Praxis is a company founded by Dryden Brown and Charlie Callinan. It has stated plans to create a 10,000 population city in the Mediterranean.[1][2] The New York Times writes that Praxis founder Dryden Brown "isn’t a charismatic speaker or an accomplished businessman" and that he is "big on promises and light on specifics".[1] Brown has not determined the location of the city[1] and the company's vision has been called unrealistic.[3]

History

Founders

Dryden Brown was raised in Santa Barbara, California and was homeschooled in order to pursue competitive surfing. He stated that as a high schooler, he studied Ayn Rand and Austrian economists, and when he applied for college, he limited his applications to Harvard University, Stanford University, the University of Oxford, and the University of Cambridge. He was rejected by them all and he attended New York University before dropping out. Before founding Praxis, Brown worked as an analyst for a hedge fund, where he met Praxis co-founder Charlie Callinan, a former Boston College wide receiver. Brown was fired from the hedge fund. In 2019, Brown and Callinan used money Callinan won in a golf tournament to travel to Nigeria and Ghana, where they met with Ghana's vice president and proposed building financial center.[1] In 2019, a conversation while surfing in Puerto Rico inspired Callinan and Brown to establish a company called Bluebook Cities.[4]

In 2022, Brown told a speechwriter that his inspiration for Praxis came when he saw people looting stores in SoHo during the George Floyd protests.[1] Following the protests, he rented a cabin in Alaska.[1] Brown has lamented the organization of modern cities and their perceived lack of shared values.[4]

Investments

A December 2023 report in The New York Times revealed that Brown had raised $19.2 million for Praxis.[1] Praxis’ largest backer is Paradigm, which was an investor in failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX. Paradigm raised concerns about males outnumbering females four to one in a 2023 membership report.[1] Other investors include Pronomos Capital, backed by Peter Thiel as well as venture capitalists Balaji Srinivasan and Joe Lonsdale, both associates of Peter Thiel. In addition, Praxis received investments from Alameda Research backed by Sam Bankman-Fried, and Apollo Ventures, launched by Sam Altman.[1]

Praxis loft

In May 2022, Praxis moved into a large, top-floor office in SoHo where Praxis staff members live and work.[4] The loft is the location of some of Praxis's lavish parties, where Brown attempts to "evoke the salon culture of the Parisian Enlightenment."[1][5] Other parties have occurred in bars and the Yale Club of Manhattan.[6] By 2022, six staff members were living in the Praxis loft.[4] The Praxis team recruits new members in cities like Los Angeles, the Bay Area, Miami and at conventions such as Coachella, and Cannes.[4]

Brown said the waiting list for the proposed city was 50,000 people long and that 12,000 members already interested in moving starting in 2026. However, in July 2023, an internal company roster contained just 431 members.

(In an email, Mr. Brown clarified that 12,000 was the number of people who had signed up for Praxis groups on Discord, Telegram, and Signal.)

Values

In a 2021 interview, Brown said the city's style would be “hero futurism” with a “neo-Gilded Age kind of aesthetic.”[5] The Praxis organization is associated with fascism, white supremacy, and cryptocurrency.[1][5] In the company's Series A pitch to investors in 2022, it called its proposed city a “cryptostate.”[1]

An internal Praxis branding guide accessed by The New York Times extolled whiteness, specifically the “traditional, European/Western beauty standards on which the civilized world, at its best points, has always found success.”[1] The document revealed an interest in attracting "hot girls" and tech talent.[7][1]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Bernstein, Joseph (2023-12-12). "Who Would Give This Guy Millions to Build His Own Utopia?". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-12-17.
  2. ↑ "Praxis Makes Perfect". The Fence. 2023-09-21. Retrieved 2023-12-17.
  3. ↑ "Dreams and reality collide in Praxis's vision of a utopian crypto city". www.ft.com. Retrieved 2023-12-17.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 Kallepalli, Nevin (2022-06-28). "In a Soho Loft, Tech Bros Plot an Autonomous City". Curbed. Retrieved 2023-12-17.
  5. 1 2 3 Breland, Ali. "A Peter Thiel-linked startup is courting New York scenesters and plotting a libertarian paradise". Mother Jones. Retrieved 2023-12-17.
  6. ↑ "The Peter Thiel-Backed Start-Up Building a City in the Mediterranean". airmail.news. Retrieved 2023-12-17.
  7. ↑ Lyon, Jacob (2023-12-13). "Crypto city project reportedly wants to lure tech talent with 'hot girls'". Protos. Retrieved 2023-12-17.
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