Slashdot Mirror
Nearly 150 Companies Show Interest in the Tech Love Boat
New submitter dandv writes with a story from VentureBeat about another entry in the race to escape national jurisdiction by offshoring work — literally offshoring, that is : "Blueseed is a Silicon Valley company that plans on launching a cruise ship 30 minutes from the coast of California, housing startup entrepreneurs from around the world. These startuppers won't need to bother with U.S. visas, because the ship will be in international waters. They'll have to pay tax to whatever country they're incorporated in, though. So far, 146 startups said they'd like to come to the ship."
Realisticly it doesn't actually bring much, but it draws on a rather heavy Ayn Rand mythology that they are hoping to capitalize on. The theory is supposed to be that if you take away all those pesky regulations then 'real entrepreneurs '.. some kind of the 'the best rise in power when not being kept down by other people in power, except each other since that is dog eat dog, but because people who already have power are bad we need to stop them, but not new power which should be unchecked'. So beyond just taxes and visas they can suspend things like workers rights, wages, etc... so all those pesky things like stopping child labor, taking sexual advantage of your subordinates, firing injured people, making them work 140 hour weeks but still in debt to the company store, all those things are perfectly legal again... and part of the mythology is whitewashing how badly those went the first time around.
Oh, and of course the ship will probably have its own company store.. so everyone there will have to pay whatever prices the Blueseed charges for things like food, power, internet access, etc.
Which is why sane companies will probably stay away, but gullible startups who have read more fiction then done research might find the place appealing.