Venture capitalist, Peter Theil’s dream of an artificial island utopia for tech start-ups is inching closer to reality off the coast of San Francisco. Riding a wave of investment capital from Thiel, the project has a name – “Blueseed” – and a website, as well as a lengthy lineup of tech companies that want to get on board.

They’re going with “Blueseed” because “John Galt” was taken.

Theil, early Facebook investor and Pay-Pal co-founder, is putting the thing together with Google engineer and ocean-community activist, Patri Friedman.

The original plans for the floating technology village looked like an architect’s drawing of an oil rig. More recent plans look like a converted cruise ship or barge remodeled into a fancy sort of island/boat thing.

Blueseed hopes to have room for about a thousand inhabitants, with an all-inclusive rent figured at about $1,200 to $3,000 per month – which isn’t that much if you have enough money to construct artificial libertarian islands, I guess.

Says SFIST:

The primary goal of the new island nation is to allow international entrepreneurs a chance to get close to Silicon Valley’s white-hot startup scene without all the messy paperwork involved in actually obtaining a work visa. According to Blueseed’s own research, deportation of foreigners with Master’s Degrees or Ph.Ds in Computer Science is becoming a real problem in [America]. Australian programmers, for example, are apparently excited about the plan, making up about 6% of the demand for onboard space.

No word yet on whether or not the cruise ship will have room for shark tanks, death rays, or other Bond-villain ephemera.

[Source: SFist]