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Charter Cities PodcastInterviews with practitioners and experts who work in and around the charter cities space Author: Mark Lutter Language: en Genres: Life Sciences, Science, Social Sciences Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it |
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Bradford Cross on Alpha Cities & Treating Government as a Product
Episode 79
Thursday, 11 December, 2025
In Episode 79, Mark Lutter sits down with serial AI founder and investor Bradford Cross, now CEO of Alpha Cities, to explore what happens when a Silicon Valley systems thinker takes on the world’s most complex product: government.Bradford argues that government should be treated as a product—one that often performs poorly, iterates slowly, and lacks the discipline of customer-centric design. Drawing from two decades of building and exiting AI companies (including powering LinkedIn’s newsfeed, deploying AI in big banks, and pioneering early machine-learning startups), he explains why governance is the ultimate systems challenge.They dig into how the Silicon Valley playbook must be adapted—not imported—to work with sovereign states; why autonomy without integration (as seen in Honduras’ ZEDEs) is a dead end; how Alpha Cities structures zone laws, joint ventures, and regulatory sandboxes; and why the capital stack for new cities must move from friendly tech capital → industry anchors → sovereign wealth.Bradford also shares a candid look at the overwhelming operational reality of building cities from scratch—and why the US should view charter cities as the private-sector alternative to China’s Belt and Road.
