The people (or person) who had created this new technology were anonymous, but the idea was simple: While you needed dollars to buy things in America, pounds in England, yen in Japan, or rupees in India, this new Bitcoin currency was meant to be used all around the world and specifically on the Internet. And just like cash, it was untraceable. To get some Bitcoins, you could exchange them online in the same way you could go to the airport and exchange dollars for euros. It was the missing piece Ross had been waiting for to build his experimental world with no rules.
So in the summer of 2010, while Julia was photographing naked women, Ross Ulbricht, the failed physicist who wanted so badly to make a difference in the world, sat down at his beloved laptop to realize the idea that had been lodged in his mind for so long. A Web site that would be a free and open marketplace where people from all over the planet could buy anything and everything. Things that they couldn’t currently get their hands on because of the restrictions of the U.S. government—most important, drugs. As his fingers touched the keyboard and code appeared on his computer screen, he daydreamed that the site could potentially grow quickly. So quickly that the government would become petrified by its power. It could be living proof, Ross fantasized, that legalizing drugs was the best way to stop violence and oppression in the world. If it worked, it would change the very fabric of society forever.
Sure, he wanted to make money. That was the libertarian way. But he wanted to free people too. There were millions of souls crammed into jails across the country because of drugs, mostly inconsequential drugs like weed and magic mushrooms. A vile and putrid prison system kept those people locked away; lives destroyed because the government wanted to tell people what they could and could not do with their own bodies.
This new Web site he was working on could change that.
Coming up with a name for his store was a challenge, but he finally settled on the Silk Road, a title borrowed from the ancient Chinese trade route of the Han dynasty.
The biggest challenge now was finding the time to actually work on the project, given that he was still involved with Good Wagon Books and had even taken over most of the operation. Still, he had hired a couple of employees to do most of the book work, so Ross could hole up in his messy bedroom and toil away on the site, work that was difficult, even for someone as capable as Ross.
He spent innumerable hours writing front-end code, back-end code, and code that helped sew those digital dialects together. Ross was teaching himself all of these programming languages on the fly. He was technically doing the equivalent of building eBay and Amazon on his own, without any help and without any knowledge. When he got stuck, he was truly baffled as to how to fix a programming problem. It wasn’t as if he could post a job listing online looking for someone to help him build a Web site that sold drugs and other illegal contraband.
For now, though, he was determined to build the site on his own, even if it was slow going. His idea, which now seemed like the obvious path to push his liberation ideals, might actually turn into something.
But there was one thing Ross hadn’t figured out yet. Where was he going to get drugs for his new drug-dealing Web site?
Chapter 8
ROSS THE FARMER
He had to tell someone or, more important, he had to actually show someone. But he couldn’t; he just couldn’t—it was too dangerous. This conundrum gnawed at Ross. So after weeks of deliberation he knew exactly who it would be. “I’m going to take you somewhere,” Ross said to Julia on a late-November afternoon. “But I’m going to have to blindfold you.”
“Blindfold me?” she exulted as she jumped up from her chair, delighted by the possibility that something kinky was about to happen. “Great!”
He clarified very quickly that this wasn’t sexual. “The blindfold is for your own protection,” he said, worry spreading across his face. “It’s so you can never lead anyone back to where I’m going to take you.”
Still, Julia felt a thrill as Ross slipped some black fabric over her head, then pulled tightly to shut out any light from around her eyes. He wasn’t his usual phlegmatic self; he seemed nervous and deep in thought. They walked in silence out of the apartment, Ross gripping Julia’s arm to help her into his pickup truck. Ross could see everything, but Julia could only hear. There was the sound of keys that jingled like a dog’s collar. The click of the truck’s door opening. A thump as it slammed shut. An engine rumbled. Finally the vehicle edged forward into the darkness for Julia, daylight for Ross.
“Where are we going?” Julia asked again as she looked around at the shadows.
“I told you,” he whispered. “It’s a surprise. You’ll see.”
Ross didn’t say another word as he drove through Austin at dusk. Julia sensed he was concerned, so she let them sit in silence.
They had been getting along so well lately. On weekends they would head over to his parents’ house for dinner, which—unsurprisingly—was different from any family dinner she had encountered.
While many Texan kinfolk would spend mealtimes talking about football and F-150 trucks, the Ulbrichts talked about economics, libertarian politics, and the pitiful state of society. Ross’s father, Kirk, a soft-spoken native of South Texas, always managed to one-up Ross’s arguments by calmly pointing out that his son’s beliefs were a tad too idealistic, and here was why. Lyn, Ross’s hard-nosed Bronx-born mother, would step in and defend Ross’s view, supplementing his argument with her more rigid outlook. Kirk’s goal was to teach his son to think through every side of an argument; Lyn’s was to push Ross’s intelligence, with the hope that he would live up to his incredible potential. She had given up on her own dream of becoming a journalist, and her hope of a grand future now lay in the hands of her golden son. This fact was not lost on Ross.
Maybe this was why Ross had been working so hard of late.
Over the past few weeks Julia had seen him disappear for hours on end, not really saying what he was up to. She had imagined he was working at the Good Wagon Books warehouse or (more likely) toiling away on the Web site he was now obsessed with. He spent what seemed like days at a time on his laptop, staring intently at the screen. Maybe, she had reasoned, he was hanging out with friends in the park or volunteering at a nearby nonprofit, something Ross often did with his spare time.
But, as Julia was about to find out when the vehicle finally stopped, Ross had been up to something very different recently. She wondered where they were as the truck’s engine hummed off. Maybe it was near Highland Mall or Rundberg Lane, or they had driven away from the downtown and were near Bastrop State Park, outside the city. She heard Ross get out of the truck; the keys clinked, a door slammed, and he grabbed her by the arms, helping her onto the pavement.
“Okay, hold on to me,” he said as he led her forward. “We’re going to walk up some stairs now.”