is you know. I know it sounds weird but I know why they did it. They were worried that if you've got a full side, the Nepal side at that point. You know I mean obviously you know about the royal family in Bhutan, and they're all educated in the UK and they're. You know they're they're like they they're one of they're a bit like the emirates. They have this vision for Bhutan and and uh it's it's you know, it's pretty good actually. I think it's pretty good.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: I think they're an incredible, so the king's office and the king has invited us to do these events there, and he's waived the fee for us specifically but normally you still have to pay 100 bucks today.¶

Timothy Allen: But what I was going to say was you know in the 60s and 70s, when the Himalayas started becoming a place but all the hippies went up there, because there's a lot of ganja up there and Nepal, got a really bad reputation. And the the royals in this is how I understood it back then, the royals said look. We don't want that so we'll just slap this tax on and we'll get a certain type of person going there. They're quite up like blatantly say we want quality tourism, sure. But they also things like national address in public places. They have rules about the vernacular of the buildings and stuff. They do stuff that I would have done it that way myself. I hated watching countries because I travelled since the 80s for my whole life, I've been on the road and I've watched places, turn from something like Bhutan and then you get all the crap, boxes coming in and getting built around. Yeah and it and it does look terrible whereas, a lot of people would say oh. You can't just stop people doing stuff and it's like. Yeah but you go to Bhutan then and tell me whether that's not an interesting place to be it looks beautiful, it's clean, it's tidy, you know. And, you know, yeah.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: It's really interesting. Like, are you familiar with the GMC project?¶

Timothy Allen: Not a lot, no.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Can I give you a fact? It's actually really interesting. So, you know, Bhutan, very well organised, very traditional. I think of it like if Thailand and Switzerland had a baby. That's how I'm at. I think if you want to give yourself a mental image, that's what I think of Bhutan. They are very well managed. They're very small slow in the sense of they really want to retain, retain their culture and and traditions which is not leads to cosmopolitan. You know great place to invest in and and you know, create businesses and so but the the government is really well run. So they have great education they have great health care and because so they all speak english, they're great educators so 10 of the population right now, lives in Australia uh of the entire country mainly because there's a visa, a lot of them do their post grads there, or they're even undergrads uh so like when the government, when the when the king does like address the nation, he'll often fly to Australia and like fill out a stadium with Bhutanese people to like do a state of like a nation address in a foreign country, that's kind of where the idea sprung of the GMC, because we need to create a place to create jobs for Bhutanese that are cosmopolitan, without recreating a Dubai or flooding the borders or losing our culture and tradition. So they took 4% of the nation's land mass, roughly, created this special administrative zone, called the Gelephu Mindfulness City It on one hand, supposed to also be the new Buddhist capital There no real Buddhist capital of the world, And secondly, it's supposed to be...¶

Timothy Allen: Well, I mean, Tibet, you know, Lhasa is kind of pretty...¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Tibetan Buddhism.¶

Timothy Allen: They are Tibetan Buddhists, essentially. But anyway, go on.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: They didn't necessarily accept that based on the conversations I heard.¶

Timothy Allen: Well, no, but the lineage of their Buddhism is the same as the Tibetan Buddhism, lineage.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Right. And the Thai is what? They have Thai of a different one.¶

Timothy Allen: Thai, completely different, yeah.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Yeah, what's the one?¶

Timothy Allen: Thai, well, it's a completely different thing.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Yeah, it's a children.¶

Timothy Allen: It's Theravada, isn't it?¶

Telamon Ardavanis: I think Theravada, I think this one's right.¶

Timothy Allen: Yeah, I think that's what it is. All up in the Himalayas, it's all roughly the same thing. I've travelled from one side to the other along there, over a very long period of time. You just see all the same stuff. The difference with Bhutan is they have their own characters, their own bodies at first, and their own, you know, but but really they kind of the borders don't really didn't mean anything a lot in the past. You know so anyway um.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: And then it's supposed to be they're really trying to model Singapore in a lot of ways, uh and call it like a sandbox zone so it's a 40, they're calling it a diamond strategy so for 20 years, they're going to develop this area it's going to be a bit of a try whatever you want. You know way more experimental way more we accepting all types of ideas. They create a you the very digital currency from there, they're going to do a bunch of new renewable projects, like a bunch of stuff that would over industrialize that zone in a lot of ways, while still keeping nature in mind that they don't want to do in the governance experiments etc, and then once the 20 years are done they're going to spend 20 years, trying to unite those so the ideas to potentially which I think is gonna be really interesting, 40 years from now is seeing how they and if they, recombine those countries or how they manage that do they just take the best ideas, and put them to the rest of the nation, but that's kind of the idea which I think is really well.¶

Timothy Allen: That is the one of the selling points of an SEZ, the sandbox idea I mean you could argue that's exactly what, um Dubai did I mean Dubai itself is pretty much a one whole free zone now. You know like there are so many there right that that in a way. It doesn't it's just it's just all kind of bled into one, but um but this. I mean you know I I well it's contentious, but China opened up after. You know the communist regime changed using SEZ as sandboxes to to roll out, capitalist ideas. They didn't you know like Shenzhen and and those kind of places. You know um they couldn't roll out free market policies, all around the country. So they did them in sandboxes I don't know. Well dude well I made a film all about it, and it's showing tomorrow morning actually at nine o'clock, just before the conference starts called Zones of Progress. But it charts the history of free zones to places like Próspera because this is an evolution of the free zone meant idea, it's just. They put people living in them now that's basically the difference, really it's it's the people benefit from the the policy in the free zone, it's normally. He used to it started with do you know how, the modern iteration of them started very interesting Shannon airport in which is an airport in Ireland um in the 50s, when you flew to um America. They had to refuel somewhere because you couldn't do the whole of the Atlantic, the planes weren't good enough. So they used to stop at this place called Shannon, and Shannon had this booming economy it's just some some town in Ireland that had this big airport, and all the big planes used to fly a little bit, refuel and then carry on because that's the last leg over the Atlantic, and then technology invented planes that could go the whole way, and suddenly Shannon no one want no one needed to go to Shannon anymore. So they created a free zone in the airport, and gave gave advantages to people to attract business there. They did that you know and Shannon free zone was the first modern iteration of the free zone. You know and you can see it all in the film, it's it's a really interesting and then. You know they there's no there's more than I think there's 6 000 free zones around the world now, it's some astonishingly large amount a lot of them fail, a lot of them. I mean you can talk to talk to Lotta Moberg, the economist she's here she'll tell you that really free. She she wrote the best book on free zones that exist, special economic zones. And she she'll like I talked to her this morning, she's laughing you say. Yeah most of them are terrible they don't work, um but but the idea is very simple. You create a sandbox you try to try things out, and if they work. You roll them out across the country which is basically what, what what you're saying the the guys in Bhutan are thinking through. Um and I think it's true it's true you know. That you can't you can't just universally change a country in one go sometimes. You do need to start but but it also offers problems as well, because within that zone if businesses are more competitive in there, that's not fair on the bit the business on the other side of the country in the same country, it's not it's not as simple as that you know, it's a really dynamic dynamic procedure. But anyway yeah watch the film tomorrow.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: I excited, I be there.¶

Timothy Allen: If not but it on YouTube. Anyway I made it a couple of years ago, it called Zones of Progress and well. We made it I mean look I I don't know whether the guy, the Bhutanese royal family saw it. But we made it specifically for people to use, when they. They go to see governments to try and explain what these things are because it's not obvious, what's going on here. And I know specifically of two success stories which actually got, the go-ahead based on the fact that because it's a 15-minute film, that's highbrow enough to look good but it's easy enough to digest to go, oh yeah. I get it I see what that is and that's the whole point of that thing. This is why I work at the foundation that's what we do we want people to understand, what these things are and we want them to do them, because they're good they're good for people. They they they're an excellent thing that most people misunderstand, completely especially in socialist countries.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Surprise.¶

Timothy Allen: Yeah exactly but anyway um yeah did we did we did do everything, right. We have touched on everything right um and yeah, just the invite to union.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Oh yeah. Yeah yeah if you can make it um next year we'll be back in the u.s. We'll do Bhutan and March again they're doing the Bhutan Innovation Forum, and then. We'll probably do upstate New York early next year.¶

Timothy Allen: Definitely do Bhutan last time I went there was 1990 was it? 1998 1999 I made if I made a film about the people that live at the highest place in the world there in the loon apps, the loon apps. They wear these little hats like this they're the highest dwelling people in the world. They what was the film called? Life in the clouds that live life in the clouds. Or something I can't remember it was a long time ago.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: I would love to see your feedback.¶

Timothy Allen: Dude I am, when I went to Bhutan. There were hardly any roads there at all it took us, 12 days to walk to the village we were filming in with with.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: 12 days.¶

Timothy Allen: Yeah yeah yeah one way.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Yeah yeah.¶

Timothy Allen: To get there, nothing that Bhutan has has it was an I mean. I love places like that but the road situation was was almost non-existent when I first went there. I think I went back in the 20s 2010s maybe. There was more roads but still it's still depending on where you go. It was all walking I've got some of the I have such fond memories from there. I was there when the government issued id cards for citizens for the first time in in their history, and all 2000 of the lyaps this tribe had to walk, walk walk. It wasn't 12 days by that point it was I think it took us about five days maybe to walk to a little government office to have their photo taken, and now half of them had never even really seen, computer screens and stuff I've got some such funny pictures from that time, because I just walked with literally a couple a thousand people, everyone had to go and register.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: What year was this?¶

Timothy Allen: Fuck knows I can't remember.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Crazy that now that they're like, now all the identification system is on the Ethereum blockchain.¶

Timothy Allen: Yeah but I mean.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Which is just a crazy development though, like like. You know from.¶

Timothy Allen: Yes and no I mean technology is very simple, most most most governments don't move fast enough because they're just terrible governments, right the thing about Bhutan and you hit the nail on the head is that when you go there. You realize and because I know a lot of countries that are the same, Bhutanese people feel like they're in a big family, don't they? This is the we're all Bhutanese if you meet a Bhutanese person, meets another Bhutanese person on the other side of the world, they're best they're calling each other brother and sister, and there's a lot of countries where that is exactly the same, mongol is the same there's a lot of places where the diaspora, abroad. You really realize what it means to live in a country that has this kind of unified, sort of group of people and I'm not saying that everyone loves Bhutan, who lives there. I think probably a large majority of them do but but it, but definitely. Um you you you I can see why a project like that would work there, because everyone will be rooting for it to be a success, because it's like. Yeah this is our country and the royal family, aren't about to defile the country side with some horrendous project, because they care deeply about the vernacular what it looks like. You know all this kind of stuff they they always have done, at least when I went there. You weren't even allowed to use corrugated iron on your roof. You had to use traditional tiles and things like that which sounds a bit authoritarian, but actually fuck yeah. I love that I would love it if they. You know I hate seeing villages in the in the mountains that just. I know I appreciate it's cheap to to whack up a um you know, a concrete slab and a and a corrugated iron roof, or whatever.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Sure.¶

Timothy Allen: But, but long term, Bhutan has proven, I think, I mean, I haven't been there. I presume it still looks really beautiful there.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Nothing's changed.¶

Timothy Allen: Right.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: There's still no traffic lights in anywhere in the country.¶

Timothy Allen: Right. Okay. That a good thing Like that that I live in a country with with a rich history. And there are villages left which are absolutely drop dead gorgeous, everyone wants to live there where I live no one wants to buy a concrete block. They want to live in an old house that is is beautiful, that sat there that's in the landscape that was designed, and built by someone with their hands. And this this is good this really is good, but people think that's kind of like a little bit like.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: It's funny. You got me thinking about the national pride and they have a huge national pride, but it's interesting seeing one with national pride without like, a massive military without a sports team to like, rally behind like they've really just done it by retaining the culture, versus like finding these alternative narratives geopolitics games to like, create national pride around it's quite interesting.¶

Timothy Allen: I think Buddhism might have something to do with it. And and the fact that sort of like the royal, the royalty are part of that you know they're very very traditional, um they're very nice people though have you noticed how, how quiet and reserved and polite they are you know, it's like. Um I mean but that is the Himalayas from start to finish, maybe not when you get too far to the right. You get more kind of like different types of people, but but in the Nepal that side everyone is you know, it's like. There is a culture there just like there is a culture, everywhere the culture of Bhutanese people is polite respectful, quiet. You don't get people shouting at the top of their voices, do you? You know and I mean I absolutely fell in love with the place. I I went there because I live I was I had a I was working at a newspaper, as a photographer. And I was done seven years national newspaper in the UK. And I wanted to get out and I remember. I actually this is the early days of Google. I I put into Google what's the most remote country in the world? Because Bhutan came up but but more than that but there was a particular picture. And it was a picture of this tribe called the the liaps who have the little pointy hat. And it was a it was a Nat Geo guy. He was the first guy who was let in when the when the royal family opened it up to foreigners, and if you look hard enough you'll find an old edition of National Geographic, printed one from I think the 80s where this guy. And I and I looked through these pictures and I was like, fucking hell. This is amazing.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Peering you know.¶

Timothy Allen: Yeah I mean. You still get this I still got this experience, when I went. It was like going into a monastery in the middle of nowhere, pulling back a red curtain looking in and going, holy shit. This is the this is this is not real. This is not real this is the there's smoke coming up, there's chanting there's there's. You know it's just like holy shit am I tripping or what? You know and um yeah and so I so I saw this picture. And I I looked at this thing and I was like, I gotta go there. So I just got a one-way ticket to Delhi, and made my way in don't tell the royal family, because you know. Well because I was I couldn't afford 100 I was in there for a month, dude. I couldn't afford a hundred dollars a day could I? And also you need you needed to do it. I probably shouldn't have bit this out loud it's a long time ago, but you had to use. It you even had to use a a one of the uh one of the guides, or one of the.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Right. You had to like come with a companion right.¶

Timothy Allen: Exactly but not even a companion. You had to go with a group that's not my style. There were there were there were hundreds of well not hundreds. There weren't there was 10 boomers on a tour, it's like that's not my I think I said. I want to go and I want to see this country. So I had a backpack of my cameras I met a guy, um his family. I said in fact that's it I did it, the legit. So I legit got in and then I said to the guy, look. This is what I want to do can you help me? And he's like yeah of course I can and we went, off piste for a month going place to place on foot, walking all these places. And yeah You can see the photos. They're all on the internet somewhere.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Damn, you've got a crazy life. I have one idea that I want to quickly pitch you, before we leave. This is something that's a personal thing that I want to plan someday. And you sound like the right person to pitch this to. I really want to organise a long format group, speaking about going from a month to six months, or something like that, maybe more like three months, doing the longest train ride in the world, probably from London or Lisbon, all the way to Singapore the Trans-Siberian primarily war of course had to calm down, but getting like potentially the whole train stopping longer periods in places, exploring them continuing going and like. I think you can do the entire route if you go like consecutively, without getting off the train it's like almost three weeks, but if you.¶

Timothy Allen: No. It can't be that long it can't be that long, can it? From where to where?¶

Telamon Ardavanis: From Lisbon or London it's roughly the same to Singapore. I think it's two and a half something weeks, non-stop.¶

Timothy Allen: How do you get across the the water, and stuff like that you know hold a minute.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Hold a minute there's no it's all land if you go. You go.¶

Timothy Allen: I thought the trans-siberian ended up in ullambatta it ended up in.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: You would switch to a train, and then do the next the next push so.¶

Timothy Allen: Right okay.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Siberian will be the mean.¶

Timothy Allen: But I mean well my first thought is you wouldn't hire the whole train, because because I mean you would for sections of it, but that might be tricky.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Right.¶

Timothy Allen: That might be tricky. I don't know. Thinking about it from my filmmaking days, I could probably organise that, but not necessarily, the whole fucking train because people book those things, like years in advance. Seriously. It's people's dream to go on those trips and stuff. Plus that it's a public service in many senses.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Maybe again, not necessarily the whole train. What I'm trying is like the whole so do sections, get off pop up do another section.¶

Timothy Allen: Yeah of course you can do that you could do that but you know. I mean as far as the route goes it'd be fun, looking into it pretty easy production when you think about it, especially because a lot of the places you'll be going are kind of out there, you know. And you can book the whole place quite easily in a lot of those places. You know especially when you get to sort of like, the more eastern areas. Um yeah I mean why not? It doesn't it doesn't it doesn't spring to mind immediately. I mean I get the sense that your clientele are um not necessarily, they're adventurous in a way but not that adventurous.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: We have a wide range of the of the general community, is like really wide like people like very folks in their careers, very hard shipping people very family oriented more lifestyle oriented, than people that are like digital nomads until alternative living, like. I want to I'm more interested in the you know, new cities special economic zones new ways of life.¶

Timothy Allen: I mean listen dude from my experience anyway once you got a market, and once you got followers which I had you can market anything, as long as it good enough. Like I went after that so after that one, where we crossed the Altai mountains which I ended up doing. I did 10 years on the trial I did it every year for 10 years. I realised I could press a button on anything, and get eight people to come anywhere I wanted, and and the world then becomes your oyster it's like, okay let's go to Siberia then and go and let's go, travel with a family and then it's in this winter okay, let's go to you know like. You can do anything when when your clients trust that you are going to provide, the experience and that's what it was all about, my my trips were always very very uniquely um intimate. There was no we never did anything on the road that was travelled by anyone else at all. We worked I worked very close I worked with the same family. I watched their kids grow up over 10 years. I you know I knew I knew everyone everyone knew me, and so we. We basically had this unique luxury and privilege to just, insert ourselves into this absolutely insane interesting place. And I could bring eight people and everyone was cool about it. And I mean I ended up being really a part of their family, but and and shared shared the love shared the wealth, shared everything. It was like a everyone.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: This is the Mongolia one. Yeah.¶

Timothy Allen: Everyone won so you know I was running a business. You know it was like when you're you know. It was like sending money home to the family, kind of thing it's like. You know we employed everyone the whole because the whole thing was a big. We had it was 30 people all sort of moving together, across the mountains. So we needed all this extra people and blah, blah, blah. And this, that and the other So you know, that the trick in those things is make them mutually beneficial to everyone, if everyone wins. You have a great time every time and everyone pleased to see you every time, as soon as you start realising that you're that people are getting disenfranchised in any shape or form, that's when things start going wrong fortunately never happened for me. And I left you know the reason I gave up in the end is because I was just like. I can't do this anymore I'm bummed.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: I'm gonna go I'm gonna go to one of these I've gotta do.¶

Timothy Allen: Well, no. I just I just I don't know I like this now. I do this it's this is another frontier it's the same, same shit. I I just get to sit and talk about it, instead of necessarily the physicality of it and but this is more interesting to me now. I feel like what I used to do look to the past. I really I used to love traditional anything weird. I used to anywhere where I need to walk. I used to travel around the world looking for places that didn't have roads that needed serious, walking that's why that one of the reasons the Bhutan thing happened, and and slowly but surely all those places opened up to cars, and trucks. And this and that and I just lost interest at that point, it's different when cars bring in I mean not bad. They bring in a lot of good stuff but they changed what I used to love which was that weird. I used to meet people and we were mutually. Um you know like interested in each other I'm looking at them going. This is insane they're looking at me going this is insane. You know and and I used to do that you just go around the world, looking for that exact same thing. You know it's really interesting anyway I'm rambling so cool.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: No I love it.¶

Timothy Allen: Right. Okay well look I'll definitely come to Bhutan if that be cool, but um but yeah stay in touch and it sounds good. Yeah really good I like it I have done something similar myself, probably. I think um but um thanks.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Thanks for the time.¶

Timothy Allen: I think I spoke a little bit too much.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: No. I love that You have some interesting stories I'm going to, once the cameras are off, I'm going to ask you for some of the...¶

Timothy Allen: Well, you should show me that Forest City thing as well.¶

Telamon Ardavanis: Yes.¶