40. The Future of Cities & Blockchain: Babak Talks Solana Economic Zones
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A narrative of changing the world's perspective that crypto can generally be such a real world value add in terms of creating such better systems, not just even financial, but just so many other ways. I think it's something that we all need to kind of work on. And that's also one of our founding principles as Forma is to try to get the priority to be also on things that boost and drive economic development, prosperity and real world society, not just the crypto bros that are know, de-genning, everyone got love for those guys and there's a place in for them, but the world is a much bigger place. There's 99 % more people in the world, right?
Mizter Rad (00:54.114)
Hello beautiful humans. In today's episode of the Mr. Rad Show, we dive into a fascinating conversation about the future of cities and money. You know how sometimes your favorite app needs an update to work better? Well, my guest today, Babak, is doing something similar, but with entire cities. Imagine a city where your money doesn't lose value every day, where starting a business is as easy as downloading an app and where your skills matter more than your passport. That's what Babak and his team at Forma are building with their Solana Economic Zones, and they're starting in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I want you to think of it like creating a mini economy inside of a city, but in this case, using blockchain technology. It's kind of like having a special neighborhood where the future is already happening.where digital money, smart contracts, and new ways of working come together to make life better for everyone, and not only for the crypto experts. But here's what I love the most about this conversation. While Babak is building these futuristic zones, he deeply cares about making sure regular people benefit too. No fancy tech bubbles here, just real solutions for real problems. So if you're curious about how cities might work in
2074 or if you've ever wondered what happens when blockchain meets urban planning, this episode is right for you. Let's dive in people. Babak, how are you?
Babak (01:14)
Thank you very much, very much. Great to see you.
Mizter Rad (01:18)
That's amazing. For our listeners, I just asked Babak, how is it going, or how are you, in Farsi, because I know Babak has a Persian background. And I think it's important to remember where we come from, even when we are building the future. So Babak, before we get into the complex nitty gritty stuff, can you explain to imagine from the 50s, from the 40s,
Babak (01:35)
You know?
Mizter Rad (01:47)
almost checking out of this reality, of this dimension. And I want you to explain to what is the Solana Economic Zone, like super simple.
Babak (02:02)
in the simplest way, simplest way. So yeah, I'll give it a stab. So I think what we are trying to do and what Solana Economic Zones hope to be is to be the best place for people that are trying to.
you know, build their futures for it to be the best place for them to work and for them to live by creating digital regulatory and physical systems and cultural communities that let them do their best work and live their best lives. I think that's fundamentally what it is. think obviously is a lot linked to blockchain and, you know, the Solana kind of technology and community, but fundamentally, I think that's the rawest sort of definition of what we're trying to develop around, you know, places around the world.
Mizter Rad (02:46)
Why, if you're developing this in places around the world, why did you start with Argentina? What is it that is special of that place?
Babak (02:56)
Yeah, mean, that's a great question. So my co-founder and I, we had met previously at a company called Buildspace, which was like one of the most exciting and like...
fun places I ever worked in, because I've worked really across education, entrepreneurship, pretty much across the spectrum. for those that know BuildSpace, I won't bore with the lore, but one of the most unique companies in education and the entrepreneurship space, probably for the last decades or so. And we were in the process of speaking with different countries and government entities and evaluating how can we actually build tech entrepreneurship
communities and hubs that are working hand in hand with the government. yeah, and in that process we were speaking to I think about 25, 26 different countries at the time and got to learn a lot about Argentina, a lot of the opportunities, the problems, the history, the deep, deep, beautiful culture and...
Yeah, for me personally, a lot of things particularly resonated like you touched on, know, my Iranian heritage, you know, inflation cripples many economies, you know, there's a lot going on in Turkey. My country has a lot of problems. And, you know, that's just one of those.
fundamental things that you don't have to be an economist to understand that you work your ass off and then a month later, 30 % of what you've done has just disappeared. Yeah, in some situations, some places, it almost happens overnight. And that really burns at people's ability to live, to fight lives and to just move forward. And you almost, of all the injustice that can happen, because we're often an outcome of where
Mizter Rad (04:25)
Overnight, yeah.
Babak (04:43)
were born and the systems and the government that we fall into. That was something that particularly my co-founder and I felt very passionate about. They have not only such a problem that can be solved, and so many people are solving it through things like stablecoins and crypto, not only to save, but also to earn and build on.
You know, they had such high, a lot of crypto adoption, like a very, high percentage of the population compared to the rest of Latin America. And in fact, a lot of the, a lot of leading countries around the world don't have that percentage of penetration. I think people speculate it's between like, I think 15 and 60 % of people like actively use crypto on a week to week basis. It's very hard to get down to real numbers, but it's pretty insane. And there's so much incredible developer talent, so much young talent there.
Mizter Rad (05:26)
Wow. Right. Yeah.
Babak (05:34)
So for us, was almost like a no-brainer. I mean, it's an amazing place to be, an amazing place to live.
and a great place where crypto can have impact. we added a short trip with a few of my team to kind of more deeply understand like everyone from a grandma, small business, all the way up to any kind of institution individual, how could they benefit or how do they use crypto? And yeah, I mean, that stuff was not only eye-opening as someone who cares about economics and people's sustainability, but it's just, it's so universal and so profound that I was like, this is what real world crypto is.
So that's why for us it was the absolute best place we could have picked to start a Solana Economics Zone.
Mizter Rad (06:17)
Okay, so let's stay there in Argentina and Buenos Aires. How does exactly someone in the city of Buenos Aires benefit from the Solana Economic Zone that you guys at FORMA are building in their daily life? Maybe you can give me an example of how they can benefit from this.
Babak (06:38)
Well, it's a great question. think I'll caveat that in two ways. One is we concluded our pop-ups one month Solana Economic Zone a little over, I think about almost a month ago. So we basically ran a one month Solana Economic Zone experiment.
where we brought about, think about 249 people from around the world, representing over 100 products that are mainly built on Solana. And then about 500 local residents and guests that came through our doors over the month for different engagements and activities from builder-focused, founder-focused, culture and arts community-focused activities that we were doing. To not only bring two huge communities and do different groups of people together to kind of think about what are the programs, products,
initiatives that we could build together to bring and improve and enhance the lives of people in Argentina. That experiment happened and now a lot of long-term initiatives are being spawned. since, so like I think only like a week ago, we just supported and seeded three incredible local Argentinians that were part of the Solana economic zone. We're now launched something called Solar, S-O-L-X-A-R.
which is a locally founded Solana community and a physical space where they're bringing people together and they're planning to do a lot of exciting things. I don't want to let out too much alpha that they want to drop in terms of what they're going to be doing. But I think think about developer education, think about hackathon related activities, acceleration funding support.
Mizter Rad (08:06)
Right.
Babak (08:13)
So things of that nature. then even during the program, I think we had over 200 B2B or peer-to-peer connections where people connected one another. And it might be like an international company like...
A crypto phone company, I won't drop which name, were having issues in terms of bringing their products into Argentina, where people could literally earn on the phone, very passively, like mining, basically. And they had issues getting things across without paying incredibly huge tariffs and finding logistics issues. And then our local friends were able to solve it. So it's even like non-tech related solutions. It's like people abroad trying to do business locally. A lot of really cool bridges found there.
Mizter Rad (08:30)
Mm-hmm.
Mm.
Babak (08:57)
And of course, a lot around the talent side, like people who are looking for jobs, looking to learn about new ways that they can earn and save, or people that are coming abroad to find amazing people that they can work with or hire to be their local go-to-market support or so many, many, many things. That's kind of like what happened there. And now those are legacy systems and programs that we're doing. But I think like the most important kind of to come to your core of your question, what is the value of crypto for anyone in Argentina?
and Buenos Aires, because effectively a lot of what we're doing and the products that we're bringing and the entrepreneurs that we're supporting fundamentally relate to that. So I think it's like you mentioned, inflation being like the, one of the number one issues that people face on a daily basis. When they're able to, under a system which is a little bit capital controlled, I think it's something like $200 typically people can go to the bank and exchange for pesos, which is...
not like a full salary, you it's like not typically like, you know, enough for what people would really potentially want to protect. You know, things like stable coins, USDT, USDC, you know, other tokens or dollar sort of linked pegged tokens, you know, is such is like the the biggest unique, like the biggest
Mizter Rad (09:54)
Yeah.
Babak (10:14)
clear value add, know, and then everything from that in terms of like, I don't know. mean, we had amazing, so many amazing founders coming through the door that were building so many different solutions that are built on top of crypto, like even as simple as something like, you know, people representing foundations that want to get people's funding to be proven to be going in the right place. You know, there's often a lot of countries, I'm not going to name one organization or other, people donate and then...
Mizter Rad (10:38)
Mmm.
Babak (10:41)
you know, the money might not go exactly where it's desired or where it's or is inefficiently allocated. But through blockchain technology, you know, amazing look to local founders I met were building a really robust system that kind of end to end created that.
Mizter Rad (10:45)
Hmm.
Babak (10:56)
transparency and honesty that then ultimately increases the volume of donations and money going to the right places. So there's so many of these little games and projects that crypto benefits from. like our Solana economic zone as the first one that we ever did for a month was more bringing people together, almost like a think tank and activation around builders, founders, and what could be long-term things that we could do. And yeah, now I'm really glad that we've had a month to reflect and talk about this with our friends at both locally and abroad.
and yeah, it will evolve.
Mizter Rad (11:30)
Okay, tell me something. Is there a way, like a very specific way or number that you use to measure the impact? Like do you have certain KPIs as a company as...
as the Solana Economic Zone or as FORMA to measure the kind of impact that you had in this one month pop-up city or activities that you did?
Babak (11:55)
Yeah, that's a great question. The holy grail would be that if we had one or two numbers or proxies that we could measure almost in real time, that's the holy grail that we one day definitely want to get to. But I think right now we've tried to do our best because we almost were running before we could walk. literally like the concept kept into mind and then we went to like promote it. People came down and then we're literally. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And especially
Mizter Rad (12:09)
Right.
That's so typical from entrepreneurs though. That's the typical entrepreneurship journey. Don't plan too much, just go for it.
Babak (12:27)
And the thing is I've done a lot of what I've been on like different, you know, web two and now web three journeys and all this kind of stuff and accelerators incubators, you name it. But then I think there's a whole world of people that run pop up bit cities. This is just.
Events that are different from like events, you know, you have your conferences to every day but when you're with You know people for a month and it's like constantly new people you have new content and you want to evolve it You don't want to be like, you know I came in on week one and this is what we're gonna do for week four because you have five six hundred voices And you can see through their eyes what could be better. So we're almost evolving it as we go So I think a lot of our efforts was there now that we've reflected and we captured as much data as we could to answer your question directly what we what we tried to do is kind of
Mizter Rad (13:02)
Hmm. Hmm.
Babak (13:10)
like go from what ideal, what are the data points we want and try to create at least proxies for that. So for example, you know, we know that anecdotally, you know, there's, and we have like deep, deep stories and it's, qualitative. This is not, it's not a number, it's qualitative. We have like all the, lot of the connections that people formed personal or business or peer to peer. And we tried to note down like what, what happened there. So was it someone that connected with with the.
Mizter Rad (13:24)
Right. Yep.
Babak (13:35)
With it, like we had one founder that like raised, you know, six figures, some from like eight different angels or investors that were there. You know, we tried to like jot that down as in like that's capital that came into that business. And hopefully there's going to be returned for that investor. people that were looking for talents. tried to track that people that were.
having issues, bringing their product to market and they had a big unlock. That's what we tried to track. And even major organizations like On the Ground, we got to meet an incredible team from the Tether team, which is pretty remarkable. mean, Tether is such a huge organization, as you may know, and across all of LATAM, they basically have, I think, two to three people and they do such an incredible job. And their team was awesome. they were, I think we gave them, I think we introduced them to like 20, 30 different people and organizations.
and there's so many exciting things that they're discussing and projects that could be shaping. So I think that's one on the connection side.
And yeah, I think another part, is like, again, I really, I'm like an economist by mind and by like, by trades, should I say, I always love to like, look at numbers, like jobs created FDI, you know, GDP growth and all this stuff. but it's very hard to track, like, you know, for example, if a product as a product is going to market. for example, there was a company which is now probably public information called Krypton that's,
Now we've supported with support of the Solana Foundation to offer a USDT on soul to at over 2000 vendors across Buenos Aires. That is obviously value to the private company Krypton and like, you know, what's going to circulate. are things that are going to be tracked and magnified. But an example of that innovation is, you know, USDT on soul is I think, again, don't quote me on this one, but I think it's like.
30 times more cost effective than doing it USDT on Trump because of the gas fees are so much less. So when you think about it, there's great innovations like, let's say, cast, which is like a debit card you can get in one minute or two minutes on your phone that you can put your stables onto and you can pay at any majority of places that can accept visa. You know, now what would have cost, let's say you go to a coffee shop, a two dollar coffee and you may have to pay like.
transaction fees $1, $2. So the cost now has doubled for micro transaction like a coffee. It's not even a cent when it's your USDT on salt. And if you think about like the micro traction volume and savings people make, that's also incredible unlock as well, you know.
Mizter Rad (16:09)
Hmm.
Babak (16:09)
And yeah, and like I mentioned, we're also trying to work on some much, much larger matters in terms of not only seeding local communities that can drive entrepreneurs and innovation, but also we're in discussions to actually empower and teach teachers of developers rust so that they can then teach people so that they can better build on soul and have all those benefits. yeah.
Mizter Rad (16:34)
Hold on, Rust is the programming language of the Solana blockchain.
Babak (16:40)
Correct.
Mizter Rad (16:41)
Okay, just for people also to be on the same page. Let me play devil's advocate here, because it sounds great what you're saying, and if everything goes well, it's amazing for Argentina in this case. But we have seen a lot of crypto projects fail before from different kinds of different aspects of the economy. If you look at the FTX boom, eight billion gone overnight, the Terra Luna where people lost their life saving in days.
And that gave me started even with the crypto cities or projects that we're developing. for example, in Senegal, there was one called Acorn or Acorn City. Big announcements, beautiful 3D renderings, but in the end, nothing in that case got built. How is what you're doing with Forma different from just another crypto project? What do you think makes you
or your saline economic zones different.
Babak (17:43)
Yeah, that's a great question. You got me flashbacks of it. Remember the Fyre Festival? That thing that everyone was excited to go to. But it's true. These things happen in Web 2, in Web 3, IRL. And we definitely don't want to ever, ever even be in it. We're never going to be in that domain. So I'll elaborate. for example, those situations. So.
Mizter Rad (17:51)
Yeah. Yeah.
Babak (18:06)
I mean, again, I'm thinking of it with my economist hat. So financially, we are, you know, we've been blessed that we've been supported by the Solana Foundation to kind of run this experimental Solana economic zone, try to track the numbers and then.
hear from the local and international community like what can we do to evolve it which is the process that we're going through and hopefully in the next couple of weeks if not i think within two to three weeks we'll have some major announcements of how it's going to evolve but just on the what we've done what we've done so far we made it completely free for locals and anyone from latam and so we thought that was fundamentally an incredibly important thing because
Mizter Rad (18:35)
Nice.
Babak (18:46)
You know, are trying to, of course, we want to serve not only the Solana economy and the community that are amazing builders, investors, foundations and different creators in our community, but we are the guests of an incredible.
city and country and people. So we saw zero purpose in charging them and misleading in any form of direction what we are about and what we're trying to do. And I think I would love to invite you or anyone else to actually love to speak to the people that we were trying to, because we genuinely feel like we were serving the people.
Mizter Rad (19:21)
Right.
Babak (19:21)
You know, when we came with Forma, we always thought, you know, we work directly with the government to create something and it's very regulatory and it's very top down. But, you know, from the moment we was in my, I was on the scouting trip and then throughout the whole process and afterwards, everything we're doing is grassroots. So it's always like, what are you guys looking for? Okay, we're going to try to make that happen.
And even now that we're not even on the ground right now, we're still through the solar community and our friends directly trying to think like, what can we can do to serve them through different resources within our communities and things that are in the capabilities. And that's also shaping the future of what, you know, this form is going to be, which is what we're looking, which we're really excited to hopefully be announcing. So yeah, I think there's no way for us to do any scams or rugs because, know, we just currently on our financial system, it's kind of focused on.
Mizter Rad (20:00)
Hmm.
Babak (20:11)
you know, building public goods supported by the foundation. You know, the day will have to come and I think we will find a way that we will be a bit more sustainable and scalable. But I think, you know, Farhaad and I come from a very like traditional, you know, Farhaad is a two-time founder and myself, I've been doing that stuff and many, many more as an investor as well. And if you create a lot of value, there's a million and one ways to capture value. And so if you focus on the value creation before the value extraction,
Mizter Rad (20:15)
Hmm.
Babak (20:41)
It's very hard to be a scam. know, like those things that you mentioned, it's almost like you try to get people to buy into a vision, chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp. And then it's like they get all the money and then they didn't release. So that's almost like the recipe for scams, right? It's just you get stuff up front and then, we're going to build stuff up front, create value up front, and then look to find a way to hopefully be sustainable and more scalable. that makes sense.
Mizter Rad (20:44)
Right.
It totally makes sense. you know what? While you were talking, I was thinking, all these crypto and blockchain failures, I think are necessary to learn full and stand up again. And then, you know, stand up again and build better. And it's part of the process. And it's almost like my abuela, my grandma used to say, you you break an egg to make a tortilla. You break an egg to make an omelet.
And she used to say that, you need to like really make a break, break an egg to then do the real stuff afterwards. So I feel like it's part of a process to go through all these failures. And unfortunately, some people get scammed, but I see your point that, you know, you're basically you're providing some help on the ground and not charging anyone for it. Just letting people use your technology and use your knowledge and your network.
Babak (21:31)
I think so.
Yes, sir.
Mizter Rad (22:00)
to build something from the ground.
Babak (22:01)
Yeah. And I, it's interesting you said that, you know, we had a lot of really deep conversations and I'm talking, I've been to, I've been in crypto not that long compared to a lot of other people. It's been like about a year. You know, some people have been in it for like almost a decade, right? So I'm still relatively new to it, but I've been going to a lot of different, you know,
gatherings online and IRL, especially with my friends in Solana. you know, there's so much of the majority of like a lot of the meta that people talk about is like, you know, it's for investment, it's for speculation, it's the meme coins, it's the, it's, you know, these things that often, whether it's, know, FDX or whatever the rugs and the ICOs that, you know, people's monies poof away and, you know, it, that's often too often, which is one thing that was like really interesting, like when we're in Argentina and
all these people that...
come from majority of those narratives, like from the West or let's say more developed countries where they don't have so many economic problems and they're not using crypto for all the real world things that's potentially useful. I still think people in developed countries still use real world crypto, you know, use cases, but it's much more essential and much more prevalent in places where in the global South should we say. So I think all of us being in that environment and like speaking with people who live it and breathe it, you know, I had so many deep conversations with these amazing founders.
Mizter Rad (23:16)
here.
Babak (23:23)
I'll give you an example of a guy called Nick from a company called Decaf. You know, like we had the deepest conversations and you know, it was like we as a community, not just the Solana community, not just the crypto community, but overall need to change the narrative that, you know, crypto, honestly, for the longest time in my life, I thought crypto was mostly scam stuff. Like I did, I'm probably like very embarrassing to say, but I didn't even create my first wallet till like a year ago.
So like I'm in most categories a super noob because I was just like, what's this man? Like it's the, you know, put it here. Someone hacks my.
Mizter Rad (23:52)
Hahaha
But to be fair, it's not an easy task. I mean, I created mine maybe four years ago. back then, the UX was horrible. It was like, if you open a Metamask account, it's a horrible thing. People used to like opening a bank account with all these mobile apps and so on. In Europe, they're super fancy and easy. And all the designs are nice looking and so on. But then Metamask was horrible. Probably they improved by now.
Babak (24:10)
yeah.
Yeah.
This is the end.
Mizter Rad (24:28)
I haven't been there for a while, but yeah, I don't blame you.
Babak (24:30)
There's... Yeah, interesting. So good. I don't feel too... Like a lot of the... Like I'm not the youngest in the whole crypto community. So a lot of my friends are like, you're like an uncle. You make another uncle comment, brother. And I'm like, I'm trying to learn, man. There's so much to learn. then like, you know, and this... the thing is, I feel like why Farhaj and I as a team, particularly like kind of work well is he's really plugged into that whole culture and community.
Mizter Rad (24:41)
Hahaha!
Yeah.
Babak (24:54)
I learn from him like every other minute around like what's going on in the space. But it's like, you know, I come from much more of Web 2 background and like, to be honest, like you said, like MetaMask and let's say other products just could be so much more fluid and much more like you don't even need to know that it's Web 3. You know, most of the cool innovations popping in like the gaming space in crypto or in payments and PayFi solutions, you just, barely even know.
Mizter Rad (25:10)
Right.
Babak (25:18)
Like, you know, when, like I was mentioning a company called cast, you set up the bank account in two minutes. It's like any other, like a N 26, let's say in during Germany, right? Great Berlin bank. You you set up like that in a second and then, you know, you get your, and then it's, isn't these crazy fees and there's no like a blurs and security issues, you know, to start to biometric verification. It's like you're working with like a normal banking solution and then many, perks come from it. So like, yeah.
Mizter Rad (25:26)
Exactly, yeah. Easy.
Mm.
Yeah.
Babak (25:47)
I forgot what the original question was, basically, yeah, the narrative of changing the world's perspective that crypto can generally be such a real world value add in terms of creating such better systems, not just even financial, but just so many other ways. I think it's something that we all need to kind of work on. And that's also one of our founding principles as Forma.
is to try to get the priority to be also on things that boost and drive economic development, prosperity and like real world society, not just the crypto bros that are de-genning. Everyone got love for those guys and there's a place in for them, but like, the world is a much bigger place. There's 99 % more people in the world, right?
Mizter Rad (26:25)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. Especially crypto for the daily use is super important in, like you said, in the global south and areas that are not highly developed simply because on the one hand, people could be just simply outside of the financial system for X or Y reason or.
it's so much easier to just grab your phone and send a payment over the phone than having a card and maybe maybe a bank transfer going to a bank, et cetera. So there's a lot of.
a lot of benefits for people that are unbanked to jump onto crypto right away instead of trying to go into the traditional banking system that never really helped them throughout the last decades. And that happens a lot in, I hate to use the term, but the state developing nations. But yeah, when I was reading about the Solana Economic Zone and reading about FORMA,
Babak (27:23)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Mizter Rad (27:39)
You know, there's this book called Sovereign Individual from I think 1997 or something like that, late 90s.
Babak (27:46)
I've of it. I've heard of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Mizter Rad (27:49)
So basically the guy or the people that wrote it, I forgot his name now, but they predicted that digital money and how tech would basically change the power of governments. And they talked about how cities, for example, might become more important than countries. And by reading your case and what you're trying to do, it reminds me a bit of this idea. Are you, are we seeing, do you think?
something like that at this point? Do you think smaller countries or smaller regions are taking sovereignty into their hands and trying to change the game and decentralize that power in a way?
Babak (28:36)
That's a great question. That's a really good question. You know, like it's...
I'm come to this within two ways, like looking at cities, right? Cities that people look to as, you know, growing at an incredible pace and a great place to live and a great place of security and certainty. Two places come to mind, three I would say. I'd say like the UAE, Singapore, and one of the places in Switzerland called Zug. And I'll touch on like what I think is unique about them and how, you know, kind of...
Mizter Rad (29:04)
Yeah.
Babak (29:10)
Let's say the decentralized thinking is a big part of it. if you look, I've been in the UAE for nearly 10 years now. Actually, no, I think over 10 years. I was raised in London, lived in some time in Berlin in the US that we had discussed. But a lot of my time was here and I've worked, I've seen a lot change. mean, there's people that have been here since the 60s and they've seen that things change from literally.
flat plane of one tower, one airstrip to now a globally known metropolis with like trillions of capital flying in and most busy airports in the world, you And funding Italy, like if you think about the UAE as such a young country, Singapore in some senses as well, you know, what made it so great and grow so well and so sustainably and it's still just going kind of one direction, especially when the world's uncertain, people go to places which have certainty.
We've seen with what's happened in Ukraine and even in directly in the world of crypto, when there were certain regulatory changes in India, there was a huge inflow of amazing crypto talents, founders and businesses that moved from India. Why is this such a safe haven for business and for people wanting to live? And a lot of it fundamentally comes down to we have a system of governance that has incredibly high accountability.
Like if you look at democracies or republics around the world, there's different electoral systems that now more than ever has become very transparent. think this year, was a crazy statistic I read. was something like 70 % or 60 % of the world were voting for their leaders this year. Like was one of the most critical years in elections in modern society,
Mizter Rad (30:43)
Mmm.
Hmm.
Babak (30:48)
And there's a lot of, you know, I was raised that, you know, the Greeks, was it the Romans that developed it? And this is like basically what it should be. And I've had that indoctrination to me since I was like 11 years old, whenever my history classes started. But, you know, like the UAE is a benevolent, I don't know what the word is when it's like a sheikdom, let's say, like there's a ruling family across the different Emirates that come together and work together across the seven Emirates. And then because it's so...
Mizter Rad (31:00)
Yeah.
Babak (31:16)
based on becoming beings from the get-go and open society, where 92 % of the people right now are expats. A lot of people don't know that. And if, let's say, anyone at any level of decision-making at the higher ups make a decision that people don't feel good about, that they don't feel safe about, feel that their taxes are being taken or that it's not a safe place, or hold on a second, the schools are terrible here, why am I in this place? Why am I being my tax money? know, speak to my friends, especially if you speak to people in California,
will tell you how much they complain that they're paying out their ass for taxes and they have the worst schooling and blah blah blah blah blah. Here you got the best schooling, best healthcare and it's because if things are bad people just leave and then the country where does it stand? It's the people that make the country and they can vote with their feet and you can vote with their capital. So I think
Mizter Rad (31:50)
Yeah.
Right.
Babak (32:08)
One of the beautiful things about crypto and development of the sovereign individual and the network state from Balaji and this kind of mindset is that, collectives of people, mean, what made tribes, what made villages, what made cities, what made nations? It always started with a small collective of people that decided amongst themselves, what are the cultural, financial...
legal and safety rules that we should abide by and live by and try to pull some of that capital to, you know, make, create public goods. That's what really government was always meant to be for. It wasn't there to be the, you know, the, it was meant to be, you know, distributor of public and creator of public goods, you know, where there's positive externalities. Yeah. So I think coming back, when you look at places like Zug and the UAE where they started so small and then they grew, it's because they started from such a, such a
Mizter Rad (32:49)
Definitely smaller, probably. Not so powerful.
Babak (33:01)
You know, from ground zero, they didn't have these legacy systems. didn't have, you know, so many countries have like huge lobbies. They have very incumbent governments. They have systems that are very hard for any individual group of people to really fundamentally shake or break.
And yeah, you're kind of in a way your point about do our cities maybe reshaping the world? I think so. I think like there is a huge movement in terms of smaller cities are creating much more impact. There's a, you know, I mean, there's a lot of stories about the places like the Seychelles and Mauritius and things like that. These are relatively small places that became huge safe havens for Panama, you know, for a lot of capital flow and business.
And that's because they kind of adapted to the market because they were small and nimble. So sometimes small is mighty, and I think often it is. And I think a lot of people who building network states are really trying to shape a lot. So it could be the future. think I'm bullish on it. It's going to make a lot of positive impact in the world, I think.
Mizter Rad (33:59)
No, was definitely interested in that. I'm also very enthusiastic about that idea, but I also wonder at the same time...
if the world has more and more of these sovereign individuals, there's probably at the same time more and more people staying outside of that sovereign individuality, let's call it, and still living in that traditional system. And let's call it, just for making the case here, let's call them more regular people. Are we creating, do you think, a world of two classes?
Babak (34:21)
and we'll.
Mm.
Mm.
Mizter Rad (34:37)
those who can use, understand, and talk with the lingo of crypto, let's say, or blockchain, these new systems, and others that are more like these regular people who don't wanna leave the traditional systems, they just wanna stay there. Do you think we're creating a world of these two kind of like social classes in a way? Do you feel that?
Babak (35:01)
Yeah, I mean, I mean, look, I have a fundamental belief that like most economies are, you know, well, especially in the West, I would say like the middle class is not getting wiped out, but it's deteriorating where it's becoming much more polarized. It's either you're the haves or you're the have nots, right? And what are the reasons behind that? There's so much, there's almost too much to go into. But
you know, for those that are trying to, let's say, rethink things and reshape things, whether it's through network states, societies, charter cities, or even smaller countries that are really trying to be more locally robust and internationally competitive. I think like the doomsday situation isn't failure. It's actually creating a non-integrated society. think it's like, it's like learn from the mistakes where, you know, you have amazing like...
The US is a great example where there's enough food and resources for everyone to prosper. Look, I'm not a communist, I'm not a Marxist that's saying like, yes, let's take from Big Bill Gates and Elon and distribute it to everyone. There has to be better systems. There just has to be. When you have some people who are literally struggling and it's like someone is so rich that dropping $10,000 on the floor doesn't make sense to put them to pick up, something's not working.
Mizter Rad (36:06)
Ha
Babak (36:19)
people and lobby powers of like farmer companies are basically poisoning their own citizens that are the people they want them their people to be addicted to their supplements so that they can make more and more you know so there are broken systems out there but i think the point about you know you don't want that dystopian like people that live in the cloud and live forever and then all the plebs that 99 are these you know squaddlers and waddlers that are keeping them up
You never want to see that happen. I think one of the founding things that we think about at Forma in terms of whether we ourselves develop a physical economic zone or space or work with one and try to create the community and regulatory and crypto systems that they could build on. We are really happy that we found some amazing people that.
They're thinking about that. They're like, for example, I think everyone knows Bali is like a global, not only amazing place to live and visit, but it's become the nomad capital. Like it's like such a place that everyone's like, you know, you can see them on their laptop and then on their Instagram, it's like they're surfing, they're in a waterfall. That's great. But then when you look at it, like a lot of the locals, they're basically the servant class. And, know, until like age of 32, 33, they can work in, you know, the tourism and hospitality sector. But then what?
Mizter Rad (37:20)
Yeah.
Right.
Babak (37:33)
You know, like, so a lot of them are not capturing the long term value. Property prices are going up. Who benefits? It's the landlords. Who are the majority of landlords and the new developers? They're foreign. They don't live in that country. So the money is actually like economic value is being created, but it's not really going local and it's not going to the locals. So.
it's almost parasitic in some senses. I hate to be cynical, but I do feel like that sometimes. So I think anyone that's trying to create these better systems, whether it's governments, local communities, or people like us, I think you have to bake into the cake from the get-go. Okay, what is the plan for the locals that they win and other people win? I don't know if it's like appreciation of land, co-ownership, making sure that...
people that are working in primary sectors like agriculture, logistics, that isn't out of the crypto equation. There is still benefits for them to leverage it, to be involved in this community. And it's super great that there are some really bold thinkers that don't just want to think about this. We want to create an elite class. There are some network state concepts that are very much like, want the best of the best and we want the people, everyone with stacks and billionaires and we're to make our island, you know, God bless them. But, you know, I think if you're...
Mizter Rad (38:39)
Yeah.
Babak (38:45)
doing something where there's other people and the indigenous people aren't going to be as well off as you, you want them to be doing well as well as you, right? So fundamentally, I think that's what made success.
Mizter Rad (38:53)
Okay.
Yeah, that's a good bridge for my next point because I think that what's also interesting to me is that many times when foreign companies come, or let's say actually,
Let's say not even foreign companies. Let's take the example of the World Bank or the IMF. They come and they do some sort of investment and they say, but before doing the investment, they tell a country, hey, we'll give you the money, but you need to do A, B and C. And I wonder how is that different from what you guys are doing? And I also wonder if you're making sure in a way that
Maybe this is a two part question. So that on the one hand, how do you make sure you're not becoming the IMF that comes and puts like strong conditions based on them, some templates that they use all across the world and they don't take into consideration the actual local problem. That's my feeling. That's what happening. I'm not an expert on the topic, but that's from what I research and from what I understand and from what I have seen growing in a country, Latin America.
That's my feeling of how things work sometimes. But then at the same time, you have foreign companies that come and say, I'm going to build this beautiful office building. Right next to this office building, there is a poverty area, a slum, for example. How do you make your economic zone doesn't become like, how do I say this, like a rich person's bubble in the middle of, in this case, Buenos Aires, for example?
Babak (40:13)
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look, we're still a startup and we've only just done a pop-up and experiment. like I said, fundamentally, we said that.
For those that are traveling in and are foreign, we're asking them to provide a very basic contribution for coming. And then for anyone from Latam, zero expense, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero cost. like, it was something small because we were only running a small experiment. But looking forward without disclosing too much of what we'll be doing for the next 12 to 14 months is, I touched on that we are...
Now that we've done a pop-up, which was more of like an economic accelerator, think tank, bringing people together to think about what are the long-term initiatives, when I say initiatives, mean like programs, products, policies that we can help drive real economic value for local Argentinians as well as the Solana and crypto community. The next two phases that we're really interested in looking into now is going to be like, phase two, okay, is there...
parts of a digital or regulatory, parts of the regulatory game in the Web3 world that we can improve by working with local partners or governments or institutions that can make it easier for people to start businesses, run their companies and grow. So it's more around like regulatory and legal infrastructures for businesses that are on Web3.
And then the third stage is really like around the physical state, can we actually create a physical place where there's now the cultural element, there's the lifestyle and living elements, as well as the physical and regulatory side and digital side that can make it an end-to-end amazing place where great community people can build their products, grow their products, and live great quality lives, whether if they're residents, citizen, nomad, or visitor.
Now to not, at that stage, we don't want that to be a rich person's utopia. We don't want that to just be like all for one and none for all. If ever we do something on an island which has no one there, again.
Mizter Rad (42:40)
Right.
Babak (42:46)
Zero, zero, this is not the plan, but if, let's say, we did something like it's an island and there's no one living there, then I don't know what would be the story. But most places people live, right? And there are systems. So if we do something in a place where it's an existing free zone or a special economic zone that we support, or we build one in a populated country, we definitely wouldn't exclude the benefits of what we do.
for normal locals. We'll make sure that there's education programs that support people that would have inability or difficulty in accessing the opportunities that we bring. Or we would make sure that accessibility financially to the programs and efforts that we bring, there's a lot more dedicated effort for them. Because I think I was, like I mentioned about my heritage, my co-founder as well, he's from India. We are from a place where,
Different countries have extracted a lot of value from us. It's not necessarily the IMF or the World Bank, but different people came because there's a place of ample resources or bountiful people, and to some extent, majorly exploited by different colonialistic interests, should we say. And I think there's a lot of recipes and ways to prevent that. But I think fundamentally, who we work with and the systems that we set up in the get-go.
Mizter Rad (43:57)
Yeah.
Babak (44:06)
you know, for value Alliance, then we can always try to make sure that that we do every step to take that people don't get gentrified. Naturally. One of the biggest risks is, when you come and do even a pop-up, we actually felt that we raised the local, let's say, Airbnb prices, you know, that kind of sucks, right? That's not something we're very happy about, but it's, it's an outcome, you know, so we can only do things to mitigate. but,
Mizter Rad (44:25)
Mm. Right.
Right.
Babak (44:34)
Yeah, what the future would be, which is a physical or a digital or regulatory environment that we help enhance or build. You know, there are many ways to make sure that that's inclusive, you know. So we'll figure that out.
Mizter Rad (44:45)
What's your next pop-up city or economic zone? What's the plan?
Babak (44:51)
What's the plan? So, like I mentioned, within the next two to three weeks, we'll have a lot of really concrete announcements, because we're just shaping that up not only as a team. We've had only a few weeks to deeply reflect and have a lot of interesting conversations. But I would definitely share that we're kind of looking at two things. One is that we do want to make sure that whatever we have done in our first...
Salon Economic Zone in Argentina, we want there to be a meaningful impact and legacy. It'd be a complete pony show if we just go there for a month and we're like, let's have some wine and good time. we did some stuff and nice, some exactly, some that good asado and chlory pan. And just like, you know, have some great content on Twitter, but in reality, like, okay, a lot of value is created and we're hoping to like, not only put that into concrete numbers and qualitative analytics,
Mizter Rad (45:24)
some beefs, some steaks, yeah.
Babak (45:42)
but we want there to be legacy things, things that we can see that are gonna way, outlive the pop-up that we did.
So that's priority number one. Number two is obviously we do want to look at different places around the world that we could potentially do pop-ups. And more and more we're speaking to people in Eastern Europe, like Armenia to Georgia to Poland to places in Africa, Middle East and APAC are the places that we're looking at the most focus on right now over the next 12 months.
what the Solana economic zone could be long term, maybe quite different. And therefore what the pop-up would be, would also be curated and built quite differently. So I think those are the places that we're looking to. So we're looking to do at least like maybe two to four, I think, pop-up zones across the year. But I think what's even more exciting is like we do really, especially after coming from the Network State Summit and having a lot of really interesting conversations with people.
Mizter Rad (46:27)
Mm.
Babak (46:44)
It looks like even our later stage, like our stage two or stage three of what a salon economic zone is. So the digital, the regulatory and the physical, we're seeing some really interesting avenues to actually experiment in that space and actually go into that. So that might come sooner than we thought.
Mizter Rad (46:59)
What do you mean with that? What do you mean with that?
Babak (47:02)
So what I mean is kind of like.
For example, where we did our, you know, our Argentine Salon Economics Zone, was in a beautiful neighborhood of Buenos Aires called Palermo, Hollywood, which is, you know, it's not a special economic zone. It's not, you know, I think I'm not spilling any beans, but let's say for those that people that want to set up their businesses, they're doing it directly and setting up an Argentine business or getting an Argentine business bank account. You know, it can take many, many months. it's not the, a lot needs to say it's not the easiest place to do business by setting up locally, but a of people set up in
Uruguay or Panama or you know different places so I think there isn't yet a sort of a regulatory avenue that we've yet really deeply explored in Argentina nor a physical space that we want to really kind of because I think what's really important is that we us
For example, if we did create like a building or a neighborhood, which is a Solana economic zone, there's no point if there's not some kind of special autonomy for us to shape the digital and regulatory infrastructure that's catered to the creators and contributors in Web3. just be a building.
Mizter Rad (48:07)
Right.
Yeah, otherwise it would just be a building, one more building in the neighborhood.
Babak (48:16)
And look, there's a lot of cool stuff. Like if you go to San Francisco or Berlin, there's a lot of places where there'll be a building, not just that we work, but it'll be maybe a place where someone's running an AI campus, where there's a lot of AI companies in there. So there's programs there, but we want to shape programs and policies and beyond just like a workspace and that kind of situation.
To your point about like what do I mean by the end state? You know, there are so many interesting organizations from places people like Praxis Alpha City I just met some amazing people from the Philippines that are literally shaping, you know, it's not even a special economic zone. It's called a special
administrative region which has even more sort of wide reaching impacts across the, I forgot what those islands are called, not Polynesian islands, by the way geography is terrible, but like who are really like reshaping policies and regulations to make it easier for people, not just taxes, it's ease of business, it's like digital solutions, it's you know e-government systems, know, even residencies, you know, one of the biggest things that's like drove Farhaj and I to kind of you know really passionately pursue this
strange endeavor was that we feel that where you're born shouldn't necessarily dictate what you can do and too often it does and I think when we were at BuildSpace we saw amazing things where people from all around the world were able to connect and make amazing things whether you're in a place in you know I don't know if you're in you know Congo or
you're in Uzbekistan or you're in UK, you have equal ability to actually earn on the internet, know, in many situations, not in all, but I think in many situations. And I felt, know what we've, you know, our principle thought is also we want to mobility for people. So there are countries and people that are not just the invest to get a visa or invest to get a passport. There are people that are creating solutions where it's like you can, you can stake crypto to get your
local residency for a pathway towards citizenship because you know every country is competing to find great international talent and it's great to see that they are now becoming much more open and aware that like crypto talent is in some ways on a whole different level of what they can drive for your local economy and now local and federal institutions are becoming more aware and wary that like okay let's think about this you know like in the UAE there
cooking up a potential crypto golden visa, you know, for people that are high skilled in the space. And that those are amazing, you know, so, so it's a it's a capital, but it's also the physical mobility that you know, I think these zones provide and we would love to hopefully build on or make ourselves.
Mizter Rad (50:45)
Hmm.
Yeah.
Let me paint a picture and it goes in the same train of thought of your passport shouldn't be a deterrent or shouldn't determine your success because I also think that's very unjust and coming from someone like myself that also doesn't have the most valuable passport. I know the consequences of that and I never chose to be born where I was born but.
That's what I got and I love my origin. I'm not saying that, but it definitely brought some obstacles throughout my whole life so far. But let me paint a picture here, because I think if today we have countries, borders, and different currencies, in your vision of 2074, let's say 50 years from now, do you think we'll still have traditional countries as we have them now, or do you think we'll have something like
Babak (51:50)
yeah.
Mizter Rad (51:55)
digital nations based on, let's say, shared economic systems or even shared values.
Babak (52:04)
my God. You know, it's crazy. Like, you know, like right now I'm like, AI and like quantum computing is going to completely change everything, know, like blockchain and crypto. That's the thing. know, like everyone is like, you know, crypto is going to, we're talking about a very crypto and network state mindset, but then there's all those other things that are happening that are like, totally change everything. So it's like, we have to not be in situ. We have to be in the, we have to look at things in the bigger picture, but.
Mizter Rad (52:14)
man, that's my next question.
I know.
Babak (52:33)
to the point that you've mentioned, oof, such an interesting question. I think there will be like, know, Balaji's amazing work around network states, you know, what that means, means different things to different people. You know, there is a clear definition in this book, but I think that people, institutions and individuals and collectives will have...
not only in over the next 50 years, but end state, there will be places that will have a bit more sovereignty, autonomy, and will create better systems. That's a guarantee, whether it's people driven, tech driven, regulation driven, so long as AI and quantum computing doesn't backfire or... There's a society we will talk about where 60 % of the world won't have jobs, and it's just they're gonna be, the machines are gonna doing it. So, it's so hard to see what it is.
Mizter Rad (53:24)
Yeah.
Babak (53:26)
But yeah, there will be a world where more sovereignty and decision-making is in the hands of people. But I hope it's not just a few. That's the scary thing. You don't want it to be in the hands of just a few and not the many. you know, and look, actually one thing to give on a positive note, if you think about like...
the world of work, right? Like you and I probably went to school and we understood that like, if I study X, I'll get a good job Y and my outcomes are going to be good. I'll get the picket fence and you know, the Mrs. And the kids. And it all seemed quite clear, but I think now more and more people at schools and like those that are like building right now, more people are now clear that like you need to, it's more viable and more urgent to build your own path, make your own products. We're back into more of a builder world. And I think that will continue. I think AI is
Mizter Rad (54:12)
Right.
Babak (54:18)
going to take away a lot of the traditional jobs. And some jobs need education and need that kind of clear linear path of growth. But I think more people are going to be entrepreneurs, more people are to build stuff, create your economy is going to boom. And that naturally will create people shaping their world once again and not just falling into corporate or institutional systems.
Mizter Rad (54:41)
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there is a trend of a growing trend of more and more people being freelancers or solopreneurs or starting their own companies. And that's definitely not going to stop. And I think, like you said before, countries are realizing that they have to compete for talent and giving the best conditions to people to go there and settle their company or open a business. Definitely makes sense.
Babak (54:48)
Exactly.
Mizter Rad (55:09)
And while that happens, while some countries are very progressive about all these ideas and trying to attract new talent, good old Europe is unfortunately seem to be going the other way. I recently saw in the news that France is taxing or wants to tax their citizens just like that, no matter if they live in France or abroad, a bit like the US does.
Babak (55:36)
oof, oof, terrible, geez, I didn't know.
Mizter Rad (55:39)
think the Netherlands and Norway also recently passed a law of an exit tax. So if you don't want to live there anymore, if you're currently living there, whether you're a citizen or just a resident and want to leave, then you pay an exit tax, which is also pretty bad. mean, if you would see a company as a subscription model service that you have online, you would never go.
Babak (56:07)
Yeah, it's.
Mizter Rad (56:08)
with the one that charges you because you want to cancel the account, right? Like it's crazy.
Exactly, like that's not, it's not how it works. Hopefully countries realize that that's crazy to do. But yeah, anyway, I wanna get a bit more philosophical here just for a second. Before we wrap up, I think, or in my opinion, we're seeing many cities around the world becoming smart cities with AI sensors and you know.
Babak (56:31)
Sure.
Mizter Rad (56:43)
facial recognition cameras on the streets and now possibly economic zones based on blockchain technology and so on. But I think also humans, and I'm sure you agree with me, also need this green spaces, community, culture, stuff that is not necessarily on chain or online or digital. How do you balance all of this? How do you think the communities of the future will be?
Babak (56:58)
Mm.
Mizter Rad (57:12)
evolving based on those two sort of contradicting or complementary trends.
Babak (57:20)
Yeah, I hear you man. It looks like you're thinking. Is there anything else you wanted to say?
Mizter Rad (57:26)
No, that's basically how do you, what do you think about that?
Babak (57:32)
Look, I'm for it, man. Like I tell you, me, I'm not a very social media person. I have no Instagram. I just go on Twitter. that's why, another reason why everyone calls me Uncle Bob. I think in-person interactions is what makes us human. We are predisposed to...
not be alone, like we want to connect with people. And I think it's amazing what especially things like Twitter do, which is, you know, freedom of speech and I can't even list on a weekly or monthly basis how many people find their co-founder, find their funding through social media, like through Twitter and Instagram. It's like, it is an amazing and powerful thing. But like, I think, like you said, like to not make it a very overly digital world where
the in-person stuff is forgotten. Look, I'm hoping human nature is the thing that counterbalances technology where, you know, I think like, you know, especially after COVID, one thing that's us within the Solana community really resonated with and clicked with was like...
You know, it's not just Solana Economic Zone. have Mountain DAO, we have Island DAO, we have so many things. Hacker House, our friends, and I'm a member of the super team, UAE super team, which is like a, I think basically a grassroots movement of like 22 different communities across the world, if I'm not mistaken, and like from Vietnam to Philippines to Japan, of Solana Builders Contributors trying to help each other out worldwide. And they do so many in-person things. And that's where the big unlock is.
It's like, you know, I, again, I want things to another real tangible example to shed light on, not only in terms of output of product and business, but in terms of happiness. When I was at built space with my, with my team, you know, built spaces, a every year we had like 200,000 people doing an online program to build anything from, I don't know, manga to, you know, sustainable wedding products, to AI and crypto products, like anything, anywhere at any stage. was just the cra it was a crazy house of built.
It was a safe place for people to make stuff. all of that magic happened online. But then the thing that was like the most beautiful thing that often is like for me a beacon of what I would like, whatever we shape in terms of a salon economic zone or physical space is they had twice a year.
Mizter Rad (59:44)
Hmm. Hmm.
Babak (1:00:04)
what they called BuildSpace IRL. So they brought like 400 or 500 of the, you know, of people that like, you know, graduated from the six week program of BuildSpace to come in person and like just hack together, work together for like three, four weeks, three, four days, I should say, and be in a room of 600 people with 600 different dreams and everyone does vibes.
Mizter Rad (1:00:18)
Yeah.
Babak (1:00:27)
Like everyone just connects. have a grandma, you know, making like a little, I don't know, like sewing business in India, kicking it with like a Russian AI hacker. And they actually have some shared belief of like they can, they're taking a bet on themselves to make the world better and make their lives better. Like what an amazing thing. You know, there's something for them to change. So I think it's, you know, I think society, you know, there's a lot to benefit from technology, but in person.
Mizter Rad (1:00:43)
Hmm. Yeah.
Babak (1:00:51)
You know, so long as you have shared values and beliefs, that's why like we believe like, you know, Solana has an amazing culture and community already. We want to build on that infrastructure and bring people together even more and provide them support. the world can be such a beautiful place where it won't be like this terrible, dystopian utopia where we're connected through bloody, you know, phones, that are strapped to our foreheads. Google glasses nightmare. I don't think people will let that happen. And if they do, you know, God bless them, you know.
Mizter Rad (1:01:00)
Hmm.
Yeah.
Shame on us, shame on us. No, I hear you, I hear you. I completely agree. I think in any case, I digital interactions are somehow strengthening this real world, real world human relationships, somehow, some way or another. Like you said, like it's so much better to meet someone in real person that on camera is, you know, even after.
Like if I meet you on camera in real person tomorrow, I'm sure we'll give us a hug. You know, it's like, I know I've talked to you already for an hour and I feel like I already connected with you, but it would be much stronger if we see each other in real life and you'll be as, you know, old brothers.
Babak (1:01:52)
Yeah, yeah, for real.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's true man. true. It's all about a lot of it comes down to individuals, know, so like so long as us as sovereign people find the people that we want online, but then make sure that like we don't get plugged in too much into the matrix or the TVs and the systems that are around us to distract us from human connection. Then I think it's all going to be good, know, tech's a net positive.
Mizter Rad (1:02:27)
Mm.
Definitely, Listen, Mr. Babak, if someone is listening and wants to be part of this future that you're building, what's the first step they should take? What should they do? How do they reach out?
Babak (1:02:46)
Great question. mean, need to revamping our website. I mean, there's, I mean, if you want to just check us out, we're, you know, former.city, F-O-R-M-A.city. But I think the best place to follow us is our Twitter, I guess, which is at former.city. That's probably the best place to keep it like to keep in touch. If you want to hit us up, just hit us up. You know, my Twitter and my co-founders are all there. But that's probably the best place to keep in touch with us and like hit us up.
We're always open to collaboration and hearing what people are building and how they may want to contribute or be part of our trip and how we can support theirs. So yeah, that's probably it.
Mizter Rad (1:03:27)
Nice. Final question, man. Tell me something. What keeps you up at night about this project, about FORMA? What's your biggest challenge right now?
Babak (1:03:35)
man, dude, my biggest thing is all I think about is all the amazing people in Argentina that we were with. And the things that have made my sleep a lot better is now that we've launched like a long-term project and we're doing, actually things are actually happening. The biggest nightmare was like we come there, create so much hope and excitement and so much things that we learned, but like we don't launch anything quickly while this momentum's there. So now I have a lot better sleep, but I still will not be happy until there's like...
know, 10x more successful things for people that we served over there. So yeah, that's probably the only thing that keeps me up.
Mizter Rad (1:04:11)
Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. Well, Babak, thank you so much for being here in the Mr. Rad Show. It was a pleasure to have you. It was great to connect with you. And hasta la vista. See you next time, maybe in Argentina and Assado one day.
Babak (1:04:22)
That's all I have to say. Si, bueno, muchas gracias man and thanks so much for your time and having me here. It was a pleasure.
Mizter Rad (1:04:30)
Thank you.