Watch: Indian-Origin Techie Buys Island, Turns It Into A Paradise For Startups

Indian-origin entrepreneur Balaji Srinivasan bought an island near Singapore and turned it into a ‘country for startup founders and gymrats’ He runs ‘The Network School’ from the island, and welcomes tech enthusiasts to enroll for quarterly and yearly programs. These programs include stay (with a roommate), three meals a day, gym membership, and access to talks from leaders in the tech space.

Instagram user Nick Peterson shared a glimpse of ‘The Network School.’ He has been a resident student on the island and says that ‘we’re kind of testing what creating a new nation would feel like.’ He says that he attended classes on AI and the future of tech at the school, did multiple gym workouts, and ate three nutritious meals a day.

With the Network School, Srinivasan is trying to build a perfect place to assemble a global community of tech founders. The school also offers fast Wi-Fi, Starlink, and office pods for those looking to remotely work on the island. Watch how the first three-month program with techies from all over the world went below.

The first three-month program went amazingly well, Srinivasan says in a post. “More than 4,000 applications came in from 80+ countries for 128 slots, showing global demand for our vision of a startup society,” he added. The members worked in every area of tech - AI, robotics, to genomics. Speakers in the three month program included Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin, Flexport founder Ryan Peterson, Don't Die and Blueprint founder founder Bryan Johnson.

The Network School is now running a year-long term for 256 people. “We’re seeking dark talent. We’re seeking people who want to create win-and-help-win societies, focused on both individual and collective self-improvement. We’re seeking remote workers, digital nomads, online creators, personal trainers, event planners, self-improvers and technologists of all stripes. And we’re specifically seeking those who want to help our nascent community learn technology, earn crypto currency, burn calories, and have fun,” Srinivasan said.

Srinivasan plans to build Network Schools across the world with Dubai, Tokyo, and Miami on his vision board. Applications for The Network School are live on the website.

Srinivasan was the co-founder of Counsyl, former CTO of Coinbase, and former general partner at the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.