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The Lonely Life of a Yacht Influencer
- janlaureys 8y agoSo this guy has 800k followers, but most pictures only get 5k likes? I feel like I know where he got most of his following. I also don't get who he's trying to influence. Which millionaire is going to decide to buy a specific yacht because they saw an Instagram picture of it ?
- gambiting 8y agoSo I don't know a thing about yachts, but I know a thing or two about really expensive cars. And the interesting thing is that 90% of buyers for cars $200k+ don't even try them out before buying. There are plenty of buyers who literally phone the dealership(or their assistant does) and they just make a phone order, wire the money, and they maybe come over to pick up the car unless it's delivered to them directly. The guess in the industry is that those people literally see an article or an ad for a new Lambo(or whatever) and they just buy one on an impulse. If they don't like it they'll just buy something else, doesn't matter. I can only imagine that it's somewhat similar with Yachts - you see something cool on instagram, you want it.
- iguy 8y agoI can't find the source, but I read somewhere that the average length of ownership of yachts over 60ft is only 9 months. Or something, maybe it's 100ft & 18 months. But astonishingly short. Which points to these not being well-considered deeply researched purchases. So I can see instagram playing a pretty big role.
- NeedMoreTea 8y agoI guess it becomes an arms race. Hard to be proud of your 100ft yacht when everyone else in Monaco harbour has long ago traded up?
- bedhead 8y agoOld saying about boats is the two best days of ownership are the day you buy it and the day you sell it.
- dsfyu404ed 8y agoSimilar things have been said about aircraft and marriage. Come to think of it I recall there being a (gender neutral!) quote that provides sound financial advice regarding all three...
- moonlighter 8y agoTo some people the day you sell it is the better one because then they can buy an ever bigger one.
- vidarh 8y agoI'm assuming what the article says about operating costs is part of it. If you search around, you can find fully operational small cruise ships for a few million. The hulls and engines etc. last enough that the cost of these ships, whether outfitted for use as luxury yachts or cruise ships is dominated massively by operating cost. So you can dream of being able to drop X million to own a dream of being on a yacht all the time. Then you realize you're not on it all the time, because you have a life, and whether you're on it or not you're dropping close to X million a year to keep the crew on hand and keep the yacht ready, and if you want to offset that, you're now running a yacht charter business.
- 725686 8y agoThat's why there is a saying: "Don't own anything that flies, floats, or fuks."
- coldtea 8y agoThat's for the poor. Billionaires don't care about the "rest of the year" maintenance costs.
- erikig 8y agoThis gave me a good chuckle!
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y agoIt's OK, you can swear here. Although I always found "fornicates" more humorous.
- chasd00 8y agoIt's sexist to say but I bet a lot get bought to impress a wife or gf then the season ends and it goes up for sale.
- thrill 8y agoI would have scoffed at this once upon a time, but I've seen a guy buy a brand new Porsche on a drunken impress-the girlfriend spree that she drove for a few months before "trading up" herself.
- michelb 8y agoI work for a client that designs and builds these 100MM+ yachts. They just can't build them fast enough to keep up with demand. Some of their clients buy a yacht, and sell it within a year for a hefty profit, then buy a new one, repeat. There is quite a business in selling 'used' yachts simply because it takes 2-4 years to build a new one.
- iguy 8y agoDo you have any estimate of how many buyers actually want to sail around / host parties, and for how many it's some kind of tax evasion / money laundering scheme? I don't know any details but always wonder about this... an easy-to-move super-expensive asset, physically in Cannes but legally in the Bahamas... there must be many schemes.
- Scoundreller 8y agoI’ve heard of similar VAT avoidance schemes where the vehicle/vessel gets returned or « returned » back to the tax-free base and another lease gets drawn up before VAT would be owed.
- michelb 8y agoThat kind of information is not something I'm privy to, but I'd say it's about 50/50. It's definitely a laundering scheme for many. They deal with brokers obviously, and those just want a cut, never mind where it came from. But they deliver to a lot of Russian oligarchs. I bet there are tons of schemes.
- thrill 8y agoIndeed. Some people have a talent for taking a risk on the front end of buying something they know they can flip for a profit, and that something may even be just a place in line. Years ago I helped start a corporate jet manufacturer (that went bankrupt after investment dried up after 9/11). One of our first deposit holders (a "mere" $10K as I recall) flipped his early position in line after about 18 months for a cool million dollars. He tied up for a relatively short time a relatively trivial amount of money for something someone else did most of the work in developing and promoting. His bet was our effort would be successful enough to simply sell his early spot in line. I recall thinking at the time that was why he was rich and I wasn't - I could have bet the same small amount and made the same money, and I had the insider knowledge to guess we'd do a good job early on. Yet I didn't have the idea to do that.
- onion2k 8y agoAnd the interesting thing is that 90% of buyers for cars $200k+ don't even try them out before buying. My favourite car buying statistic is the difference between Bentley and Bugatti owners; On average people who buy a Bentley already own 8 cars. On average people who buy a Bugatti already own 84 cars. Some cars just aren't bought to be driven around. They're works of art and collector's toys; they're not cars as any normal person would consider them. (https://www.businessinsider.com/this-is-the-shocking-difference-between-bugatti-and-bentley-owners-2014-10?r=US&IR=T https://www.businessinsider.com/this-is-the-shocking-differe...)
- vidarh 8y agoYikes. As that article points out its an even more extreme difference (and here I was wondering if you were exaggerating): > Bugatti customer has about 84 cars, 3 jets and one yacht
- throwawaymath 8y agoReally shows the relative costs between extremely high end cars and extremely high end jets/yachts.
- coldtea 8y agoThere are "high end cars" that cost as much as 2-3 average yachts -- if we get into antique collection cars. A 1959 Ferrari for example was sold for $18 million.
- tialaramex 8y agoBut, would the sort of person who owns a 1959 Ferrari want an "average yacht" ? I don't think so. Yacht is a purpose classification, there are little boats in my local habour that a couple of old people drive out into the open water every weekend in the summer, and then there's something like Britannia, the ex-Royal Yacht that is a permanent floating museum in Edingburgh. Both are yachts because they are (or in Britannia's case were) for the pleasure use of the owners rather than being military, transport or for any commercial purpose. So it's not difficult _at all_ to spend $100M on a yacht, whereas it's pretty tricky to do that for a car. Worse, unlike cars as yachts grow more expensive a staff becomes at first a good idea and then essential - even if you barely use it you may be spending $1M plus per year on staff.
- petercooper 8y agoAlso, you're going to assume a $200k+ car is good. It's not like taking a risk on a $10k car on a lot where you know there's going to be a compromise.. at least one of the engine, steering, bodywork, or economy are going to be bad. With a $200k car, you sorta know what you're buying.
- chasd00 8y agoIt makes sense actually, the pictures pretty much tell the story. A yacht buyer isn't going to go take one for a test drive, that's what the captain does. Nor is the buyer going to test out the galley because that is what the crew does. A yacht buyer is interested in aesthetics and luxury and pictures convey that fine.
- tmh88j 8y ago> And the interesting thing is that 90% of buyers for cars $200k+ don't even try them out before buying. >The guess in the industry is that those people literally see an article or an ad for a new Lambo(or whatever) and they just buy one on an impulse. The same thing happens on the bottom of the price spectrum too. When cars like the Focus RS and Civic Type R came out, people were gladly putting down $10k+ over MSRP (which was already around $35k) without ever leaving the lot, all for a souped up economy car. I don't think it has anything to do with having so much money that someone doesn't care, it's the auto enthusiast mindset of knowing exactly what you want.
- Swenrekcah 8y agoI guess the difference is whether you can order a new one every week without breaking a sweat
- tmh88j 8y agoThe difference between what? An enthusiast and a rich person looking to show off?
- asaph 8y agoI would bet that most buyers of the Tesla Model 3 have never driven one before taking delivery.
- tmh88j 8y agoThe Model 3 sits alone in its own market segment at the moment. Buyers know exactly what they want because there's literally nothing else to want without spending significantly more. The i3 is a joke, the Model S and Model X are significantly more expensive (even with the Model 3's currently high pricing) and the rest of the "competitors" are hybrids.
- gambiting 8y agoWell, I think this hegemony is about to end, with several different cars approaching quickly. For example - the new Kia E-Niro - just as much range as the model 3, arguably more space, and you can order one right now for just £32,999 - and you can't get a Model 3 here for that price yet.
- giarc 8y agoI played hockey with a rich guy who had a collection of about 30 super cars. The dealer he worked with knew the cars he was looking for. If the dealer saw something come up, he'd contact him and say "Hey I think I can get X car for $Y. Want me to pull the trigger?". The other way was when the local Ferrari dealership was getting a new, hard to get model, they'd contact him since he was a preferred buyer and he'd get first right of refusal basically. That's how he got his LaFerrari. You can't just walk off the street and buy some cars.
- goatherders 8y agoMy fiance is in the IG influencers game. And that few likes to that many followers definitely smells rotten.
- pbhjpbhj 8y agoWhy, how many would you expect? It's not like people are on their yacht liking IG pictures all day - realistically his account is probably paid out of he gets a couple of people to buy a superyacht. The story's images have 5k, 10k, 10k likes. His IG has a range (small sample) from <1k to 32k, commonly 3-15k. Most of the low likes are, it seems, not yacht pictures.
- coldtea 8y agoRotten? That's par for the course for most accounts -- the active followers are a small percentage of the overall followers. (Except if we're talking about a pretty girl or something, where the followers are also mild-remote-stalker types).
- goatherders 8y agoMost of the brands that approach my fiance expect 5% engagement (likes) and 1% comments for a paid campaign. She has 20k followers and gets 700 or 800 likes on pictures of our dogs, more when she shares a recipe or travel post. Sponsored stuff with a brand tie in is always higher than that.
- skj 8y agoI feel like his most valuable customers don't want to leave a 'like' trail all over instagram, and they're most likely to be lurkers who buy things rather than lookers-on who can only afford the 'like'.
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago>Which millionaire is going to decide to buy a specific yacht because they saw an Instagram picture of it ? It's not about "that" yacht or boat. It's about "a" yacht or boat. It's about convincing the wealthiest people that that boating is a better way to spend their fun money than another vacation house or restoring antique cars.
- Spooky23 8y agoHaving lots of money doesn’t make you wise. When I worked retail in college I dealt with impulsive millionaires all of the time. They would spend up to $50k without blinking on computers and crap. I sold a neurosurgeon $75k worth of laptops, games, and accessories so his kids, nephews and nieces could amuse themselves on a ski road trip. My dads neighbor (Wall St type who plays gentleman farmer) bought a kenworth and custom trailer so he could haul 3 cars to a salt flat with his buddies once a year. The impulsive buys get bigger with bank account. If you’re some princling, pictures of a gulfstream or yacht are the equivalent of a lady in a bikini leaning over a sports car in a magazine.
- 52-6F-62 8y agoCan confirm. I worked in high end audio visual sales when I was younger (Calgary) and there were plenty of oil-money rich people who would come in and drop $50-100k and not even look at you as they dropped their black Amex on the counter.
- Thlom 8y agoNo wonder health care is expensive in the US when a neurosurgeon can blow $75k on a whim.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- sverige 8y agoYou should see what kind of money the insurance execs blow on toys.
- lotsofpulp 8y agoI don’t see insurance company executives compensated any more than other large company executives. If anything, insurance companies are more conservative.
- 8y ago
- Khoth 8y agoI agree about where he got most of his following. From the embedded instagram posts, he has 800.1k followers, which seems... rather close to a round number.
- grenoire 8y agoSeems quite organic https://socialblade.com/instagram/user/theyachtguy/legacy https://socialblade.com/instagram/user/theyachtguy/legacy
- peteretep 8y agoYou’re looking at this wrong. 5k with a 5% engagement rate is 100k legit followers who are all interested in yachts. Doesn’t matter how many fake followers you have if you have sufficient relevant engaged ones.
- vonseel 8y agoI’ve always wondered how some people manage to get their engagement rates so high. Like 20-25% of followers liking their posts, some with 50-60k followers. Or sometimes it’s a similar percentage but a normal persons account with 300-1000 followers. I guess some people are just ultra-popular, and IG is the equivalent of the high school lunchroom. FWIW I had 300 followers or so but rarely managed to even get 10% of likes. Usually like 3% ha-ha.
- coldtea 8y ago>So this guy has 800k followers, but most pictures only get 5k likes? Only a tiny minority of followers is active in most mediums. HN can kill a website with 100K views in a couple of hours, but you just see like 200-300 people commenting on a given post. >I also don't get who he's trying to influence. Which millionaire is going to decide to buy a specific yacht because they saw an Instagram picture of it ? You'd be surprised. That's exactly how a large part of that world thinks and buys ultra-expensive stuff. They don't do "comparison reviews" and tests, or consider the pros and cons. That's for us, middle class guys, with our paychecks. "That other rich guy/sheik has one of those" is more of an incentive than any actual need. And that's exactly the yacht companies pay such influencers too. Because they know they reach their target market.
- petercooper 8y agoWhich millionaire is going to decide to buy a specific yacht because they saw an Instagram picture of it? Depends how many times, I guess. If you keep seeing something you like the look of, you're going to at least be curious. I've certainly bought sneakers and other fashion items solely from seeing pictures of them and as a %age of my disposable income that probably works out similarly to someone rich buying a yacht.
- mannykannot 8y agoI got the impression that it's mostly about influencing people who charter a yacht for a party.
- RickJWagner 8y agoInteresting hustle. I hope this article doesn't spoil his gig with his clients.
- jessaustin 8y agoThere's probably not much audience overlap between "Mel Magazine" and people who select yachts by browsing IG?
- notacoward 8y agoI hope it does. Don't get me wrong, I don't wish the guy ill. I hope he expects that and was ready to get out anyway. But I also don't care much for the "Instagram influencer" thing. It's a lot like political astroturf, appealing to people's preference for real-person authenticity when there's really none involved. The harder it becomes for people to make money at it, the better off we'll all be.
- puranjay 8y agoI mean if you're going to hustle someone, better to hustle the rich.
- stronglikedan 8y ago> better to hustle the rich. How so?
- tom_ 8y agoThey've got more money.
- stronglikedan 8y agoI still don't understand how that makes it better.
- 8y ago
- TrackerFF 8y agoThe cross-posting and multiple accounts strategy is rampant on IG. I have two major hobbies (very unrelated), and very much the same there. It's kind of annoying, because in the end, there's no stylistic difference. So my IG feed gets bombarded with content from the same handful of people. Gets old real quick.
- coldtea 8y ago>The cross-posting and multiple accounts strategy is rampant on IG It's the same on YT.
- CGamesPlay 8y agoI have seen this on YT, but it's normally "CodysLab" and CodysBLab" or "VSauce" and "VSauce2" where it's very clear that the original channel and spinoff are related. Is this what you're talking about?
- coldtea 8y agoMostly influencers going on one another's channels and "cross-posting" their wares and people starting side businesses off of their initial channel.
- RankingMember 8y agoI have to think that what basically amounts to spam will bring about a quality vs quantity tipping point for the platform and ultimately cause people to abandon it if not mitigated.
- taude 8y agoI've been pretty aggressively unfollowing accounts in Instagram. I kind-of wish they'd create a "list" feature, but I'm OK with just cutting it down to my core group of friends. When I want to see the stuff of the influencers, other things I only need in small doses, I go to the search and look at hashtags or "videos I might like". Ideally, to me, my social network would be a small group of people I know and love.
- abainbridge 8y agoThis made my day. I am now totally sure I don't want a super yacht. If I did have one, I'd want the toilets to be clean and the dining room to serve good dinner. On the picture that asks if I want the yacht, the classic car or the private jet, I found myself thinking that I'd like to build a replica of the classic car. That'd be way more fun than owning any of the three and would save about 99% of the budget. I guess I missed the point.
- dsr_ 8y agoDoing interesting things builds your self-worth. Owning interesting things only demonstrates your wealth.
- rbanffy 8y agoI'd be torn between the boat and the plane. Living on a boat has some nice things to it, and the plane is both useful and a lot of the operational cost can be offset by keeping it flying. The car? Meh...
- ehnto 8y agoThe boat would definitely be nicer than my house, so I would move into the boat permanently and figure out from there how I will maintain it. If you think the 27ft sloop in the local marina has some bodge jobs, just wait until you see what I cook up trying to fix a super yacht with unlimited time and no money.
- listenallyall 8y agoThe car is likely to increase in value, while the boat and plane will only go down, in addition to having far higher maintenance costs.
- stackola 8y agoI'll take a hotwheels version of the car, and the rest in cash. Who spends $50 million on a car?
- 8y ago
- WhompingWindows 8y agoTangentially related but wow, these yachts are a pure expression of the excesses of fossil fuel capitalism. These personal boats are extremely inefficient, far more luxurious than 99.9% of human's domiciles, and they are only utilized some small fraction of the year by their ultra-wealthy owners. It's truly a shame that so much money is poured into such utterly wasteful possessions, rather than scientific research, philanthropy, or mitigating climate change.
- jedberg 8y agoThere's a reason the people you admire for their philanthropy don't have a yacht...
- code_duck 8y agoThe specified reason is because they chose to spend their money on philanthropy instead of waste their money on luxury possessions that they don’t even utilize. It’s fairly circular. What was the reason you are alluding to vaguely? The assumption here is that the person in question already made enough money for this to be relevant.
- notfromhere 8y agophilanthropy is just a symptom of policy failure. it's less wasteful than luxury possessions, but those efforts eat up a lot of capital costs just through staffing, etc
- ehnto 8y agoBoth yachts and philanthropy have most of their money go to staffing costs, and at the level of wealth yacht buying happens at I assume people are spending based solely on their virtues. The real question though, is why not both? Most people buying super yachts could probably afford to set up a philanthropic fund of some kind.
- 8y ago
- patorjk 8y agoI wonder how much he makes, and how long he thinks this gig will last. He wants to own a Yacht, but unless he's making a ton, I'm not sure how that would be possible. Also, I'm not sure it's fair to say "lonely life", the article mentioned that he has a family. If anything, he just seems like a workaholic.
- Casseres 8y agoI think it's very fair to say he lives a lonely life. He doesn't seem to have much if any time away from the boats. I've sailed with many men that were so loney, a good number of them had been married and divorced 4 or 5 times. Others that had kids, rarely got to see them. That's one of the reasons why I quit being a Merchant Mariner.
- giarc 8y agoI'm reminded of an old colleague of mine. She worked as a food safety inspector for Cara Foods that service many airlines around the world. They have kitchens in airports and prepare the food for airlines. She would travel the world inspecting the kitchens. She would always travel business class and had an IATA pass/badge and had the ability to bump business class passenger and hold the plane. She wasn't paid well but was young, single and loved the idea of travelling the world in swank business class. She quickly learned two things, her company wasn't willing to give her time to take day trips into the city (so her sightseeing was airport hotels and the underbelly of international airports), and more importantly, flying economy feels really bad once you've spent time on business class flights. So for this influencer, I imagine it's tough to live a regular life once he is forced to. If he wants to vacation with his friends, they are renting a 20ft boat rather than a 200ft boat.
- goostavos 8y agoThat echos my experience really closely. I spent almost 4 years traveling twice per month with each trip lasting between 3-6 days, and each day, due to work schedules, being 12+ hours long. At the end of those 4 years, I couldn't tell you anything about the actual cities I visited, but I can still describe the intricate details of the hotel/conference centers in which I basically lived.
- Scoundreller 8y agoBut how many million tax-free hôtel and airline points did you accumulate?
- Antonio123123 8y agoSo basically the guy has ~1m followers on instagram, is helicoptered from yacht to yacht and gets paid to hang out with rich people and wear expensive watches, in the most beautiful places. He also seems like a nice person. In contrast author looks like a douchebag, portraying him in a bad light, as a lanky lonely person, whose financial security is at the mercy of instagram. To me author looks like a petty jealous person who wants to gain by undermining others that are successful.
- lawlessone 8y agoi didn't get that from the author at all. They both seemed pleasant.
- brootstrap 8y agoI didnt get those vibes either. Wasnt it the yacht guy himself talking about his dependence on instagram? Anyways, props to instagram guy for getting his $$$ when he can. Dude is right, only a matter of time before instagram sucks and there is some new hotness. This whole social media influencer thing is kind of funny. Of course I think it is trash and that likely some large percentage of followers are bots. However, it does have some degree of power in certain circles. Just yesterday on sports radio these talk show hosts (been working for 20+ years in journalism) are quoting people on facebook/twitter etc because they have 70k followers. The host literally said, I dont know who this guy is but he has 70k followers and knows Manny Machado's dad.
- Antonio123123 8y agoI got the feeling from: >lonely life >he’s kinda lost at sea >next to a lanky guy >I began to wonder, “How could anyone spend their whole life doing this?” and details, like him having a tiny cabin (you're on a boat). And of course the fact that he published what seems to me a candid conversation in such a light.
- jonnycomputer 8y agoEdited: In my preferred world, no single person would be able to afford a large yacht. However, I have no problem with yachts per se. Yacht enthusiasts could join cooperatives, for example. Just like I think its silly that individuals can be so wealthy that they can afford massive private golf courses, but think that people who want to play golf should be able to join a golf club. “But for the guy who owns the Eclipse [Roman Abramovich, a Russian oligarch], that’s not the point. He’s not chartering that thing out. It has a submarine and a missile detection system. See, the power of owning a magnificent yacht like that is in how you’re telling the world that you’re beyond buying and selling. You have more money than there is money to have. You’ve transcended. There are no frontiers left for you on dry land. I mean, true peace is only at sea.”
- kbutler 8y agoWhat an awful attitude. Not seeking to benefit anyone, just prevent anyone from being fantastically well off, while endorsing those who are merely incredibly well off.
- CharlesColeman 8y agoWhy is it awful? It would certainly benefit many people if the fantastically wealthy were prevented from engaging in so much wasteful conspicuous consumption, since then they'd at least have to find marginally more productive things to do with their money.
- kbutler 8y agojonnycomputer didn't propose redirecting that wealth or increasing the cost for redistribution (e.g., a consumption tax), just that only "yacht enthusiast cooperatives" would be able to afford them. It's a crabs-in-a-bucket mentality that says it's OK to be in the ultra-rich club that can wastefully spend $mega for a yacht club membership, but not $mega++ to buy it. And specifically "large yacht" - so conspicuous consumption is OK, but not beyond his personal threshold. You could say the same thing at every level: In my preferred world, no one would be able to afford a vacation home, only time-shares. Or a private automobile, only ride-shares.
- kilon 8y agoI will take the money for the Yacht and buy a submarine. Enjoy the depth before we completely ruin them via climate change and pollution.
- tnorthcutt 8y agoI’m always on the clock, always tracking my time on these expensive wristwatches with the big clock faces. And so, I’m sure to never set foot on dry land when I’m working.” This ending struck me as not how someone would actually speak in real life. Too poetic to be an actual quote.
- stcredzero 8y agoHe now made a “comfortable middle-class living,” but sitting there with me in the cabin, fretted that it could go away at any time. “This is me working a little network I’ve built using someone else’s social media platform,” he said. “If Instagram changes its algorithm slightly, there goes a bit of my business. If Instagram disconnects some of the tools I use to build and monitor my account, there goes a bit of my business. And if Instagram goes away and is replaced by something newer and better, I need to get there first, just like I did with this account. If I don’t, I’m done. I’m totally dependent on a platform that’s completely out-of-control.” I think this man is a bit of a canary in the coalmine for the rest of us. Even for those of us who do not depend on social media for our income, enough of human communication is wrapped up in social media to affect our lives in a significant way, whether we want it to or not.
- Waterluvian 8y agoCan you elaborate? The only social media I do is here and I'm not seeing the connection.
- stcredzero 8y agoThe only social media I do is here and I'm not seeing the connection. To me, HN is a refuge!
- asdff 8y agoIs it, though? I run through my FB notifications once a month or so to see if my parents tagged me in something, and that's about all my interaction with it since early college. I just got too busy with class and later work to sit there and scroll through the news feed, which takes a lot longer to do these days with all the reposting of advertisement and clickbait. I stay in touch with people by texting/groupchats/calls and email for professional relationships, and I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything at all. I do use snapchat pretty often, but I'm only friends on there with people I actually met and I only really interact with smaller groupchats of my close friends. I never look at the third party content in the app. It is an excellent outlet for when I gotta show my friends how this asshole parked halfway up the curb, or how my cat is bouncing off the walls, or brief highlights from late night shenanigans. All temporary and fleeting, and I'm really just hoping my friends snort a little more air out of their nostril and smirk when they see it, nothing more. Probably not the type of engagement that Snap has in mind, so we will see how long the app is tolerable.
- Animats 8y agoThere's a step beyond owning a yacht and an airliner sized private plane - having your own airport for your own private planes. The Google founders have that. They lease 1000 acres of Moffett Field. Brin was rumored to be building a giant dirigible at Moffett, but not much has been heard since 2017.