Heaven! (Photo: Blueseed)

Paging Peter Thiel! Blueseed, a sea-faring tech incubator that aims to skirt visa laws by hosting its programs in international waters, has raised $300,000 from Silicon Valley investor Mike Maples. The startup incubator and business center intends to provide a place for non-US citizens to have the same access to the ideas and capital in the Valley without having to go through the complicated visa process. Though it's just a fraction of the $10-30 million needed for the project to actually take off, no doubt Silicon Valley's principled libertarian population will be excited to hear the news.

Last we checked in with the Valley libertarians, Peter Thiel pal Patri Friedman was preparing a book on Seasteading, the practice of living at sea in order to avoid national laws. Blueseed, meanwhile, raised $500,000 in September 2011 and is planning to launch at the end of this year.

According to the venture's site, it will cost about $1,600 per month per person to live and work on the floating incubator, which will be anchored approximately 12 miles from Silicon Valley. "We’ll charge a combination of rent and equity to accommodate the stage of your startup," reads the site. "The price per person will include living and office space, and will range from $1200 for a shared cabin to $3000 for a top-tier single accommodation cabin."

This may be the closest to a libertarian paradise we'll get any time soon, as the Peter Thiel-funded Future Cities project, which sought to build its own autonomous utopia within Honduras, was shut down in October 2012.

Fear not: we're sure the high-rolling Mr. Thiel has plenty of soft $100 bills to wipe his tears away.

Artist's rendering. (Photo: flickr.com/rossaroni)

What happens when a scruffy bunch of startup scamps move into a posh neighborhood? Why, hijinks ensue, naturally.

See, San Francisco's Pacific Heights neighborhood has something called "Billionaire's Row," where tech elites like Larry Ellison live. However, Businessweek reports that there is one mansion inhabited by an unusual crop of folks: not merely rentors, but entrepreneurs in their 30s, working on startup ideas. Nature took its course:

"'It’s like an incubator,' says Ryan Turri, a resident and aspiring beef jerky magnate. 'You’re up at two in the morning and bouncing ideas off three or four guys who are all smart.'"

Unfortunately for the purposes of entertainment value, it sounds like the proceedings are just a little G-rated:

The neighbors have raised a few grumbles. One party got too raucous, and there was the time some folks from the house put on tuxes and crashed a party at the Gettys.

Still, beats the hell out of another Silicon Valley reality TV show.

Reap what you incubate.

Betabeat is of the opinion that there will soon be a wave of start-ups who's early funding, be it a friends and family or a seed stage round, is going to run out. A few of these companies will have enough traction to raise an A round, slightly more will pivot to another model, but most will be forced to call it quits. As Shair Goldman and Chris Dixon point out after our last Seed Stage Slaughter post, this is how the venture capital system is meant to work. But what that ignores is that this will be happening at a much higher volume than any time in the last ten years.

As Xconomy pointed out in a post today, the number of tech incubators has practically doubled, from 34 in 2010 to 64 in 2011. And that likely doesn't count all the accelerators and other similar programs that aren't officially "incubators". Xconomy reports this as a good thing, offering a a guide for start-ups eager to apply to programs for the low low price of $149.

We're all for more entrepreneurs getting the chance to build their businesses and love seeing programs connect up and comers with seasoned mentors. But the number of incubators was also a pretty clear reflection of the bubble in early stage funding that peaked in 2010 and early 2011. A lot of the early stage funding for companies coming out of those programs came from less savvy angels who had made their money on wall street and in real estate. If the stock market continues its gyrations, you can bet those backers will be part of the herd fleeing to safe, liquid asset classes like Bitcoin (jk, obvi).

The upside in all of this, of course, is that tech talent from failed start-ups will be consolidated behind the winning companies. The VC model assumes 1 out of 10 ideas will work as a business, if that, and a flood of dumb angel money and incubators artificially keeps a ton of bad companies alive. When they perish, the top firms who are starved for talent will have a chance to swell their ranks and really grow at scale.

Dear Prof. Harris - There seem to be a ton of new tech incubators and accelerators opening up. How do I know if one of these programs is right for me and which one will be the best fit?

Sincerely, Freshman Founder

Dear Virgin Founder,

Business is really about integrity. Building it, maintaining it and guarding it. As you get more established (older) things get more complicated and lines get blurred, a story I'll save for another time.

I grew up watching Mike Bloomberg build and grow his business in this manner. It was truly impressive watching him (from afar) conduct his business affairs over the years.  Of course, as a politician, he has my respect, but no longer my admiration --the third term monkey business was about him and his hubris and not about NYC. So Mikey the politician of course promotes technology incubators but Mike Bloomberg the businessman thinks otherwise. He knows the necessity of keeping an iron fist in the velvet glove: a warm, diplomatic face in public, but tight control on staff and the daily business at hand.

Specifically,  the problem with working in the context of an incubator is that a multitude of energies are pulling at you and your staff. It is sort of like being in an open sexual relationship (it can work but it adds an extra layer or three of difficulty over the long haul). Here a few commonly spread incubator diseases:

• Zero Sum Game Syndrome: Another company actually starts getting traction so you (and more critically your staff) wonder what you are doing wrong.
• Dead Egg Decay: Let’s face it most companies don’t hatch. Failure is contagious.
• Behind Closed Doors. Business is a form of intimacy and your staff needs to develop a bond in order to compete in the world as a unified organism.
• Unprotected Intercourse: Why expose the lovely lady (your best geek programmer)?
• Cheating on Your Business. Your crew starts helping other chicks in the incubator (even in good faith) with their business (denuding the balls to the walls, 24/7 get it done at all costs, culture you need to engender).

Wear the Glove

Don’t get me wrong. Under the right conditions incubators and accelerators can work, so long as you wear the velvet glove. Keep your fist tight and get your own office space as soon as is prudent. Remember that letting your guard down even just once can expose your company to life threatening social media diseases.