I’m moving my family, my wife, and our three children from Ireland to Abu Dhabi next month.
When I first told RiskHedge Publisher Dan Steinhart, he looked at me like I had lost the plot. I’ll walk you through why I made the decision today.
It comes down to a simple, powerful conviction: Where a child grows up shapes who they become.
In much of the West, we fawn over reality TV stars.
In Abu Dhabi, they champion the innovators, the builders, the thinkers. It’s a society surging with optimism. I want my children to breathe that air.
It tells the story of a desolate desert landscape, unchanged for thousands of years.
Author Wilfred Thesiger writes about riding into Abu Dhabi on a camel circa 1948. It was a backwater with 2,000 people.
To read “Arabian Sands” and then stand in modern Abu Dhabi is like witnessing one of the most astonishing transformations in human history. The shift from sand dunes to shimmering skyscrapers is history happening in real time.
People in Abu Dhabi embrace innovation because they’ve experienced the benefits of radical transformation firsthand. For a people that watched a city rise from the desert, the idea of robotaxis, flying cars, and artificial intelligence (AI) isn't frightening.
Neuralink is launching trials of its brain chip in Abu Dhabi’s Cleveland Clinic…
Elon Musk’s other startup, The Boring Company, is working on the “Dubai Loop.” It’s a network of underground tunnels that’ll allow users to “drive” under Dubai's streets. 3D roads!
The UAE government recently gave every citizen a free ChatGPT subscription, turning the entire nation into an AI-literate society overnight.
AI is being integrated into school curriculum from kindergarten through 12th grade. My kids won’t just hear about AI; they’ll grow up with it as a core part of their education.
Archer Aviation (ACHR) is debuting its flying cars in Abu Dhabi this year…
Uber (UBER) is training robotaxis five minutes from our new home…
The UAE is building the world’s largest AI data centers… and powering them with a combination of oil, nuclear, and vast solar farms. Energy is the engine of the future, and it’s leading the way.
It’s solving water scarcity with cutting-edge desalination plants…
It’s mining bitcoin (BTC) and “tokenizing” buildings (more on this below)…
And for entertainment? It’s building a replica of the Las Vegas Sphere.
This is the physical manifestation of a national mindset that believes in technology. I want my children to “see” human ingenuity can make the impossible possible.
It’s a culture of “we can,” not “we can’t.”
Agency—the belief you aren’t a passenger in your own life but the master of your fate—is also the #1 trait I want to teach my kids.
New York City recently spent billions to lay a few miles of subway track. For a similar price, Dubai built a giant palm-shaped island in the middle of the ocean.
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“Swimming in that water,” to use a turn of phrase, makes you more ambitious. It makes you believe that your own grand plans might just be possible, too.
And if you think the UAE got mega rich and forgot its roots, think again.
Something RiskHedge member Tariq told me when I met him in Abu Dhabi a few weeks ago will stay with me forever: “Stephen, there are no orphanages or nursing homes here. If something happens to a family member, we take them in.”
It’s a magnet, pulling in ambitious people from every corner of the globe.
Last time I was there, I met people from Belarus, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe… the list goes on. Roughly 88% of the UAE’s population is foreign-born. It’s the highest share of any country on Earth.
They’re not just coming for a job. They’re coming in search of a better life, to be part of something new and exciting. It’s a true melting pot. I want my kids to grow up surrounded by people who made a conscious choice to leave their homes and build something new.
It takes agency to recognize you’re in the wrong neighborhood.
The other great thing about this “melting pot” is who you can meet. The world runs on relationships. In the AI era, that’s becoming even more true.
The world’s top hedge funds and financial minds are flocking to the UAE. The density of influential and driven people you can meet there is extraordinary.
When I was there a few weeks ago, I found myself at an exclusive dinner sitting next to the manager of a major digital assets fund. It’s the new “capital of capital.”
To live there is to have a front-row seat, and a chance to participate in the trends shaping the 21st century.
I’ve never cast a vote in any election, ever. Politics is a waste of time.
I believe the ultimate expression of your conviction is to vote with your feet. That’s what I’m doing.
As an aside, I find it strange that while there are zero taxes, the UAE’s government is far more competent than in Europe, where they take half my money. The roads are also better and it’s way safer.
Strange how that works.
“Why do that to your kids?”
Sure, it’s a big move. But introducing this kind of “volatility” into my children’s lives isn’t a risk; it’s the entire point. It’s about teaching them to be adaptable and resilient.
“Oh, it’s so hot. How could you live there?”
I’m a pasty Irish dude. The sun is not my friend. But the idea that the heat is a dealbreaker is a myth. The air-conditioning is so ubiquitous and powerful, you simply move from one perfectly cooled environment to another. It’s a solved problem.
The UAE’s harsh climate makes its success even more remarkable. It built one of the world’s best countries in one of its most challenging climates.
And I predict within the next decade or two, the UAE will have countrywide outdoor air-conditioning that’ll allow it to have the perfect climate all year round. Imagine the price of real estate in Abu Dhabi then!
“The weather” is a favorite pushback from Europeans. It’s the same types who complain about how bad America is because of gun violence.
Did you know the number of Europeans who die of heat-related deaths each year is higher than the number of Americans who die from gun violence? Get some A/C, France!
“How could you move your family to a warzone?”
Anyone who’s visited the UAE knows it’s the safest country on Earth.
Story time.
A friend left his laptop outside the US embassy at a bus stop in Dubai for three hours. When he came back, the laptop was sitting there, untouched.
The UAE is so safe and so nice, the “risk” is your kids growing up in a bubble. I have no intention of letting my kids become spoiled brats, which is why we’ll still be doing our own chores, and they’ll learn the value of a hard day’s work.
But what about the broader Middle East?
Let me take you back in time to Europe in the 17th century. It had just been devastated by the Thirty Years War, which killed around a fifth of Germany’s population alone. That war came on the heels of 150 years of brutal religious wars.
“Never going to make it.”
Well… 200 years later, Europe was on top of the world, having invented industrial technology and modern science, which drove unparalleled growth in living standards.
That’s where the Middle East is today. Ditching war, embracing innovation.
What better example of that than growing up in what was once an empty desert of sand turned vast metropolis of marble?
Abu Dhabi is a gleaming city of the future where humanity gathers to produce massive wealth.
It’s a society that values what we once valued in the West: relentless progress, bold ambition, and a deep-seated belief in the power of technology to create a better world.
And maybe best of all, it’s not afraid to try new things, like “tokenizing” buildings.
Imagine owning a piece of Dubai’s glittering skyline. Not a whole skyscraper, but a single, digital brick of it. That’s now possible thanks to Dubai’s new tokenization scheme.
Tokenization takes the legal deed to a property and, using the secure and transparent power of blockchain tech, divides it into thousands of digital tokens.
Each token represents a small, verifiable share of the ownership. Suddenly, a multimillion-dollar building becomes accessible to anyone wanting to buy a “digital brick” for as little as $540.
I guess that’s why some people call it the crypto capital of the world.
I believe this environment of boundless optimism and relentless innovation will rub off on my kids and help them become more capable and more inspired human beings.
Wish us luck and reach out if you’re ever in town!
One last thing… keep an eye out for Monday’s issue. I’ll be writing about the #1 force driving crypto’s next wave of growth.
Stephen McBride
Chief Analyst, RiskHedge