Once you head off US-183, the drive into Proto-Town is quintessentially central Texas. Narrow two-lane roads, rolling hills, the smell of mesquite and cow pastures. You could be mistaken for having entered into the first verse of a George Strait song.
As I drove toward the heart of the development on an overcast day in March, I passed by a sign that reads: “PLEASE DRIVE SLOW. ROBOTS AT WORK.” On the other side of the property, an exact copy of the guard post Los Alamos had at its founding flits by. The significance of each is subtle, but purposeful. If the technological flourishing that occurred during World War II needed guarding, the same animating spirit needs something else today: freedom.
Staking Their Claim
Proto-Town is the brainchild of Joshua Farahzad and Merle Nye: two men who had crossed paths years ago and decided to make a bet on the future. The friends met while studying at Duke University, both later spending time at various startups focused on aerospace and energy, respectively. After discovering that testing small missiles, even for research purposes, was not exactly something looked kindly upon in zoned residential neighborhoods. The first step included their now-famous red school bus, which was driven across America, spreading the good word of building a new city filled with the frontier spirit of America, where residents have an inherent right to experiment. Fittingly, a hollowed out missile hangs from the ceiling.
Amidst their search for land to settle, Farahzad and Nye found Lockhart-local John Cyrier, a small business owner and four-term Republican Texas state representative, who, serendipitously, lived just down the road from 1,200-acres of land near Lockhart, Texas.Cyrier had been involved in earlier plans for a proposed Micron semiconductor factory site to be constructed on this parcel with support from the CHIPS Act, federal legislation which provided subsidies and investment to spur domestic semiconductor fabrication. Micron instead chose a site in New York state, due in part to a more lavish economic development package (this project is now being held up by environmental lawsuits and review). Farahzad and Nye’s project took advantage of this available land and gained a partner who was critical for obtaining the local backing they needed. The trio set to work establishing the legal structure: incorporating Proto-Town and ushering their ideas into life.
After purchasing a parcel of land 2 years ago, Proto-Town’s founders set out to homestead their way to a settlement. Their first year was spent sleeping on air mattresses in a school bus. It was that vessel which Farahzad and Nye drove around the country on the initial tour to pitch and recruit what would become Proto-Town. They hopped on the bus and never got off.
To Farahzad and Nye, local buy-in has been critical from the beginning. The prospect of test-robots may not be seen as particularly neighborly for some. But, through conversations and negotiations with local municipal leaders, residents, and government actors, the duo made the case for Proto-Town and its value to the local community, as well as the state of Texas, and the nation. This resulted in something striking: regulatory arrangements that gave control of zoning and citing to Proto-Town’s founders. This is what makes Proto-Town more than an idea. After all, it’s permitting and land-use agreements, not capital or technology, that holds America back from building. Provenance over their own area means Proto-Town can decide what they want to build.
Today, the site is a new frontier for founders and hardware manufacturers. They congregate to the secluded “Freedom City” to experiment, iterate, and scale production of projects that attempt to solve some of America’s hardest problems. While software developers and those working in the world of bits can huddle together in a group house in the Mission, iterative development in the world of atoms is often relegated to wizened old men on university campuses, industrial parks, national labs, and recently, a growing community in El Segundo. Proto-Town was built to fill this void: a space for ambitious companies to build, test, and deploy novel technologies today.
First Contact
As of today, there are more than twenty people living on the property. Housed in a mix of re-purposed shipping containers, man-camp trailers, and, soon, 3D-printed homes, Proto-Town’s come a long way since its entire population was sleeping in a bus. Now, the town’s clustered around a ranch with a few structures for lodging and meals. The townspeople congregate for breakfast, lunch, and dinner a universe away from the all-you-can-eat cafeterias that fuel the worker-bees in Mountain View or Menlo Park. These brief reprieves from work contribute to the camaraderie of the place and bind these disparate entrepreneurs and engineers together.
As the founders see it, Proto-Town’s residents are laying the foundation for a revival of the American frontier spirit in the 21st century. In addition to its burgeoning industrial infrastructure, there are plans to build more housing (referred to as the “antfarm”), places of worship, and fields for agriculture. All of this development is fueled by technology and capacity native to Proto-Town.
There is an expressed intent to “dogfood” these physical services and tools: using and testing their software and services internally. Farahzad referred to this idea often, noting how the practice is quite popular within cohorts of the Y Combinator startup accelerator. It creates a supply of early users who can test products, identify problems, and accelerate iterative improvement. The difference in this instance is that the founders dogfooding each other sleep mere doors away, using one company’s autonomous construction vehicles to move earth so another can build rocket parts.
The companies that have decided to make their bet in central Texas have one thing in common: focusing on tackling the hardest product problems, building the goods and services necessary for modern American life. In addition to autonomous construction vehicles (Bedrock Robotics), there is a company building air conditioning systems that rely on a chemical reaction created through collecting solar energy (Atmos Thermal Systems), small modular nuclear reactors (Oklo), and a new form of centrifuge and desalination process that is being tested on brackish water from oil and gas extraction (Eden Technologies).
Meet the New Frontier, Same as the Old Frontier
Beyond the technological feats, Proto-Town represents an opportunity to re-connect with the lost experimental spirit of America. Just by wandering through the town, it is clear how this uniquely American conception of exploration and risk is inextricably linked to the physical systems being constructed and deployed. To some, it may seem backwards that the next great American city could be built among longhorns and wildflowers. After all, you see the future first in San Francisco or New York. But to these men, it is precisely this location and this land that is the place to build anew.
The physical lock-in and commitment to the land means they must iterate where they are, rising and falling on this parcel of land. While walking with Farahzad, I asked whether this was simply a concept: a project to learn from and, if too tough, move on from. He replied confidently: “There’s no escape. We have made our bet here. This is not a ‘we can pick up and go back to SF’ project. This project will live or die in Lockhart.” The founders created a model for a special economic zone, sure, but it is not just a set of legal permissions or access to resources that make Proto-Town special. It is the vision that this place, specifically, is where the young men building rockets and housing nuclear reactors will bear witness to the future being created.
Outside the main house, there is another monument that greets new entrants. It is an old oil derrick, with various telephone poles affixed to the top. A few yards to its right is a black-and-white billboard of Robert Oppenheimer puffing on his famous pipe. The monument is a piece created by More Monuments, whose goal is to build monuments to “define a new era of American artistry and craftsmanship.”
This all-too-fitting tribute is a testament to the work that has already been done at Proto-Town, and a marker of the dreams of the work that will continue for years to come. Amid America’s 250th year, there is no better time to resurrect the idea of America as an experiment, as a place to build something new. Proto-Town is doing its part, revitalizing that youthful American spirit one autonomous digger at a time.
