Bureaucracy: Making Business Hard Since the Middle Ages

Bureaucracy rears its head in the maze of complex forms and regulations—think ESG reporting for corporations or the W-8BEN tax form for individuals. Multinational companies wrestle with ESG demands from multiple authorities, collecting and reconciling endless streams of data from various departments and in different formats. Requests from investors or regulators overlap but rarely align, layering rounds of approvals and paperwork on top of each other. Slow, error-prone portals and requirements to generate new paperwork for minor corrections only add to the frustration.

Individuals face similar headaches with the W-8BEN. International freelancers and investors must navigate dense instructions, avoid tiny mistakes, and in some cases, even mail physical copies overseas. Every field is scrutinized by institutions—a single error leads to resubmission, delay, and sometimes frozen accounts until everything is sorted.

At the heart of both examples: repetitive approval cycles, mismatched requirements, opaque forms, and fragmented submission systems. The result? Endless resubmissions and wasted resources—for businesses and individuals alike.

Realizing his time was too valuable to be wasted on this, Eliot Muir took radical action to minimize these distractions. He relocated to the Cayman Islands and severed ties with all his Canadian employees.

This move was necessary so Eliot could clearly demonstrate to the Canadian government that he had cut all ties with Canada. Whether or not this was the policy’s intent, this was the consequence.

It turned out to be the best decision Eliot ever made.

Without the regulatory burden, he was able to streamline his business and focus on what mattered most: writing solid, safe, and reliable code, making his products stand out globally. Globally healthcare can not function with the vital role that Iguana plays in the global health ecosystem - it's so stable, fast and reliable that customers who have serious data problems cannot replace it.

Yes they do wish that Eliot could more than one person. Eliot too wishes he could clone himself but he's found that that next best thing is to train AI agents with his methodology and ideas. This works for him.

In retrospect, Eliot regrets ever having been an employer and vows never to be one again. Now, he works only with independent business people—as affiliates, business partners, or direct customers.