I study startup founders as a hobby. Jack Dorsey, co-founder and CEO of Twitter, has explained on youtube and podcasts his way of thinking about philosophy, health, productivity hacks, etc.
One great insight he said is that having one good-enough operating system is better than having many separate great systems. Jack decided to go all-in with apple — which is not only good enough but great.
So did I. I was more than halfway in already. Now I own almost all apple products, and they have made my workflow seamless. I read the manual for my iPhone, and it helped me understand the ecosystem deeper. The learning curve for new products is much lower — things work. I always try out their new software and hardware to see which ones stick. I am writing this on my iPad, on apple notes, with my apple pen.
Jack’s most used app is apple notes. When I heard about it, I did it too for experimenting, and it became my most used app too.
My screen time last week with apple notes on the lead:
<< Copy what’s best of what others have already figured out. >>
First draft of this post in apple notes:
In apple notes, I can copy my handwriting and paste it as text easily.
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Panama was born like a startup out of the Panama Canal. Since its inception, Panama has experimented widely with Startup Cities. In this post, I will expand on trends like the increase in remote workers, how cities must adapt to them, the definition of startup cities, Panama’s success with Startup Cities, and Porta Norte — the Startup City I am building.
Geographic Independence Enabled by Remote Work
The Covid-19 pandemic dramatically accelerated the adoption of digital infrastructure worldwide. Lockdowns forced remote work on most companies. Now, as we reach herd immunity, companies have a choice whether they go entirely physical, remote, or something in between. As we all know, many more companies are now remote than before the pandemic.
CEOs who choose to go remote are unlocking new features like attracting more talent from a bigger talent pool and reducing costs by avoiding paying for office space. Remote employees can avoid commute and choose to work from ideal places.
The number of remote workers has spiked worldwide, and it is not going back to how it was before. It will be something in between, but as the digital infrastructure continues to improve, the market of remote workers will continue to expand.
Remote workers can stop thinking about their company’s location and relocate to places that offer them the highest quality of life. They can do arbitrage by earning in the US and spending in Latin America. Newly minted remote workers are weighing options with some of the following questions:
Is it safe?
Is there good food?
Can I satisfy my hobbies?
Can I adapt to the culture?
Can I connect with nature?
Do they embrace foreigners?
Can I find like-minded people?
Can I get a resident visa quickly?
Should I move closer to my family?
Are there good schools and universities?
Can I get a direct flight to my hometown?
What city gives me the best bang for my buck?
Nowadays, remote workers go online to compare and contrast what cities are best for them to visit and hopefully relocate. They use websites that rank countries like nomadlist and teleport to inform themselves. It is a similar process to how people choose vacations or universities.
Remote workers are essential for cities because they are educated, bring know-how, are tech-savvy by default, and many more reasons. Immigration of talent leads to a higher productivity per capita, increased tax base, and results in a virtuous cycle — great citizens attract great citizens.
City as a Product
Talent is the leading indicator of a great organization. A great company is a group of talented individuals led by a talented CEO; a great city is a group of talented citizens led by talented leaders. To improve any organization, you must improve the individual contributor and recruit more talent.
Lee Kuan Yew, the founding father of Singapore, focused on improving talent as he led Singapore from rags to riches. He often spoke about the importance of education, interbreeding amongst intelligent people, and attracting foreign talent.
Singaporeans, if I can choose an analogy, we are the hard disk of a computer; the foreign talent is the megabytes you add to your storage capacity. So your computer never slows down because you got enormous storage capacity.
— Lee Kuan Yew
Recruiting is more relevant than ever before. It is an effective strategy for elevating the talent pool. Cities must align incentives with remote workers. They must be pro-technology, pro-immigration, pro-capitalism, pro-diversity, and proactive.
If successful, the concentration of remote workers leads to increased production of startups, which begets a startup ecosystem that leads to a Startup City.
A city where startups happen along with a thriving startup ecosystem like San Francisco and New York. In the pandemic, Austin and Miami have positioned themselves as THE next place.
A city that acts as a startup with a clear vision and competent governance. A great example is Miami, where Mayor Francis Suarez is serving as the CEO of the City. For him, Miami is the product he iterates. He listens to feedback from startup founders, signals the acceptance of bitcoin, recruits through Twitter, etc. A CEO of the City delivers results and positions their city as a great place to move.
Urban development with startup DNA are projects with a defined territory focused on delivering economic growth or a better way of living through an innovative vision. They are public or private enterprises, public-private partnerships, for-profit or non-profit, or a combination. Some examples:
Neighborhood Upgrade some examples of upgrades are Panama’s Historic District, through better infrastructure and fiscal incentives, Wynwood through art, and Times Square, through removing cars. Usually, there is a combination of public investment towards infrastructure and private investment towards buildings.
Master-Planned communities are mixed-use neighborhoods with a large number of recreational amenities. They tend to have sports centers, lakes, parks, public spaces, playgrounds, swimming pools, stores, restaurants, businesses, schools, universities, cultural centers, medical centers, etc. They are greenfield development — building in undeveloped land. They must push the envelope of what is possible with urbanism and have a strong vision like being car-free, an eco-village, off the grid, etc. Examples: Cayalá, Celebration, Culdesac, Kalu Yala, Las Catalinas, Porta Norte, and Punta Mona. The typical pattern amongst these places is active public spaces and walkability, which, unfortunately, is uncommon.
Special Economic Zones are geographically limited places with regulatory, fiscal incentives, and trade laws that differ from the rest of the country to foster economic and/or cultural prosperity. Examples: Prospera and Shenzhen.
Seasteading means living on environmentally restorative floating islands with some degree of political autonomy. The term derives from homesteading, which means making a home for oneself in uninhabited places. It generally has associations with self-sufficiency and a frontier lifestyle.
Micronations or Microstates are small sovereign countries or colonies. Examples: Liechtenstein, Monaco, and Vatican City.
Panama
Panama is a country of immigrants with a long history of experimenting with Startup Cities. Many businesses choose to settle here because:
It has a great relationship with the United States.
It has a strong logistics sector with the Panama Canal and a big airport.
The following are some examples of Startup Cities in chronological order.
Panama Canal Zone was an unincorporated territory of the United States surrounding the Panama Canal. The United States enabled Panama’s independence from Colombia to build the Panama Canal in 1903. They kept some land and set up a Microstate that infused Panama with American culture.
Colón Free Trade Zone is the largest free port in the Americas and the second-largest in the world. It started operations in 1948 and occupies 600 acres (242 hectares). It is a Special Economic Zone with fiscal benefits for importing and exporting.
In 2017, the government expanded some of the benefits of the Colon Free Trade Zone to Colon City. It is a Special Economic Zone and a Neighborhood Upgrade called Colón Puerto Libre.
City of Knowledge (Ciudad del Saber) was born from the idea of converting some former American military area located in the former Panama Canal Zone into a center for knowledge exchange. It is a Special Economic Zone and Master-Planned Community of 296 acres (120 has.) full of academic organizations, technology companies, and non-governmental organizations run by a non-profit foundation.
Panamá Pacífico is a former United States Air Force Base in the Panama Canal Zone. The government created a Special Economic Zone and a Master-Planned Community as a public-private partnership covering 3,450 acres (1,400 has.) of land. Many multinational corporations have already located in Panama Pacifico, including Samsung, DELL, FedEx, Pepsico, 3M, and Caterpillar, taking advantage of special tax, labor, and legal incentives.
Panama’s Historic District (Casco Viejo) is a Hispanic colonial town where the elite lived. By the 2000’s it was a run-down and insecure neighborhood full of abandoned buildings. The government decided to do a Neighborhood Upgrade by improving the infrastructure and giving tax breaks for development within Casco Viejo. It is one of the most visited places in Panama, and it has the highest price per square meter in the country. I lived there for six years.
Kalu Yala is an eco-village that targets digital nomads and students who take undergraduate courses for accreditation. They are building a new urbanist Master-Planned Community with their strong community.
Selina is a company that has built a network of hostels/hotels that cater to digital nomads. It was founded in Panama and quickly grew around the world with over 60 destinations. Recently they joined Kalu Yala, and you can now book your stay at Selina Kalu Yala.
Ocean Builders is a company experimenting with Seasteading based in Linton Bay Marina, a Master-Planned Community in Colón. They are pushing forward the Seapod, residential pods in the sea, in collaboration with the Seasteading Institute.
The following are essential laws that improve our position as a Startup City:
Law for Multinational Companies (Ley SEM) gives them regulatory benefits, including residence visas to their employees and dependents. Since 2007, it helped attract 175 multinational companies paired with highly educated employees. In 2020 the government added more fiscal incentives to multinationals that did manufacturing.
Law for Free Trade Zones (Ley de Zona Franca) paves the way to create more Special Economic Zones and experimentation with Startup Cities within Panama’s territory. There are 10 active free trade zones and another 10 in development.
Remote Worker Visa: You have to be a remote worker who earns a minimum monthly salary of $3,000 outside of Panama to receive a Visa for 18 months. The government passed this law in May 2021.
Friendly Nations Visa: Fast-track a permanent residency from over 50 friendly nations. You need to own a Panamanian legal entity, “a business,” and temporarily deposit $5,000 into a local bank account. You opt to have Panamanian nationality after 5 years.
Economic Solvency Visa: Invest $300,000 in real estate and/or a Certificate of Deposit in a Panama Bank.
Business Investor Visa: Invest $160,000 in Panama’s stock market.
Reforestation Investor Visa: Invest $80,000 to purchase at least 12 acres (5 has.) of land in a government-certified reforestation project.
Retired or Pensioned Program Visa: Permanent visa for those with over $1,000 in pensions.
Marry a Panama Citizen.
I was born and raised in Panama. Since 2014, I have been pushing the envelope of Panama’s tradition of experimenting with Startup Cities by leading Porta Norte.
I am CEO and Town Founder of Porta Norte, a new-urbanist solarpunk master-planned community of 650 acres (262 has.) located in the city’s northern periphery, just 15 minutes away from the airport. Andrés Duany, the founding father of the new urbanist movement, designed the Master Plan.
Porta Norte has human-scaled urbanism integrated with dense nature and adapted for micro-mobility. It has a network of open, public spaces. We believe social interactions in public spaces are essential to fight the loneliness that remote workers often feel. You can get a clearer vision by reading A day in Porta Norte.
Render of Porta Norta from bird’s eye view
Porta Norte has a unique vision, different from what has been built before in Panama. We are incorporating the best practices from Silicon Valley. My hobby for over a decade is watching interviews and reading blogs from Paul Graham, Elon Musk, Naval Ravikant, Balaji, Sam Altman, and Y-combinator founders.
One example of applying what I have learned is the importance of iterating the product. To increase fidelity and feedback loops, we have a developer in-house whose job to put our construction documents in Virtual Reality. Then we gather feedback from our engineers, architects, clients, etc., to do another iteration. The following is a video of our latest iteration:
Porta Norte in 3D
We build first-world infrastructure with underground utilities, fiber optics, internet in the public areas, cycling lanes, ample sidewalks, tree-lined streets, parks, pedestrian plazas, and much more. It is handicap and pet-friendly. Right now, we are finishing the roads of the first phase.
My most important job is to create a virtuous ecosystem of prosperity by attracting residents, companies, and institutions. We incentivize them with an excellent urban product and private subsidies for anchor tenants like universities, schools, sports centers, hospitals, etc.
After writing this post, I am committed to studying what laws we can use for our advantage as a Startup City and push the idea of making Porta Norte a Free Trade Zone. This is another step towards organizing the economy around remote work.
In Panama, we need to embrace our history of Startup City and continue experimenting towards an optimist and definite future. We must react to worldwide trends like remote work and crypto to position Panama as THE next place.
Please let me know how to do a better job attracting remote workers, companies, and great institutions to Panama and Porta Norte. How can I help?
Read more from the other 9 winners of the contest detailed on1729.com/miami:
A lever is a tool used to increase power with low effort. Using a physical lever, you can easily lift things that weigh much more than you —like a car— with minimal effort.
Leverage is the use of tools for your maximum advantage. It can multiply the outcomes from your effort, skill, and judgment. Leverage can help you achieve your life goals like financial independence, creating a movement, or a massive business with fewer competitors.
Archimedes, the most famous mathematician and inventor in ancient Greece, once said:
“Give me a place to stand and a lever long enough, and I will move the world.”
Archimedes lever, from Mechanics Magazine, published in London in 1824
A bicycle is a form of leverage for movement; you can move much farther and faster with it. In this video of Steve Jobs, he explains a study of the world’s species and their ability to move from one place to another. In the study, humans ended up in the bottom half, but if you gave them a bicycle, they ended up #1 in the world. He uses this example to explain: “For me, computers have always been a bicycle for the mind. Something that takes us far beyond our inherent abilities.” Computers are a form of leverage for the mind.
Now let’s detail the types of business leverages in chronological order.
Labor: It means other people working for you. Labor is the predominant form of leverage since the dawn of man.
Arguably labor leverage is the worst form of leverage. Managing other people is incredibly messy because it requires tremendous leadership skills, and it is hugely competed over.
You want the minimum number of people with the highest output, working with you to use the following forms of leverage that are more powerful and interesting.
Money: It means using money to work for you. It has been around for only thousands of years, so society understands them less well than labor.
This leverage converts to other types of leverage. It scales very well; if you can manage money well, you can handle more money better than manage more labor. It is an excellent form of leverage, but it is hard to obtain because you need to build up a reputation first.
Money has been the predominant leverage for wealth creation in the last century. Those who control the infrastructure of money have benefitted the most.
Products with no marginal costs of replication —media and code— are the newest forms of leverage.
Naval Ravikant
Media: It got started with the printing press, and then it grew stronger with broadcast media. Now the internet and code had made this leverage explode.
Media means using the internet to spread content through social media, books, blogs, podcasts, or videos to gain influence and power.
A couple of hundreds ago, to spread a message by voice, you had to give a lecture at a University, now you can buy a cheap microphone, a computer and reach millions of people through the internet.
Code: It means programming and using computers to create products and services.
We have an army of robots at our disposal on the internet; we need to learn how to use them. Hence the importance of learning to code to speak their language.
Media and code help create the new fortunes of the world. They are permissionless; you can do it by yourself without the approval of anyone. They even enable labor and money to be more permissionless with the rise of communities and crowdfunding.
The older the leverage, the more time society has had to learn it, thus higher the competition —which you want to avoid. This is why it is essential to invest in the newer ones —digital leverage.
Jack Butcher’s Diagram of Digital Leverage
Pick Business Models with Network Effects
When choosing a business model, you should be aware of leverage that arises from network effects.
A network effect is when each additional user adds value to the existing user base. Network effects come from computer networking. Bob Metcalfe, who created the ethernet, famously coined Metcalfe’s Law: the value of a network is proportional to the square of the system’s number of connected users. If a network of size 10 has a value of 1,000, then a network of 100 would have a value of 10,000.
Diagram of Metcalfe’s Law
The classic example of network effects is language. Let’s say that there are 100 people in a community. There are 10 languages and 10 speakers per language. Now the community has to incur the cost of translation. If all 100 spoke the same language, it would reduce friction and eliminate the translation cost, thus facilitating value creation.
Let’s say one of those languages is English, and 1 additional person learns English. Now 11 people know English. The next person who wants to learn a new language will probably choose English —the most used language. Then this reason becomes stronger, and eventually, the majority end up speaking English, and the rest of the language will vanish slowly. The network effect is why the whole world will probably speak English or Chinese in the long term —at least as a second language.
The internet is a significant lever, and people who want to communicate on the internet are forced to learn English because it is the most used language. If you don’t know English, you will have a severe disadvantage in your education because there are so many internet resources that have not been translated. On top of that, translations are usually worse than in the original language. If you want to be technically competent in computers, you need to know English because it is the language of the best sources.
In business, network effects often have scale economies: the more you produce something, the cheaper it gets to make it, thus increasing margins, creating barriers to entry and monopolies. An example of scale economics can be Google, which has the biggest market for search and a monopoly.
Technology and media products have zero marginal cost of reproduction: additional consumers add no additional costs. For example, a famous podcaster can have 100 million more listeners without any additional costs.
When thinking about businesses, think about how each additional customer could add value to each other. Pick a business model where you benefit from network effects, scale economies, and low marginal costs.
From Laborer to Real Estate Tech Startup
Now let’s go concrete. The following are examples of how leverage increases in the real estate industry:
Laborer: Someone orders them around in a construction site to carry things around. A laborer with more leverage uses tools like a bulldozer to gain more power and get paid more.
General Contractor: They hire and coordinate a team of laborers. They are accountable to the results, thus having more risk if things go wrong but a higher reward than laborers if things go right.
Property Developer: This might be a general contractor who did a bunch of remodeling, and now they search for run-down places to fix and sell them. They might even raise money from investors. To do this, they need more skills like understanding markets, neighborhoods, government approvals, and more.
Famous Developer or Architect: They gain a reputation for doing great projects, and that by itself increases the value of a project without much additional effort.
Urban Real Estate Developer: They build entire master-planned communities like Porta Norte. They need to understand, construction, infrastructure, greenfield development, earth movement, urbanism, market dynamics, marketing, politics, financing, management, architecture, and a bunch of other skills.
Real Estate Fund: They invest in property developers, real estate developers, hotels, malls, etc. They understand the financial markets, raising money, corporate governance, and real estate. They may not want to manage workers or operate a project.
Real Estate Technology Startup (aka proptech): They understand real estate, the industry’s inefficiencies, technology, how to recruit developers, write code, build the right product, and raise money from Venture Capitalists. A proptech would combine all types of leverages:
Labor of the highest output: computer engineers, product managers, and designers.
Money from venture capitalists and their own.
Media using the internet for distribution.
Code to create software.
This venture is a very high risk, high reward that could end up with hundreds of millions or billions of dollars and an IPO.
Develop Leverage
If you want to be more effective, then you must arm yourself with leverage. Your impact becomes bigger by combining all types of leverages aligned towards a vision.
Ask yourself: Am I skilled in the newer types of leverages? What are my strengths in every kind of leverage? What is my rate in each leverage? Rate them from 1 to 10. Ask the people who know you best how they would rate you in each type of leverage. What came out of my exercise is the following:
It is much easier for me to improve 2 points in code or media rather than 2 points in labor, and it will help me improve my abilities to use newer and less competed types of leverage. I invite you to do this simple exercise.
Reflect on what type of leverage you need in your life. Right now, it is more important for me to learn about media leverage; that is why I have invested in my communication skills by creating my podcast, YouTube channel, and blog. I lead a project that benefits the most from this type of leverage. If I wanted to start a proptech startup or invest in them, I would invest in code leverage.
Make sure you pay attention to the most useful leverage for you right now and create a roadmap.
Learn about leverage to allocate time, money and effort well. It will help you be more effective, recognize trends and how things grow big. As Charlie Munger once said:
“What helps everyone is to get in something that’s going up, and it just carries you along without much talent or work.“
The book, Developing: My Life is about the life of real estate developer William “Bill” Zeckendorf Jr. He was a pioneer who helped revitalize neighborhoods in New York and Santa Fe, New Mexico.
He developed many New York projects until 1987, when the stock market crashed and left him in a terrible financial situation. After that, he moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he continued real estate development. In Santa Fe, he was involved in community affairs with universities, hospitals, performing arts, and more.
Bill’s strength and focus was in structuring the project, which means envisioning a project, buying the land, choosing an architect, securing financing, hiring contractors, and placing a team that would follow through.
This book talks a lot about generations. His father, William Zeckendor Sr. was one of the biggest and most famous developers in the United States. His two sons have a billion-dollar real estate development business. His grandchildren are almost all involved in real estate.
Real estate development is a craft where the most common path to get in is by apprenticeships through family businesses. It is tough to get into the business because you need a lot of capital, expertise, and connections.
Development is slow, and having many projects under your belt might take decades. This book helps you identify some patterns and learn from someone who was once the most active developer in New York—one of the world’s most sophisticated markets. I recommend this book to people who want to improve their judgment on real estate development or better understand how cities get built.
Bill’s life story is full of warning tales. It demonstrates how someone so knowledgeable in real estate can make small fortunes in many projects but lose their shirt when a deal goes sour or when the market dries up. In the last chapter, “Summing Up,” Bill opened up on what happened to him and his father, explaining the concept of “developer’s disease.”
“After suffering with my father through the demise of his company and personal bankruptcy, I was determined never to let that happen to me. Still, many years later, I, too, succumbed to what ultimately took him down. I call it developer’s disease.
Developer’s disease is a rare but highly contagious condition that afflicts certain developers. They hire the best architects. Their projects are the most admired. They’re financially very successful. They start with one project at a time. Then one project grows into another and another until they have many projects—some would say too many—underway. They begin to take on the most difficult projects, not just to put up buildings but remaking whole neighborhoods. Their goal is no longer making money; it’s being a savior. And they are treated royally for their pains. Based on their sterling records, financial institutions rush to provide money, and investors clamor to partner on their projects. And then, just as these developers are riding high, invincible, a deal goes sour or the market turns, and their luck runs out. Developer’s disease mows them down.
That’s pretty much what happened to me. After a cautious start in the 1970s, by the middle of the 1980s, I was the busiest developer in New York City, with a full plate of deals in progress and a full-blown, if undiagnosed, case of developer’s disease…
…Were I to make my career over, I might undertake fewer projects, juggle fewer balls, and steer clear of personal guarantees. But I wouldn’t for a second choose another field. I can’t think of anything more challenging, more satisfying, more frustrating, and more fun than real estate development.”
Favorite quotes:
“Bill would chase a deal, secure financing, and then pore over the plans with the architect. But as soon as the first shovel hit the ground, he moved on to the next deal.”
“One of the challenges in a renovation is something most people don’t think about: you have little control over the construction workers. When a new building goes up, construction proceeds in an orderly fashion, floor by floor. The floors’ sides remain open, so you can readily see who’s doing what, and where and when. But in renovations, workers are hard to track; they are all over the building at any given time. We found that some of them were hiding in rooms, literally sleeping on the job.”
“These things happen: projects that look good on paper for one reason or another don’t pan out.”
“Big is key for turning around a decaying neighborhood. A small building won’t change anything; the infusion of high-quality new apartments must be sufficient to upgrade the available housing stock.”
“As a further amenity—one not offered before in a New York apartment building—the one and two-bedroom units were laid out so they could be combined easily into larger apartments. This provided to be an effective marketing tool, and designing interiors so the apartments could be readily joined became a Zeckendorf trademark.”
“For me, the thrill of developing was not in watching a building go up: I seldom spent any time on job sites, leaving construction supervision to my project managers. My passion was putting together the deal. I loved every aspect of it: finding a property, assembling a site, securing financing, hiring an architect, and working on the plans. Once we broke ground, I was happy to turn over day-to-day supervision, only stepping back in if a problem arose or we needed more financing.”
“Most developers like to hold on to commercial buildings, leasing out the office space as an ongoing source of income. However, I didn’t want to be a landlord any more than I wanted to be a hotelier and preferred the business model of our residential condos: sell off the individual units as quickly as possible and get out.”
“With apartment sizes ranging from studios to two bedrooms, the Vanderbilt was aimed at younger buyers. To attract this market, we put in a state-of-the-art health club with a swimming pool, sauna, and basketball and squash courts.”
“Building apartments near a hospital center is good for business: doctors welcome the convenience, and buyers find it reassuring to have a top-flight medical care close at hand.”
“Big projects take more time and money and involve more parties. All of that ups the ante. In executing the four biggest projects of my career, I discovered the many ways a project could go right—or horribly wrong.”
“The terms were stiff, however, and we had to make personal guarantees on the loan. I always tried to avoid personal guarantees: if you put up personal assets as collateral and the project runs into trouble, you risk losing your assets.”
“Negative opinions come with the territory: developers automatically get a bad rap because what we do inevitably means change.”
“A complicated project can easily take ten or more years to come to fruition, exposing the developer to uncontrollable changes in market conditions.”
“The key to a successful assemblage is to keep your intentions quiet. You don’t want to tip your hand and have other developers swoop in and tie up parcels you’re after. Nor do you want the owners of the lots to jack up the prices, or rent-controlled tenants to stick you up for exorbitant relocation fees.”
“And we were a full-service organization, not merely developing our own properties as a managing partner with equity but also offering our expertise as project managers.”
“Between New York and Santa Fe, I had more than a dozen projects in the works when the stock market crashed in 1987. I was leveraged to the hilt, and it was only a matter of time before I ran aground.”
“Unless a developer has very deep pockets or a large portfolio of properties, leverage is the only way to finance a deal. I seldom financed a project alone. Having multiple partners allowed me to share the risk, but also meant sharing the returns. And often, it meant taking my money out to invest it in my next venture before I could reap the profits.”
“Inevitably, if a project is going to make a big impact on a community, somebody is bound to oppose it.”
“I learned a long time ago not to assume that anything is impossible.”
“And while my father and I usually had half a dozen or more projects underway simultaneously, my sons concentrate on one or two buildings at a time.”
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Aaron Swartz (1986 – 2013) was a thinker, writer, programmer, entrepreneur, and hacktivist who helped shape the internet. Check out his accomplishments in Wikipedia. Aaron embodied the hacker mentality—fix everything.
A month ago, Aaron’s mother made this tweet remembering him. Someone replied with one of Aaron’s blog posts called: HOWTO: Be more productive. I was curious, so I read it. It was deep and insightful. I started to learn more, and then I went deep into the rabbit hole.
Since then, I have read over 40 of his blog posts, watched some of his YouTube videos, discovered new books, ideas, and developed new habits.
Aaron explains the reason of being of his blog. For him, writing is a tool to shape yourself as an intellectual craftsman and develop your communication skills. His blog is about capturing experience and using them for reflection. It is also an opportunity of developing unconventional thoughts.
“…becoming a scientific thinker requires practice and writing is a powerful aid to reflection. So that’s what this blog is. I write here about thoughts I have, things I’m working on, stuff I’ve read, the experiences I’ve had, and so on…I don’t consider this writing, I consider this thinking… fundamentally, this blog is not for you, it’s for me. I hope that you enjoy it anyway.”
He goes into the philosophy of A Mathematician’s Apology, where the basic premise is to do what you are good at. Aaron finds himself in a paradox because he is a great programmer, but he prefers to be a ‘mediocre’ writer.
“And writing code, although it can be enjoyable, is hardly something I want to spend my life doing. Perhaps, I fear, this decision deprives society of one great programmer in favor of one mediocre writer. And let’s not hide behind the cloak of uncertainty, let’s say we know that it does. Even so, I would make it. The writing is too important, the programming too unenjoyable.”
“…not simply accept things as they are but to want to think about them, to understand them. To not be content to simply feel sad but to ask what sadness means. To not just get a bus pass but to think about the economic reasons getting a bus pass makes sense. I call this tendency the intellectual.”
“Language is the medium of thought, and so it’s no surprise that someone who spends a lot of time thinking spends a lot of time thinking about how to communicate their thoughts as well. And indeed, all the intellectuals that come to mind write, not because they have to or get paid to, but simply for its own sake. What good is thinking if you can’t share?”
I love to understand how stuff works and share it with people. My internet experiments make it evident I am always trying to communicate better.
A couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine was trying to describe me. He said I was a “cool geek”; because I studied a lot and was good with people. I understood what he was trying to say, and I felt proud. Now, because of this blog post, I can suggest a better description, an intellectual. The funny thing is that word ‘intelectual’ is not used in Spanish. We should dust off that word and make it aspirational.
He explains Carol Dweck’s study about children with fixed mindset vs. growth mindset and how it can be transformed. This transformation is the essence of his series Raw Nerve. A good habit is to see ourselves objectively and find new areas where we have a fixed mindset so we can transform it.
“I’ve read a hundred books a year for the past couple years. Last time I mentioned this, a couple of people asked how I could read so many books. Do I read unusually quickly? Do I spend an unusual amount of time reading? I did a simple calculation: The average person spends 1704 hours a year watching TV. If the average reading rate is 250 words per minute and the average book is 180,000 words, then that’s 142 books a year. To my surprise, I wasn’t reading nearly enough books. So I’ve taken some steps to read more:”
You can find his top recommendations in his Book Reviews. Unfortunately, the reviews are full of broken links. An example of what you will find in his compilation of yearly book reviews:
This book touched me deeply and made me rethink the entire way I approached life; it’s about vastly more than just tennis. I can’t really describe it, but I can recommend this video with Alan Kay and the author that will blow your mind.
It is about hacking the process of learning. Please, do yourself a favor and watch the video in the link above (repeated here). It blew my mind.
I will try to read the books he loved the most so I can Stand on the Shoulder of Giants.
Something I learned from his reviews was to pay attention to the writing skills of the author. I must write more to fine-tune my calibration.
I share many interests with Aaron. But, one that surprised me was his interest in urbanism. He read many books on it. Robert Caro wrote one of his favorite nonfiction book, The Power Broker. It is the biography of Robert Moses, a public official who promoted car-dependent growth in New York.
Aaron liked walkable urbanism. He said so throughout many essays. One example:
“All the apartments seemed to be on the floor above the normal street life; the two deeply intertwingled; just the way I like it. (See The Death and Life of Great American Cities for more reasons.)”
He is referring to the book of Jane Jacobs. She was one of the most influential people in favor of walkable, mixed-use urbanism in New York.
I also saw his documentary: The Internet’s Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz, which you can find free on YouTube. In it, they interview Aaron’s family, his girlfriends, his lawyer, and they show snippets of Aaron’s videos. Late in the documentary, they talk about his “crime” of downloading millions of scientific journals. Jail time was inevitable—the pressure was overwhelming—so he committed suicide. When this subject came on the documentary, the creator of the World Wide Web said:
Aaron is dead. Wanderers in this crazy world, we have lost a mentor, a wise elder. Hackers for right, we are one down, we have lost one of our own. Nurturers, carers, listeners, feeders, parents all, we have lost a child. Let us all weep.
– Tim Berners-Lee
When Tim was three sentences in, I shed tears. I got up, went into the bathroom, looked at myself in the mirror, and sobbed for a while. I pulled myself together and went back to the couch. I continued. Two seconds in, Tim finished with let us all weep, I started crying convulsively.
I met Aaron Swartz 7 years after his death, and I feel like I lost a close friend. I am in shock at how I could develop such an emotional connection. That is the power of good, authentic writing.
He makes me want to be a better person. After learning about him I am hopeful and sad. Hopeful because there must be many people like him around. Sad because I have a few relationships with people like him.
His blog and style struck a chord. They are nonfiction, clearly written, few paragraphs, and focused on insights he has learned about life. It is an inspiration for my blog.
How can someone be so wise from such a young age? How can we create more people like that? What else would he have done?
Lawrence Lessing, his friend, and mentor tells us what he valued professionally: a corrupt-free government. The following is a quote from this interview:
Aaron trapped me into giving up my work on internet law and copyright policy to take up work on political corruption. He came to me and said, “I don’t think you’re going to make any real progress on what you’re doing while there is still deep corruption in the way the government works.” At first, I tried to push him off. I said, “Aaron, it’s not my field as an academic.” Then he said, “Is it your field as a citizen?”
LawrenceLessig
Let us follow his legacy and make the world a better place.
If you are interested in reading more, I recommend reading his blog. Start with The Archives.
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You have a new body and mind. Identityless. You possess the skill to learn and experiment rapidly. Your basic needs are covered. How should you act? After some confusion, you ask the fundamentally important question.
What is the purpose of life?
Expand consciousness and increase energy.
To pursue this journey, you must learn about:
Skills
habits
evolution
awareness
technology
the environment
the mind & body
the micro & macro
commerce, art & science
the past, present & future.
Next steps:
Learn how to learn.
Study the 3 best fundamental books on what you wish to learn about.
At the end of a two week family trip to India, I made this video. I asked Varinder Singh, our tour guide about the most valuable message worth spreading.
Varinder is a college professor of history in India. He has a degree in meditation and the science of living. Here is the secret sauce of how to spread peace and happiness in our society.
Henry / Varinder
Can you tell me about yoga and meditation, your personal practice, and how it has impacted India?
Most people believe that yoga is just 1 thing, but we divide it into 3 parts.
The 1st is physical exercise. You do different postures while standing, lying, and sitting.
The 2nd is breathing exercises. According to Indian people, breathing exercises are more important than physical activities. Breathing exercises make us strong inside our bodies. We increase energy, and we believe that our body regenerates dead cells. We have millions of cells that are dead, and this is a chance to create new cells. There are 5 or 6 forms of breathing exercises.
The 3rd is meditation. Meditation is when you sit silently and concentrate your mind. When you start your practice, you can meditate for brief periods and expand those periods with constant practice. Meditation means absolutely no ideas or thoughts can come in your mind. It is the space between thoughts.
When you meditate, you will see stars and bright colors with your eyes closed. This means you are meditating. If this does not happen, you are not.
When you have advanced your practice, you will find a circle in front of your eyes. At the initial stages, the circle will be tiny. It will not be a 360 degrees circle. When this circle appears fully, that means you are going towards 100% meditation.
Sometimes when you are approaching full meditation, your eyes do rapid blinking. If you do not open your eyes, that means you are continuing the meditation. If you open your eyes, that means again you have to start again. This is a slight disturbance in your meditation. This is one kind of interference. When you feel this one, open your eyes and try again to meditate.
Everybody happy singing and dancing
Around 75% of India’s society does yoga. How has this impacted India?
I will give credit to our culture, religion, literature, traditions, and our family system. This has been our tradition for 4,000 years.
We live in an extended family system. People of different ages live in the same house and learn from they learn from their parents or grandparents. They teach us from childhood how to perform the various practices and exercises of yoga and meditation.
Most people have the concept that only rich people do yoga and meditation, but I do not agree. Poor or middle-class people do more yoga and meditation in comparison to high-class society. Why is that? High-class people are more busy multiplying their money. They have a materialistic lifestyle.
On the other hand, poor and middle-class people, even though they have limited resources, have a lot of time and are happy. They are satisfied with those limited resources, and with their time, they can do more yoga and meditation.
It is also related to health and medicine. Most people believe that if they do not do yoga and meditation, our body will be affected by some disease. When we are concerned, we go to doctors, and it is costly. Being hospitalized is expensive. Yoga and meditation help you balance your blood pressure, nervous system, digestive system, heartbeat, and metabolism.
How can other countries achieve similar results?
For a new country, I would say the media and, most importantly, classes in school. That will be the most effective because young boys and girls will learn in school and eventually teach their parents.
The government can also start awareness programs. The education department should take the initiative to introduce this in schools.
Has the government helped to make it widespread?
Oh yes. In most schools, you will find a yoga instructor. Every day there are 1 or 2 periods were students do yoga and meditation. There are many Non-Governmental Organizations too.
Gurus are also responsible. These gurus spread the message of yoga and meditation mainly through their ashrams.
You told me there was a television channel focused on yoga?
We have several channels. These channels invite many yoga instructors, so they have a chance to talk directly to the people through media. They talk about the benefits of yoga and meditation. This is how yoga is trendy in India.
Thank you for teaching me this. This journey was a fantastic experience.
Your welcome. Thanks. 🙏
P.D.: This is also a call to yogis, helping with the creation of this culture in Porta Norte. Let’s unite. 💪
Henry: Welcome, Stefanos. It is great to work with you in Panama again.
Stefanos: It’s always great to work with you and your excellent team. Let me start by saying that you have an exceptional Master Plan, designed by Duany Plater-Zyberk (DPZ).
Why is Panama City built for cars and not for people?
The car had massive adoption in the 1920s, and that started the modernist movement. That is why modernist principles are car-scaled, not human-scaled. Those principles were born in the International Congress of Modern Architecture (CIAM).
Panama imported sprawl from architecture firms in Miami. Thus, it introduces the urbanism of Miami, which is the most car-dependent urbanism in the United States. Panamanian leaders — even though they studied in great universities — have copied the wrong ideas. They have built a “modern” city that is comfortable for cars, but uncomfortable for people.
Sprawl in Miami
They have also built modernist buildings that look the same anywhere on Earth. They don’t respond to climate and disregard local culture. They have the same cold glass façade in the arctic, desert, and the tropics.
Old modernist buildings don’t age well. In some ways, that is why their price per square meter is much lower than those of Casco Viejo. Despite all this evidence, the majority of architecture schools still teach these ideas.
On the other hand, you have traditional towns responding to climate, culture, and public needs. The human race has built beautiful cities for thousands of years, with fewer resources. We must learn from them and continue the evolution process. Later, I will show you how.
What should be the inspiration for Porta Norte and Panama?
Humans understand that traditional urbanism works. Our ancestors have left us a rich legacy. We must learn from our past and use that information to create better places.
People love traditional urbanism. That is one reason why France and Spain are the most visited countries on Earth. People like to walk. It is no coincidence that tourists always go to walkable, traditional cities.
One great thing about traditional architecture is its flexibility. It adapts to new needs. For example, residents may use the same ground floor as a home, a shop to sell cookies, or an office to start a new business. Buildings evolve with people.
For inspiration, you must study the architectural DNA of Panama. By DNA, I mean the history of pre-car cities. You can explore Sevilla, Cartagena de Indias, and Casco Viejo.
Let’s talk about each one.
In Sevilla, you can learn from the roots of Hispanic architecture in Spain’s warmer climates. Most of the ships that came to Panama started their journey from Sevilla. Sevilla’s architectural language influenced Casco Viejo; that is why they are similar in style. You can go to other beautiful cities of Andalucia like Málaga, Granada or Córdoba. Also, study different epochs in architecture like colonial, medieval, renaissance, or baroque.
Sevilla
Cartagena de Indias is a majestic city where you can learn a lot. Let’s not forget that Panama originally was a forgotten province of Colombia, so it did not have a sophisticated architecture. Study it. It is only one hour away by plane. You will find a much wider variety of architecture with a tropical climate.
Cartagena de Indias
Casco Viejo is small but beautiful and has the most abundant legacy of traditional architecture in Panamá. It was forgotten for decades and was on the verge of demolition. In a way, this was good because people living there had no money to demolish buildings or renovate them into modernism. It bought time to put in place rules for preservation. Renovations for all public spaces and most buildings are finished. The change is so dramatic that it has the most expensive real estate in the city. It has started a revolution in real estate.
Casco Viejo
In Porta Norte, you should use Casco Viejo as your main source of inspiration. You are adopting the slogan “El Nuevo Casco Viejo”. That is brilliant because you are learning from the best of the past to produce a better future.
Porta Norte
Go to these places and study their squares, streets, buildings, construction techniques, etc. After that, you will have a much richer vocabulary and a more sophisticated language.
Something I enjoy is that Porta Norte is that it is a direct response to a classic new urbanism question:
If Casco Viejo works and has the highest real estate values in Panama, why not build more?
What advice would you give architects?
Edward McGrath and Stefanos Polyzoides
The purpose of listening to Mozart is not about glorifying him but celebrating the human race. When you hear the 9th symphony, do you say, “oh my God, Beethoven was a genius?” No. The first thing you do is take a deep breath and think, “my God, how could I be a human being and not know this?” It elevates the culture.
It’s the same thing in architecture. I help create a building or a neighborhood, but I’m going to die in 20 years. I will leave behind a great legacy for humanity. We do this for our fellow humans, descendants, and other people who live 50 years from now. Everybody needs to understand themselves as being part of a grand obstacle race.
The second thing is that architecture is not independent of its setting. It is about responding to the context of a larger urban whole, whether it’s a neighborhood, a district, or a block. You need to understand architecture in the context of a block and the space between them. Architecture is dependent as opposed to independent of the world around it.
If you understand a city block, you will never design the façade and the back the same. You will know that buildings define public spaces.
You need to study how older buildings have responded to nature by making them comfortable in cold, warm, dry, or humid climate.
If you understand that architecture is dependent, then you can look at the Casco Viejo and say, “What am I learning here that’s special?”
How do you design traditional architecture?
The wrong, superficial, and quickest way of doing it is to copy a style like Mediterranean or French. This technique may succeed in the hand of a brilliant architect, but it often looks fake.
Let’s go over the order of decisions to design a building:
Define the type: Know whether it is housing, offices, retail, a combination, etc. Let’s say it is a housing project.
Study the context: Analyze the climate, fauna, flora, and what is going on around the lot. Use the topography as an advantage for parking, or to create views.
Locate the parking: Parking is the first constraint. You need to hide the parking well. Try to put it on the lower side of the lot to reduce excavation.
Locate the façade: It should be next to the main public space, such as a street, a plaza, or a park. The outer walls should follow the property line in a way that defines the street. You must be aware of the inside and the outside at all times.
Define the shape: The building may vary in stories within the lot. Make the building increase in height if there are views.
Revise private and public space: Make the buildings accessible from the outside. They should react to corners. When you follow the property line, it will be easy to form courtyards on the inside.
Choose a style: After all this, now we are ready to give this building a style. You should have inspiration from local traditional architecture, so the style reacts to the local climate.
Refining the Plan
After you design this building, you can use it as a model to design other lots.
When you walk around Casco Viejo, you must study the decisions made for each lot. You will begin to see patterns. You will learn that buildings are human-scaled and that their shape reacts to public spaces and nature.
It all ties together in a language that is derivative of the culture and climate. You’re not repeating Casco Viejo. You’re getting inspiration and interpreting it to transform it into new designs. It is about the evolution of language.
We can enhance our language by studying towns, buildings, and construction techniques of the past. Architects must see themselves as being part of the local language. The language of Casco Viejo is not the end of the Hispanic architecture.
Now, let’s be specific.
You need to observe how walls, columns, and rooms are logical components that emerge from the human body to provide function, comfort, and beauty.
Traditional buildings in the tropics have overhangs and balconies to protect pedestrians from the rain while giving outdoor space to residents.
Balconies of Casco Viejo
One example is the windows. The height in windows is equal to the length between your waist and your raised hands. This way, you can call someone by waving your hands and hinge your upper body outside.
To show you what I mean, look at Mediterranean roof clay tiles. They were formed around a log or the maker’s thigh, resulting in their semi-cylindrical shape.
Materials are locally sourced to ease maintenance. Materials have a manageable size so that one person may build or fix anything.
We, as a society, have forgotten how to build this way. We must relearn this art.
What is the role of public spaces?
Public spaces let people get together and advance their culture. There are two kinds: natural and human-made public spaces.
Natural public spaces are rivers, mountains, greenways, etc. It is where wildlife thrives. It is for connecting with nature in its raw state. They are places where humans can reset by hiking or just contemplating nature.
Riverwalk, Porta Norte
Human-made public spaces are plazas, parks, squares, etc. It is where humans get together; they are the living room of the community. In them, they can do art, music, festivals, play, and be more active in civic society.
Plaza de los Fundadores, Porta Norte
In Panama, Casco Viejo has the most human-made public spaces. It is no coincidence it has the most vigorous culture in Panama. Public spaces lead to the evolution of culture within a community.
Right now, there are crimes against humanity on the edges of Panama City. Developers are clearing forests to build suburbs without public spaces. They are building car-oriented developments with parking in the front of buildings. In those suburbs, people will have no room for interaction or connecting with nature. Their residents will end up with an unhealthy lifestyle, a weak sense of belonging, and a dull culture.
In Porta Norte, you have a beautiful forest. Due to heavy rainfalls, you will end up developing around half of it. You also have many pedestrian plazas. The best of all is that you connect them to form a network of public spaces.
You have a high quality of natural and human-made public spaces. These public spaces, combined with dense urbanism, create a vibrant place. Porta Norte is the kind of urbanism that should be at the heart of the new urbanism.
What is your advice to Porta Norte?
You have a remarkable master plan, leadership, and guidance. You work hard to build this place and are also pursuing this at personal economic risk — so you have skin in the game. So I am confident it will succeed.
One of the crucial questions to address is: how to avoid mistakes?
Your most important task at this stage is assembling great people to contribute. Get developers who understand that it is not about them in the short term, but about them and others in the medium and long term. Ensure that architects get inspiration from the places we talked about and make them read the Code of Porta Norte.
Everybody must understand that the first steps are the most important ones. If you do it wrong, people will come to Porta Norte and say, “Is this what they meant?” And not like it. If you do it right, you will have an urbanism people love, gain ambassadors, and the development will speed up.
One promising thing is that Porta Norte is in the middle of a developed part of the city. It has significant people around it and a major highway going next to it. That means you can have a mixed-use pedestrian town center built there.
Designing Market Plaza Porta Norte
You must also build a school in the beginning. Between the mixed-use town center and the school, you will have two anchors of attraction. With this, it will be much easier to convince people that there’s life here, and they should be part of it.
It is difficult to build these many buildings well from the start because it is Panama’s first time. I am here to help you with this.
You need a lot of guidance in the first phase, less on the second, and in the third one, you are by yourselves. It is like learning how to bicycle. You get extra wheels, and somebody helps you climb it and ride with you. Then you ride alone and take off the wheels. After some time, you ride to school by yourself. I am here to help everyone become the authority they need to be to get this right.
What is the future of Panama, and how does Porta Norte fit in it?
Projects like Porta Norte will redefine living in tropical cities and refine citizens’ desires. It will enable an active civic life and a healthier relationship with the environment.
I have worked in Panama for over a decade, and I know at least six new urbanist projects. Together, they are inspiring more walkable real estate developments.
It is depressing to live in a world that does not know how to build well. Gladly, humans have recognized their mistake and are changing cities from cars to people. It is hard to think beyond our lifetime, but these changes are slow and may take over 100 years.
Panama City’s car-oriented growth made the city chaotic. We are here in the middle of the city with a horrible view of the “modern” city, dreaming of a romantic traditional town.
Porta Norte is an integral part of the expansion of the city. Fortunately, the backward modernism movement has not trapped you.
As I have seen in other countries, Porta Norte will awaken the market with its traditional planning. It will excite young people and be very successful.
You have been a great mentor. Thank you.
You can watch the video of the conversation below:
We used to call them our founders, and we honored them by erecting their statues in our town squares. Today we just call them “developers.” — Andrés Duany, Cofounder, and leader of the New Urbanism. The urban planner of Porta Norte.
It is human nature to resist change. When we were cavemen, if something changed in our environment, it may mean death (intruders, animals, etc.). We have evolved to resist change.
Today, real estate development is one of the most tangible ways a society changes, so society tend to resist it.
Real estate developers of the past were called Town Founders. They were the primary protectors of towns from intruders, animals, etc. by building forts, moats, walls, residences, commerce, etc. Interests were aligned, hence the excellent reputation of “Town Founders”.
So, continuing our survival patterns of resisting change without the added incentive of our survival (we don’t have our life at stake anymore), society tends to resist new developments. For example, you live in a house in a low-density area. If a developer wants to build a high rise, the community will fight them. The residents do not want the added traffic, construction noise, pollution, and the workers for two years in their neighborhood. The developer wants his project built. Short-term interests are opposed. We tend to think lowly of people who degrade our quality of life, hence the bad reputation of “greedy developers”.
The long-term interests of the neighborhood and real estate developers are aligned. Increased density makes us less reliant on the car by making it feasible for new businesses to survive. Increased demand leads to more products and services offered nearby.
The job of our modern-day Town Founders, real estate developers, is not to protect our lives anymore but to create a vibrant town were economic life, health, community, and cultural life thrives. If developers do not provide any of these, by all means, resist!
If you think someone is doing an excellent job of founding a town or improving our cities, help or join them. 😉
Learning to use your computer better is a high leverage task that almost no one does. When we learn how to use our computers better, we save time. Computer programs give you actual real-world superpowers where you can do analysis, calculations, and exploration.
Let’s say you trained 1 hour a day on how to use programs like Gmail, photoshop, google earth, excel, Wix, Salesforce, QuickBooks, etc. better. Let’s estimate this hour saves you 1 minute of work per day for the rest of your life through automating processes or making you more agile using programs. It also makes you more productive. If you restrict your computer to work days, then you use your computer around 240 days per year, which gives you 240 minutes saved per year, which translates to 6 hours of work saved.
Every hour invested in training saves 6 hours of work within the next year.
Sometimes the result of the training might be zero minutes saved, but other times it may be 30 minutes saved or more. Every day you train, you learn how to learn a computer program better, so minutes saved per day or productivity should increase. The lower boundary of minutes saved per year is 0, and the upper limit is extremely high and growing.
What other tasks are as high leverage? Please, enlighten me.
