Supposedly SeaCode (sea-code.com site forthcoming) is planning to set up a software development office on a used cruise ship in international waters off the southern California coast and potentially wherever customers are nearby international waters.

I love this idea. Two of the largest hurdles to fully utilizing the world’s talent and achieving equal pay for equal work are geographical and political:

• Much human capital is located far away from much investment capital, in very different time zones.
• It can be hard for investment capital to move to where human capital is due to a bad business environment in the latter location (e.g., terrible infrastructure, high corruption).
• It is hard for human capital to move to where investment capital is due to immigration apartheid laws.

SeaCode could do a nice run around all of these.

However, I’d guess that ships are fairly expensive to maintain. If this practice grows perhaps it will be a good seastead business model.

John Dvorak should be ashamed of himself for promoting apartheid.

Via Boing Boing.

Addendum 20050423: Walt Patrick pointed out on a mailing list the story of offshore gambling ships in the 1930s. Same location offshore Los Angeles. Sounds like a made for film story:

[Earl] Warren rounded up a flotilla of State and Game boats, manned them with deputies and ordered them out to the Rex. Cornero was ready and repelled the invasion with high pressure hoses. The authorities laid siege for nine tense days while Cornero’s men stood guard with sub-machine guns. His attorneys filed suit after suit charging Warren with everything from harassment to piracy.