041 - Niko Laamanen: Leaderless Organisations, Moving to Madeira & Bitcoin Adoption

Timothy Allen talks with Niko Laamanen. This week it's another dispatch from my recent visit to BTC Prague. My guest is Niko Laamanen, a Finnish gentleman who left an unfulfilling life as a construction engineer to start a publishing house specialising in the dissemination of content promoting ideas of freedom and liberty in all its myriad forms, or in Niko’s own words, “Stuff you don’t really learn at school but maybe you should.” Konsensus Network, as it is called, is a project that was born out of the emerging Bitcoin movement and has grown and evolved in a way characterised by the traits of what is known as a 'starfish organization', which is essentially, a leaderless, open-source network of collaborators… more on that, of course, from Niko in our conversation along with discussions about digital nomadism, ‘escaping the matrix,’ the importance of books and content curation, as well as Niko’s views on the progress of worldwide Bitcoin adoption and why he chose to move to the Portuguese island of Madeira, which has become somewhat of a Bitcoiner hotspot in recent times. Enjoy the conversation. LIBERTY IN OUR LIFETIME CONFERENCE Prague, 14-15 October, 2023 ⁠⁠⁠https://libertyinourlifetime.org/⁠⁠⁠ TIMESTAMPS 0:30 - Introduction to today's episode. 3:24 - How did you become a bitcoin publisher? 6:12 - Selling all of your possessions. 11:27 - The turning point of the journey. 16:54 - Running a book publishing company. 22:40 - The power of reading books. 27:11 - How a leaderless organisation can work. 33:05 - Emergence of management at a starfish organisation. 39:22 - What is praxeology? 42:15 - What was your uneasiness when you decided to create a starfish organisation? 48:32 - Favourite books of all time. 54:43 - Why did you decide to move to Madeira? 1:00:39 - How to get a residence permit. 1:06:27 - How is bitcoin adoption going? 1:11:39 - The importance of not making bitcoin mandatory. 1:15:00 - Madeira’s human capital TWITTER: Niko Laamanen: ⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/OmniFinn Timothy Allen: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/MrTimothyAllen⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Free Cities Foundation: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/freecitiesfound⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ OTHER LINKS: Konsensus Network: https://konsensus.network/ Free Cities Foundation: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://free-cities.org/⁠⁠