Our mission
The Seasteading Institute works to establish permanent, autonomous ocean communities — seasteads — where people are free to peacefully test new ideas for how to live together.
About
The Seasteading Institute is a non-profit think tank founded in 2008 by Patri Friedman and Wayne Gramlich, with early backing from Peter Thiel, and based in San Francisco. It promotes seasteading: the creation of floating settlements in international waters, beyond the territory of existing nations, so that new social, political and legal systems can be tried and chosen voluntarily — a startup sector for governance.
The Institute popularised the idea through the book Seasteading: How Floating Nations Will Restore the Environment, Enrich the Poor, Cure the Sick, and Liberate Humanity from Politicians, co-authored by its president Joe Quirk with Patri Friedman. In 2017 it signed a memorandum of understanding with French Polynesia to explore a pilot Floating Island Project, and it continues to advocate for seasteading and to support the pioneers building the first floating communities.
