The top takeaways from Network State Conference 2024, one of the hottest events in tech

What event can attract speakers from Vitalik Buterin and Naval Ravikant to Bryan Johnson and Pieter Levels? 

The Network State Conference, of course.

Luckily for you, I watched all 10 hours of it so you don’t have to.

What is the Network State, anyway?

The Network State is tech entrepreneur Balaji Srinivasan’s idea for an internet community to inhabit a physical space and eventually gain diplomatic recognition from other states. It’s a radical idea, but it’s very appealing to those interested in decentralized technologies, like crypto and remote work (hence, Vitalik’s and Levels’s appearances at the conference).

Whether you love or hate the idea, nobody can deny that Balaji isn't taking it seriously. So far, he’s written a book, hosted two conferences, and started a “Network School”. 

What did the conference cover?

The conference was 10 hours long and had 40 speakers, so it covered a lot. 

The first block of programming covered parallel societies, which Balaji defines as an internet-first community founded to address a specific societal problem. Accordingly, this block featured the founders of parallel societies such as Prospera, Edge Esmeralda, and Zuzalu. 

The second block was focused on parallel institutions, with particular attention given to those building in alternative finance, media, and health. Speakers here included the co-founder of the cryptocurrency blockchain Solana, the founder of decentralized social media platform Farcaster, and the longevity expert Bryan Johnson.

The third and final block was dedicated to how digital nomads enable network states, and it had only one speaker: the indie hacking legend Pieter Levels.

What did Levels say?

As I said, the topic of Levels’s talk was digital nomads, and he definitely delivered. Some of the things he said that I found most interesting include:

• There are now a billion remote workers, and 10% to 20% of them are digital nomads, meaning there are now somewhere between 100 and 200 million digital nomads today. That is absolutely incredible. 

• Most female digital nomads work in marketing, while most male digital nomads work in software engineering. 

• Female digital nomads tend to be progressive while male digital nomads tend to be libertarian or conservative. 

• 66% of digital nomads are single. Levels attributes this to digital nomads being transient, although I wonder if the political differences have anything to do with it. 

• Digital nomads make $125,000 per year on average. This makes sense to me. Remote jobs are white-collar, and white-collar jobs tend to pay well.

It’s hard not to get excited about the digital nomad market after seeing these stats. A large, rapidly growing, and wealthy demographic? Yes, please. 

However, in typical Levels fashion, he talked about much more than just digital nomads:

• The only other person on his team handles user data security. Don’t ignore security, people!

• How important vanilla PHP code and AI are to him being able to run so many businesses simultaneously. 

• The primary factor in where you live should be how much you like it, not its tax policy. Such simple advice, but so true. 

• You’ll soon be able to pay for his apps using crypto on Stripe. This is a functionality that Stripe just brought back after a six-year hiatus, and with the growing popularity of stablecoins worldwide, it’s something that you should probably look into. 

• He doesn’t really believe in a physical Network State, which is something that our own Courtland Allen is also skeptical of.

  

Other highlights

A 10 hour conference with 40 luminaries is bound to have some bangers:

• Naval's entire talk was must-watch, but him describing wealth as “the byproduct of knowledge” was especially enlightening. As he puts it, if you can produce just one novel insight in your life that pushes humanity forward, you will achieve all of your material goals. 

• I’ve never heard of Ranveer Allahbadia, aka BeerBiceps, aka India’s most popular podcaster, but the guy is electric. I loved how he said the secret to his success is survival. Any successful indie hacker knows how true that is. 

• Bryan Johnson is super entertaining and dropped tons of interesting health nuggets, but my favorite was:

Plus, he has the coveted Marc Lou stamp of approval.

Overall, I think the entire conference is worth a watch, and I’m someone who generally dislikes conferences. However, if you’re (understandably) daunted by the runtime, I’d recommend focusing on Balaji’s three fireside chats with Naval, Bryan Johnson, and Levels.