One of the most thought provoking books I have read is Accelerando by Charles Stross. The ideas he has about the future of mankind and space travel are sure to influence the discourse around AI, post-humanism, and space exploration as technology–aided by the continued expansion of computing power–continues its relentless march forward. However, there was another idea presented in the book which essentially is the ability to instantly create a corporation.
The ability to create a corporation via an API is an idea that has been nagging me since.
The Corporate API
Here is a very rough sketch off what that would look like:
{
"name": "Planet Express",
"type": "LLC",
"industry": "Logistics",
"foundedDate": "2024-04-27",
"addresses": {
"physical": {
"street": "123 Broadway",
"city": "New York",
"state": "New York",
"zip": "10001",
"country": "United States"
},
"legal": {
"street": "P.O. Box 12345",
"city": "Wilmington",
"state": "Delaware",
"zip": "20001",
"country": "United States"
}
},
"directors": [
{
"firstName": "Philip",
"lastName": "Fry",
"title": "CEO",
"email": "philip.fry@planetexpress.com",
"phone": "+1-212-555-1234"
},
{
"firstName": "Turanga",
"lastName": "Leela",
"title": "COO",
"email": "turanga.leela@planetexpress.com",
"phone": "+1-212-555-5678"
}
],
"ownership": {
"members": [
{
"firstName": "Philip",
"lastName": "Fry",
"ownershipPercentage": 50.0,
"email": "philip.fry@planetexpress.com"
},
{
"firstName": "Turanga",
"lastName": "Leela",
"ownershipPercentage": 50.0,
"email": "turanga.leela@planetexpress.com"
}
]
},
"registeredAgent": {
"firstName": "Hubert",
"lastName": "Farnsworth",
"company": "Farnsworth Legal Services",
"email": "hubert.farnsworth@farnsworthlegal.com",
"phone": "+1-302-555-7890",
"address": {
"street": "321 Maple Avenue",
"city": "Wilmington",
"state": "Delaware",
"zip": "19801",
"country": "United States"
}
},
"taxInformation": {
"EIN": "12-3456789",
"taxClassification": "default",
"taxFilingFrequency": "annual"
},
"bankingDetails": {
"bankName": "First Bank of America",
"accountNumber": "1234567890",
"routingNumber": "021000021",
"currency": "USD"
},
"compliance": {
"stateFilings": ["Annual Report"],
"dueDates": ["2025-04-27"]
},
"additionalSettings": {
"businessPurpose": "Intergalatic delivery",
"website": "https://uww.planetexpress.com", (uww -> Universe Wide Web)
}
}
With the corporation being a digital construct maybe addresses are an optional field. Ownership would be required for an LLC and a shareholder endpoint would be required for C-corps.
Every person or corporation would also be an entry.
Where this gets real interesting is corporations owned by corporations. You’d pass the EIN or corporate ID of parent corp as the owner of the new child corp. I, as an individual, could spin up one LLC that could spin up another LLC and so on.
How would this work?
The first state that offers this ability will fire a shot across the bow of Delaware as far as incorporations go. Could be Wyoming or Nevada?
Stripe has a product called Atlas that make setting up an LLC or C-corp in Delaware quite easy. They could partner with a state to provide this service.
The logical step after this is to incorporate bookkeeping. Xero could be integrated so that an API call could get you revenue and expenses. Some entrepreneur could offer an API endpoint to file taxes.
A key component to this (and no pun intended) is keys. It would be critical to establish that the entity (person or corporation) making the API call to establish a new corporation has the authority to do so. You wouldn’t want to lose your key.
Crypto wallets would provide a roadmap here. People could store their key locally but most would probably prefer to use some sort of service to do so. So where one may use Coinbase to store their Bitcoins, they may use Stripe or another company to store their corporate keys.
Payments could be made with cryptocurrencies, wire, or instant ACH. When a business can be spun up or spun down in seconds you would need the payment speed to match.
Why is this a good idea?
As individuals we would increasingly be able to take advantage of some of the benefits that corporations are afforded such as limited liabilities and lower tax rates.
We would probably converge even more so on a standard state of incorporation. (Delaware seems to be the current leader here.) In theory this should reduce some of the legal and bureaucratic costs and confusion when operating across different jurisdictions. Smart contracts on blockchains may become standard.
The main benefit though is the ability to continue to scale the economy. In theory, any reduction in the friction to start a business should increase the number of businesses that are created.
Why is this a bad idea?
In my mind the main potential for abuse is that increasing the distance between a company providing a service and the ultimate owners of that company could encourage bad actors. It should be easier to identify those owners (a series of API calls rather than forms and phone calls to registered agents and attorneys) but if you start thinking of everyone as a business that changes the relationship between business owner and employee.
If companies are no long hiring people and every employment agreement is instead a limited time contractor engagement then companies will no longer provide benefits (it would be much easier to get around where required by law). This would necessitate some major changes to the health care system to work.
In order to prevent fraud and money laundering (to comply with U.S. laws) there would need to be some sort of identity verification for the initial key for each individual. And maybe a process to invalidate stolen keys?
Will this happen?
I think so. We are already heading in that direction. Hopefully we have technologically and financially literate lawmakers that will help ensure that innovations such as this will provide benefits to society as a whole.
Technology is going to keep marching forward hand-in-hand with the economy. We need to look ahead in order to avoid getting left behind.