A group of high-profile tech bosses quietly bought up thousands of acres of land north of San Francisco. Purchased under the corporate name Flannery Associates, seven Bay Area billionaires spent $800 million to scoop up the farmland in Solano County in the hopes of transforming it into a modern metropolis.
The utopia would be as walkable as Paris and create tens of thousands of jobs, according to a pitch from venture capitalist Michael Moritz, internal emails reviewed by the New York Times show.
Former investment banker Jan Sramek spearheaded the land-grab effort. An elite group of tech entrepreneurs and investors joined, including Andreessen Horowitz partners Marc Andreessen and Chris Dixon, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, Stripe co-founders Patrick and John Collison, billionaire philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs and Moritz of Sequoia Capital.
Flannery Associates told local lawmakers the investors hope to build between one and three cities on the land, according to San Francisco Chronicle reporting.
Most of the purchased land lies along Highway 12, a sparsely populated ranching area with few residences and buildings. The land acquisition included 140 properties and large swaths of commercial wind farms, energy infrastructure and conservation projects.
Scroll for more drone footage of the mysterious billionaire land acquisition in Solano County.
Editor’s note: Venture capitalist Michael Moritz finances The Standard.