Company Town
Photo by Sander Weeteling on Unsplash
A.I.Drive Inc. is building a town on a brownfield site alongside a motorway in the North West of England. This motorway links two cities served by one airport, which A.I.Drive executives fly into and out of on Mondays, as and when required.
Foundations were laid twenty years ago for a retail megaspace which was abandoned by a developer who got wind of what was coming when his ten year old began ordering CDs online. He considered building vast hangars and warehouses to store consumer goods that could be loaded onto or unloaded from trucks which used the motorway between the cities, one of which happens to be a Freeport.
Instead of constructing space for stuff, the developer liquidated his assets and made all of his permanent staff redundant. He invested the proceeds into a fledgling internet retailer that was bought out by another internet retailer. The laws of probability suggest that the latter holds your credit card details and a record of most of your purchases since you decided to have the shop come to you rather than vice versa.
The developer and his family now live in another country – if you want to be picky, it’s an island – where he benefits from a relaxed attitude towards taxation, but to which a certain internet retailer does not deliver, what with it being in the middle of an ocean and there not being enough inhabitants to constitute a profitable customer base. This causes no inconvenience, since the developer, his family, and the rest of the island’s wealthy residents have all they could ever wish for; and besides, new stuff can be brought in from any of the numerous superyachts moored off the island’s main harbour. Being too big to dock in the harbour, each yacht is equipped with a deluxe launch worth more than your or my house. The harbour throngs with activity during daylight hours as the launches move between yachts and the island, bringing in stuff the inhabitants don’t need but must have.
By strange coincidence, the founder of the internet retailer that is unable to deliver to this and other islands lives on an island in the same ocean. This one was built from scratch – from the water up, you might say – and has been recognised as a sovereign state which because of its unique construction is at risk from neither flooding nor hurricanes. This state, of which you will not have heard, has a zero tax regime, an office building containing one office with no staff, an air strip and a harbour to serve its population of six, not including the people whose job it is to provide whatever the six residents desire. These workers, being undocumented, do not exist.
A.I.Drive has four Founders, one of whom has cashed out his shares and is awaiting the end of a three year non-compete contract in order to launch a new business – NoPiFly – which will operate in a similar sphere; but instead of driverless motor vehicles, the new business will focus on aircraft of all shapes and sizes that will operate without pilots. Think big drones, in which we will one day be forced to travel.
The remaining Founders continue to work hands-on at A.I.Drive. Their primary, secondary and tertiary aims are growth. Written on a white board in the first office they rented – and kept on as a cathartic display of sentimentality – is the slogan/mission statement which adorns all company literature to this day: Forward to a World without Drivers. A second slogan, which all four agreed was kind-of-but-not a joke, was erased when they moved out, but one of the Founders has it tattooed on the inside of his right thigh: World Domination. Another has the same legend on the sole of his left foot. Neither is aware of the other’s ink.
A.I.Drive has a pot of money at its disposal to make the official mission statement happen. The size of the pot is not dissimilar to the GDP of several respectable small countries in the West, but not as large as that of certain island states of which we have spoken. At least two of the Founders, one or both of whom may have hidden tattoos, dream of building an island; but for now they are focused on the town in the North West of England, where location, available (human) resource, and recent corporate tax incentives have combined to forge a perfect storm. There is nothing Disruptors like more than a perfect storm – except perhaps tax incentives and pots of other people’s money – from the fallout of which new worlds can be built.
Discussions about the name of the new town have been shelved after a near-falling out. The working title, Drivetown, was in the running for a while, but was rejected because it lacks aspiration. The Founders have commissioned a communications agency to come up with a name that resonates of Ancient Greece or Rome. Drivetown will be surrounded by seven hills built from reconstructed slag-heaps, of which this area has many, having once been home to coal mines. Much of the construction work will be carried out by sons of sons of miners, bussed in to a location close to where their forefathers toiled underground, but from which their families were exiled after the pits were shut as a result of the miners requesting improved working conditions and a few extra pounds for toil which, when all is said and done, was fucking horrendous. And dangerous. At the time of writing, unspoken concerns about the wisdom of building a town over a network of deep mines remain unspoken.
The seven hills will form a natural barrier to render Drivetown invisible from the outside world. A road between Hills 1 and 2 will provide access for goods and services. A road between Hills 6 and 7 will be made available for the exclusive use of A.I.Drive Associates, should they require it. All vehicles will be required to register at checkpoints in order to minimise disruption and inconvenience to A.I.Drive and its Associates. A plateau will be established atop Hill 7 for the safe landing of helicopters shuttling the Founders to and from the airport. A monorail is being considered for the trip from the heliport to A.I.Drive’s North West of England Headquarters. The latter will be sited in the centre of the town, equidistant from the peaks of Hills 1 thru 7. A cable car has also been mooted, but monorail is favoured by two of the three Founders; and this option has been endorsed by the chief architect who worked on something similar in a megacity you won’t have heard of in China.
Associates will be accommodated in four storey blocks built into the seven hillsides, an unfortunate consequence of which is that none of the accommodations will have rear windows. The potential for a lack of light will be addressed by optimising the size of the front windows, all of which will face Headquarters. Photovoltaic window blinds, operated from Central Control, will generate the power required to heat and ventilate the accommodations. This will be made possible by keeping the blinds down throughout the day, when Associates will be at their workstations.
Each storey of each block will accommodate ten Associates. Associates will benefit from an exclusive double bedroom, two shared bathrooms, a games room, communal living area and a small kitchen. It is projected that Associates will elect to eat at one of the free restaurants which will be open 24/7 in line with office hours. Restaurants will be located within office buildings – Work Hubs – in a nod to the twentieth century, when cafeterias and canteens served unremarkable food to workers unable to escape the tyranny of low expectation. A.I.Drive restaurants will serve food as ambitious as the corporate culture in which they operate. Central Control will monitor nutrition and will administer vitamin supplements when required. Vitamin D shots will be mandatory, due to historical sunlight levels in the North West of England.
When not in the Work Hubs, Associates will be encouraged to treat their accommodations as sites of rest and relaxation. The accommodations will be known as Rest Hubs. Each one will be numbered according to the hill on which it stands. The ten bedrooms on each level will be labelled as per the seven colours of the rainbow, plus three as yet undiscovered colours which an agile research team has been tasked with identifying. The founders are open to allowing for socialising between Rest Hubs, except during the annual influenza season or unplanned outbreaks of infectious sickness. Quarantine will be possible in either Work or Rest Hubs. The former is the preferred and primary option, due to the proximity of catering and healthcare.
Weekends, there will be sport.
The Founders have confirmed that corporate culture will not dictate how Associates choose to live within Drivetown. Assistance will be provided in regard to work-life balance, but guidance will not be issued. Associates may choose to pursue sexual and platonic relationships with co-workers. Intimate space will be provided in Work Hubs, with bedrooms serving the same purpose in Rest Hubs. Due to the planned 50/50 gender split and the statistical forecast for heterosexual pairing, funds have been set aside for childcare and education. The Founders welcome all non-traditional pairing and celebrate the right of all Associates to bear children. Each Rest Hub will have the capacity for two additional levels, for nurseries, schools and the like.
Work Hubs will benefit from the highest speeds of connectivity available in the North West of England. Where necessary, A.I.Drive will dig the trenches and lay the cables. Standing desks with transparent sterile partitioning will be repositioned to accommodate differently abled Associates. Meeting rooms will be tables-only. Associates will be directed to Break Out and Relaxation Zones when in need of chairs. Developers will develop in Development Zones. Operatives will operate in Operation Zones. Administrators overseeing Admin Bots will do so in Administration Zones. Janitorial services will be provided by off-site resource. Catering will adhere to similar arrangements. Executive, Head, Deputy and Station Chefs will live on site.
Service providers such as cleaners, caterers (except senior chefs), utility workers and others whose work supports the success of A.I.Drive will be housed in a satellite village planned for the rear of Hill 1, close to the road that will bring them in and out of the town proper. Current thinking is leaning towards deluxe barracks-style accommodation. Service providers will be able to apply for entry-level Associate positions within Drivetown, depending on qualifications, suitability and nomination by an Associate of good standing. Rents in the satellite village will be priced at market rates.
Some Further Notes
Places of worship can be provided if requested, but religious observance is not expected, including Jediism.
A virtual library containing all books published in electronic format will be available to Associates.
With the exception of road checkpoints, there will be no requirement for security or policing in Drivetown. In line with British laws and customs, firearms will be prohibited, with the exception of the Founders’ close protection detail.
Vacations, known to the British as holidays, will be provided free of charge during planned downtime. Planes and cruise ships will be chartered for overseas trips. Executive coaches and driverless cars will be provided for journeys within the United Kingdom to A.I.Drive’s catered cottages, hotels, forest lodges and yurts. The company is putting together a team to work on driverless kayaks, self-propelled skateboards and a top secret surfing concept. Associates will have first dibs on these.
In the event of a change of government and tax regime, Drivetown can be dismantled, or abandoned. Drivetown can be replicated wherever conditions are favourable, each new iteration building upon the success of its forebears.