Patri Friedman

Patri Friedman (born July 29, 1976 in Blacksburg, Virginia) is an American activist and theorist of political economy.

Contents

Background

Friedman grew up in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, and is a graduate of Upper Merion Area High School, class of 1994, where he went by the name Patri Forwalter-Friedman. He graduated from Harvey Mudd College in 1998, and formerly wrote code for Google. He is a poker player who's cashed in the World Series of Poker four times. [1]

The Seasteading Institute

Friedman is Executive Director of the Seasteading Institute, founded on April 15, 2008 with a half-million-dollar investment by PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel.[2] The Institute's mission is "to establish permanent, autonomous ocean communities to enable experimentation and innovation with diverse social, political, and legal systems".[3] This was initially a part-time project — one day a week while working as a Google engineer the rest of the time[4] — but Friedman left Google on July 29, 2008 to spend more time on seasteading.[5] He and partner Wayne Gramlich hoped to float the first prototype seastead in the San Francisco Bay by 2010.[6][7] At the October Seasteading social, it was announced that current plans are to launch a seastead by 2014.[8]

Family

Patri is the grandson of Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman[9] and economist Rose Friedman and son of economist and physicist David D. Friedman.[9] He is separated from wife Shannon Friedman [10] and has one son and one daughter.[11]

References

  1. ^ http://pokerdb.thehendonmob.com/player.php?a=r&n=12929
  2. ^ Mangu-Ward, Katherine. "Homesteading on the High Seas", Reason, 4-28-08
  3. ^ Madrigal, Alexis. "Peter Thiel Makes Down Payment on Libertarian Ocean Colonies" Wired, 5-19-08
  4. ^ Hastings, Sean. "Patri Friedman Interview", Sexiest Geeks Alive, 6-7-08
  5. ^ Friedman, Patri. "More Time For Seasteading",Seasteading Institute: Captains Blog, 7-3-08
  6. ^ Frucci, Adam. "Silicon Valley Nerds Plan Sea-Based Utopian Country to Call Their Own", Gizmodo, 5-20-08
  7. ^ Park, Bryant. "Libertarian Island: No Rules, Just Rich Dudes", National Public Radio, 5-21-08
  8. ^ "Meetup.com - October 2010 Seasteading Social at the Hyatt Regency SF". http://www.meetup.com/sfbay-seasteading/calendar/14479560/. Retrieved 20 October 2010. 
  9. ^ a b http://www.wired.com/techbiz/startups/magazine/17-02/mf_seasteading?currentPage=all
  10. ^ http://patrissimo.livejournal.com/1478948.html
  11. ^ http://patrifriedman.com/

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