Brock Pierce on opportunity zones in Puerto Rico

0:21projects one of those being Puerto Rico focused qualified opportunity zones how did this particular Endeavor materialize and let's start with you know Puerto Rico why Puerto Rico well I realized a little while ago that wherever I go people will show up and so I can live in New York I can live in San Francisco I can live in London love all of those cities but I'm not making the

0:46world a better place by being there and so I wanted to run an experiment and see if I go somewhere that could use a little bit of help you know will interesting people able to make the world a better place show up and we're still in the very beginning stages of this experiment but so far I'd say as a venture capitalist you know it's working a thousand you know

1:06extraordinary people have moved to Puerto Rico since the beginning of this experiment and you know that's in part because of some people are interested in the things that I'm able to share but also it's one of the only places that an American can live and pay zero taxes which is why qualified opportunity zones are so interesting the most important probably

1:28tax reform in the last you know 50 or 100 years and that is that if you take any capital gain that you have and you invest it into a part of America that needs capital investment to make that area to stimulate that you know sort of Economic Development you get to defer your capital gains for seven years and then eventually 10 years and you essentially pay 15% tax and your cost

1:52basis adjust essentially you pay no tax and so this is places like Englewood in Los Ang or Oakland in San Francisco parts of Brooklyn and New York and there are these what are qualified opportunity zones all over the country what's interesting about Puerto Rico is that 96% of the island is a qualified opportunity Zone and so if you've made any money this year you

2:17should be investing that Capital into parts of America that need economic stimulus Puerto Rico being one of those places and so I'm champ championing Puerto Rico as a place for investment which as I'm as far as I can tell is the only luxury destination that is a qualified opportunity Zone that's wonderful Brock and what have you learned since you first arrived in

2:38Puerto Rico and when did you first start this initiative well I've been working on Puerto Rico since 2014 I started the first crypto Bank in Puerto Rico because of its unique laws and then so I've been down there helping right since right after the hurricane hurricane Maria and the qualified opportunity Zone laws are are just taking effect now so this

3:05is entirely new but now you know Puerto Rico is the one place an American can live and pay no taxes now because of qualified opportunity zones Americans anywhere in the world can pay no taxes on their capital gains as long as they invest those gains into places where economic stimulus is needed so Puerto Rico had a unique advantage and that Advantage is now dissipating now

3:29every city has to defend for itself and capital is not going to be equally divided across the nation capital is going to end up in the locations where there are call it ambassadors promoting investment in that region and I'm you know one of those unofficial ambassadors promoting investing in Puerto Rico if you've made money come visit and invest in Puerto

3:52Rico that's great and there's a lot of people that don't really know what's going on right now so maybe you could give a little bit of the current state of Puerto Rico and then what you're ultimately trying to achieve through this initiative yeah well Puerto Rico is Ground Zero of the new world most people don't know but this is where Christopher

4:13Columbus setup shop in 1493 and so it's literally the birthplace where all of Europe's influence on all of North and South America or the new world that existed long before he arrived began and so it's a place that's undergone about 500 years of hard ship most recently due to Hurricane Maria you had three and a half million people living in Puerto Rico

4:35following the hurricane it became 3 million and the half a million people or nearly 20% of the population that left were not just any of the 20% of the population it was the people with the means to leave the intellectual Capital the financial Capital the human capital Etc and so what Puerto Rico needs more than anything else is you know most importantly talented Puerto Ricans that

4:56care about coming home because opportunities exist there now as as well as a handful of you know migrants such as ourselves that are there in service and trying to lend a hand in helping Puerto Rico rebuild itself that's amazing now let's bring the other element into this conversation more specifically about the qualified opportunity zones you know what is your

5:19passion Behind these projects and what are you really trying to achieve in the in the short term here well there's a there's you can do just about anything but the area that the thing that keeps me up at is food resiliency and food security most of the food on the island is imported even though there's very fertile soil Puerto Rico only has about

5:43two to three weeks of food meaning if a category 5 hurricane were to hit Miami Puerto Rico runs out of food because it could disrupt Supply chains and so I'm very interested personally in investing in and supporting agriculture I would love to see Puerto Rico develop food security and food resiliency you know so if you're interested in building you know sustainable farms

6:09Please seek me out that's you know a personal passion of mine right now that's great and of course food is one of the essentials of life so you really need to have that to be able to move into a society that has you know bringing back this other intellectual capital and bring back more of a Workforce so you can have you know a flourishing community

6:30yes please yeah food is essential and surprisingly there's very little of it in the Caribbean even though again Puerto Rico has a rainforest for Americans it's the only rainforest in the United States I mean it is it's such a beautiful place it's Paradise weather is exceptional if you've never visited Puerto Rico you know the thing that you

6:56can do to be helpful is take a trip down and visit y That's amazing and you mentioned at the beginning that you started the first crypto Bank there in 2014 have has that helped the economy since then or how is that changing the people of Puerto Rico right now and is that moved into because qualified opportunity zones didn't exist back then you were already you were already there

7:20helping the communities that needed help so how is that influenced the current state of what you're doing now in Puerto Rico well blockchain or crypto currencies but the underlying blockchain technology is you know something that's helping to move the world forward if you if you go and do a poll right now and say what are the most important

7:42technology hubs in the world where is block what are the main blockchain sort of cities on the planet Puerto Rico normally would not have been one of those places where you would think that techn it's a technology leading you know place but if you walk around San Francisco and you talk to you know Silicon Valley venture capitalist you say what are the

8:02blockchain hubs of the world they say Puerto Rico Puerto Rico is one of the main hubs where a lot of the leading technologists the leading cryptographers the world's great makers creators are for whatever reason flocking too so I think I mean if you think about like the Industrial Revolution if you think about the development of the world every major

8:24city is a major city because it's sat at the Forefront of some type of major evolutionary or revolutionary event and Puerto Rico you know has its seat at the table now that's amazing and in terms of you know the Horizon for these initiatives to be implemented into the community and actually bring value is this something that's been started a

8:48while back and it's now you know bringing Direct Value to people or is this something that's being worked on throughout 2019 it's a multi-year project oh yeah this is I mean governments spend hundreds of billions of dollars to you know attempt what we're attempting to do here and this is absolutely at its infancy we've accomplished very little there's

9:09still tremendous work to be done but yeah about a thousand people have moved a startup ecosystem now exists there's co-working facilities startup accelerators incubators Angels mentors historically there had been no Puerto Rican startups that had raised any meaningful money and Puerto Rico now has six startups in the last call it six months that have raised over

9:32a million dollars so there is we're at the very beginning stages of a startup ecosystem emerging which is important most people don't know this but Puerto Rico has more Bachelor degrees than any other place in the United States per capita Puerto Rico has more artists than anywhere in the United States per capita you know the Puerto Rican people are incredibly talented they've just lacked

9:54Opportunity and you know hopefully we're you know creating some of that opportunity and inspiring people to realize they can they can do whatever they want they have all the talent in the world it's amazing Brock sounds like a very talented group of people and I'm sure there's other initiatives going on besides your food initiative or other

10:14things you're looking to get into with the help of more people and more Capital bringing them into Puerto Rico so do you have any examples of other types of projects or opportunities that you may be interested in getting involved in Puerto Rico or things that are really needed there that maybe other investors are interested in that would be a good

10:34fit for Puerto Rico to start right now in the qualified opportunity Zone yeah so you have a 96% of the island is a qualified opportunity Zone you've got the best surfing you know on the East Coast so if you live anywhere on the east coast and you like to serve for kite board or any of these things Puerto Rico is your place you've got incredible infrastructure you know

10:55better than anywhere in the Caribbean incredible agriculture opportuni you've got extremely talented people so there's startup sort of Technology opportunities that exist there I mean you can do just about anything you've got extraordinarily talented people a general lack of opportunity and now by investing in this place you can defer and essentially pay little to

11:20no tax by investing in this place this is a an incredible government initiative to reroute Capital directly by inv into places that are in need of economic stimulus and I think Puerto Rico is the place to make your investment that's awesome and is are you guys have a place where investors can connect and you know find like-minded individuals that are looking to help

11:46Puerto Rico or what is the call to action for these investors to find something that they like do they know start exploring Puerto Rico go there themselves or what kind of call to action do you have to those investors well we hope to continue to inform and help people find you know opportunities we want to marry or connect you know individuals that are

12:09actually doing the work to build the things that are going to provide that economic stimulus but we also want to cap connect the capital to those people in the immediate term you can come to our my website which is Brock pierce. and from there you'll have a link to the resources that we that will help you find the right opportunities the qualified

12:31opportunities to provide economic stimulus in Puerto Rico amongst other places so please check that out we are going to be rolling out these tools and that information to support either those that are building or those with the capital to provide the resources for that development thank you brck this sounds like a great opportunity you know

12:53especially for people that have excess Capital this is such with the tax breaks involved compared to investing anywhere else in America it only makes sense so do you have any final thoughts that you'd like to send to the viewers investors about you know getting involved in this project well yeah the main thing is if you have any capital gain that you owe

13:14this year literally if you have to write a check to the IRS for 10,000 50,000 whatever your check is in the form of capital gains if you take that check and you invest it into a place where economic stimulus is needed you can write the IRS a check for zero so this is maybe the greatest gift you're going to hear and this has been designed by our government this is the

13:38most valuable and most important probably tax legislation that's been created in the last 100 years make sure to take advantage of it is your opportunity created by our government to be able to take that Capital that you would normally be writing to the IRS in the form of capital gains and you can invest that directly into places within the United States that are in need of

13:58economic stimulus so you can go help people by providing much needed resources to places in need and you benefit greatly from it so don't miss the opportunity to do so and naturally I'm here to help you if Puerto Rico is the place you choose that's amazing thank you Brock Pierce philanthropist and venture capitalist focusing in Puerto Rico on these

14:21qualified opportunity zones it really does sound like an amazing opportunity to help America and I'm glad that you are leading this initiative because it sounds like you're actually here to help a lot of people and in the end it's all about helping other people so I really thank you for your time today and I'm looking forward to seeing how you

14:39guys help Puerto Rico flourish and for you to get other people involved and start this movement thank you so much for having me