Patri Friedman

Patri Friedman (born July 29, 1976 in Virginia) is an advocate of rapid incremental progress towards an unusual goal: increasing human freedom by creating new countries that can experiment with alternative social structures. His preferred method is "seasteading", to construct and inhabit floating communities on the open sea: "The point is not just to create one political system or type of system, but to make a turnkey product for creating new countries, so that lots of different groups will try lots of different things, and we can all learn from it." [ [http://gizmodo.com/393323/how-to-build-your-own-sea+based-country-for-fun-and-profit Frucci, Adam. "How to Build Your Own Sea-Based Country for Fun and Profit," "Gizmodo", 5-27-08] ]

The Seasteading Institute

Friedman is Executive Director of the Seasteading Institute, funded on April 15th, 2008 with a half-million-dollar investment by PayPal inventor Peter Thiel. [ [http://www.reason.com/news/show/126198.html Mangu-Ward, Katherine. "Homesteading on the High Seas", "Reason", 4-28-08] ] The Institute's mission is "to establish permanent, autonomous ocean communities to enable experimentation and innovation with diverse social, political, and legal systems" [ [http://www.wired.com/science/planetearth/news/2008/05/seasteading?currentPage=all Madrigal, Alexis. "Peter Thiel Makes Down Payment on Libertarian Ocean Colonies" "Wired", 5-19-08] ] . This was initially a part-time project - one day a week while working as a Google engineer the rest of the time [ [http://sexiestgeeksalive.com/patri-friedman-interview/ Hastings, Sean. "Patri Friedman Interview"] , "Sexiest Geeks Alive", 6-7-08] - but Friedman left Google on July 29th 2008 to spend more time on seasteading. [ [http://seasteading.org/stay-in-touch/blog/3/2008/07/03/more-time-seasteading Friedman, Patri. "More Time For Seasteading"] ,"Seasteading Institute: Captains Blog", 7-3-08] He and partner Wayne Gramlich hope to float the first prototype seastead in the San Francisco Bay within two years. [ [http://gizmodo.com/392091/silicon-valley-nerds-plan-sea+based-utopian-country-to-call-their-own Frucci, Adam. "Silicon Valley Nerds Plan Sea-Based Utopian Country to Call Their Own"] , "Gizmodo", 5-20-08] [ [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90664406 Park, Bryant. "Libertarian Island: No Rules, Just Rich Dudes", "National Public Radio", 5-21-08] ]

Poker

Friedman often finishes in the money in major poker tournaments. His finishes in the money include: [ [http://pokerdb.thehendonmob.com/player.php?a=r&n=12929 Player results page, "The Hendon Mob Poker Database"] ]

*2008 WSOP $10,000 World Championship Event - 657th to collect $21,230
*2008 WSOP $2,500 No Limit Hold'em - 24th to collect $17,351
*2004 WSOP $10,000 World Championship Event - 165th to collect $15,000
*2002 WSOP $2,000 No Limit Hold'em - 11th to collect $9,280

Miscellaneous

Friedman is the grandson of economist Milton Friedman and son of economist David D. Friedman. He is married to Shannon Friedman and has one son.

References

External links

* [http://bureaucrash.com/node/podcrash-013-patri-friedman-seasteading-interview "Patri Friedman & Seasteading Interview"] , "PodCrash", 8-03-08
* [http://westernstandard.blogs.com/shotgun/2008/06/ws-radio-patr-1.html Podcast interview: "WS Radio: Patri Friedman Audio", "Western Standard", 6-19-08]
* [http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/seasteading-engineering-the-long-tail.ars Lee, Timothy B. "Seasteading: Engineering the Long Tail of Nations", ArsTechnica, 6-9-2008]
* [http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/michael/blog/2008/05/seasteading-institute-interview-w-patri-friedman/ Anissimov, Michael. "Seasteading Institute Interview w/ Patri Friedman"] , "Accelerating Future", 5-14-08
* [http://distributedrepublic.net/blog/patri-friedman Distributed Republic blog: Patri Friedman]