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Jeff Bezos’s New Superyacht Heralds Roaring Market for Big Boats
- irrational 5y agoHow do you know when you have gone overboard? When your yacht has its own support yacht.
- sco1 5y agoLook, I'm not going to take a boat to my yacht like some kind of peasant.
- qzw 5y agoI would have though it was when some Russian billionaire's yacht supposedly had its own grenade launchers. Nominally it was to ward off pirates, but we all know it was really to stop James Bond.
- ortusdux 5y agoI got to see the Hodor, a 216' support catamaran, in person. Honestly, I like it more than the boat it was supporting. https://www.forbes.com/sites/billspringer/2019/06/21/billionaire-bucket-list-this-216-foot-long-luxury-support-catamaran-carries-the-subs-speedboats-helicopters-atvs-and-crew-that-every-superyacht-owner-needs/?sh=4d40faee530a https://www.forbes.com/sites/billspringer/2019/06/21/billion...
- nicoburns 5y agoAnd people think billionaires don't waste resources :shrug:
- kgin 5y ago3 years of what only Americans spend just on their pets could end world hunger semi-permanently > In 2020, $103.6 billion was spent on our pets in the U.S. https://www.americanpetproducts.org/press_industrytrends.asp https://www.americanpetproducts.org/press_industrytrends.asp > It would cost just $330 billion to end global hunger by 2030 https://www.fastcompany.com/90564107/it-would-cost-just-330-billion-to-end-global-hunger-by-2030 https://www.fastcompany.com/90564107/it-would-cost-just-330-...
- westpfelia 5y agothe problem with this argument is you're pinning solving a major world problem on the masses. Why have Americans not spend 103 billion a year on their pets when Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos are much more equipped to do just that. Instead were trying to go the other direction and not let Amazon employees unionize. Saying things like that makes you sound like when ExxonMobil Publishes papers on how if Americans ate 150 less grams of beef a year we could turn around global warming.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- usrusr 5y agoPets consume more nutrients than Gates and Bezos combined. I'm quite sure that GP didn't mean it that way, but "the world" isn't a scale where you can simply ignore supply and extrapolate from current prices hoping that the result won't be far off.
- purple_ferret 5y agoSuper yachts seem like a win-win. Parts billionaires with their money. Limits consumption of a finite asset (like land). Employees many highly skilled workers to build. Only big downside is how much fuel/energy they consume and possibly waste produced at sea (but I don't know much about that). More power to they yachting industry!
- jareklupinski 5y ago>The pandemic put new value on so-called explorer yachts, some of which can cruise for 9,000 nautical miles without needing to refuel, said Aino Grapin, chief executive officer of superyacht-interiors studio Winch Design. “Clients can enjoy life at sea for long periods of time without having to go mix with others,” she said. eh, not enjoying the phrase 'having to go mix with others'....
- benchaney 5y agoWell, there is a global pandemic going on right now. Normally that would seem kind of sleazy, but these days, that is what everyone is trying to do.
- elil17 5y agoWhy couldn't those highly skilled workers do something more useful? Like build a fishing boat, research vessel, or hospital ship?
- twobitshifter 5y agoWhen you have a ship with sails this big, you’ll need a huge crew right, each with their own rooms? And since it’s such a large _sailing_ yacht the number of people qualified to captain and crew it are probably very small, so you’re likely stuck onboard with one of the few people who can do that. Where I’m going is, if your idea for a yacht is luxury and privacy, why would you ever buy a sailing yacht? I’m failing to see the upside. You could make an eco argument, but this is completely unnecessary conspicuous consumption and the embodied carbon footprint of any mega-yatcht exceeds that of a typical lifetime.
- hypersoar 5y agoAccording to Wikipedia, the Eos, which the OP says inspired Bezos's yacht, carries a crew of 21 including 9 deck crew. It has room for 16 guests.
- JI00912 5y ago> if your idea for a yacht is luxury and privacy, why would you ever buy a sailing yacht? It isn't.
- twobitshifter 5y agoOk, so what’s the appeal of a sailing yacht that someone else captains?
- thisisbrians 5y agoStatus.
- qzw 5y agoBillionaires are surrounded by servants, er... staff, all the time. Their sense of privacy is not like a normal person's.
- throwaway210222 5y agoSo are the the wealthier middle class in the third world. Normal people.
- TimBurr 5y agoFrom the people who brought you: Biden Tax Rule Would Rip Billions From Big Fortunes at Death and Richest 100 Americans Would Pay $78 Billion Under Warren Tax I think that billionaires are bad for democracy, and that Bloomberg is not aligned with our interests as non-billionaires. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-04/biden-tax-rule-would-rip-billions-from-biggest-fortunes-at-death https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-01/richest-100-americans-would-pay-78-billion-under-warren-tax
- elil17 5y agoSeeing waste on this scale makes me feel nauseous. The usable lifespan of a yacht of is only a couple of decades. This thing will be scrap before he's dead.
- teachrdan 5y agoUnless we're very lucky.
- el_nahual 5y agoThe real exposé here would be to know how Bezos paid for the Yacht. Did he pay cash? Was it financed (unsecured, or secured by the boat itself)? Was it financed secured by Amazon stock? Was it purchased by a business? Was there any sort of sales tax/VAT? When people recoil at a frivolous expense of this size they do so for two reasons. The first is that it seems "wasteful". To that, I say "whatever." The second is this idea that Bezos is not paying his fair share, and that a 500MM frivolous purchase is a symbol of that. And that question is one that can be answered. If Bezos paid for the yacht in cash, then in a way there was some capital gains tax associated with it. Same if there was VAT/sales tax. Sure, let him buy a 500MM yacht if it means $15MM in tax for whatever country levied it. There is a real problem with unfair taxation in the US/world, and if the average person doesn't understand how the ultra, ultra, ultra rich actually spend their money, we're doomed to enact legislation that falls short of improving the taxation scheme.
- Supermancho 5y ago> The real exposé here would be to know how Bezos paid for the Yacht. I would love to know that.
- bryanlarsen 5y agohttps://www.marketwatch.com/story/jeff-bezos-just-sold-nearly-2-5-billion-in-amazon-shares-11620264680 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/jeff-bezos-just-sold-nearl...
- ortusdux 5y agoI wonder if any billionaires are going to buy and retrofit one of the dozens of mothballed cruise ships around the world. https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/33338/satellite-images-show-armadas-of-vacant-cruise-ships-huddling-together-out-at-sea https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/33338/satellite-images...
- ur-whale 5y agohttps://archive.is/XOZIm https://archive.is/XOZIm
- mensetmanusman 5y agoIf you had to spend $500M, what would you spend it on? Me:solid beautiful stone buildings that would last for centuries as community centers.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- melling 5y agoBut when you’ve got 100 billion you get to do a lot of things https://www.10000yearclock.net/learnmore.html https://www.10000yearclock.net/learnmore.html
- jdhn 5y agoI assume construction is still ongoing? The updates page hasn't been updated in almost 10 years.
- selectodude 5y agoThey've moved webpages. https://longnow.org/clock/ https://longnow.org/clock/
- jacobkg 5y agoThe Getty Center in Los Angeles fits this bill pretty well. A stunning stone structure that is home to beautiful gardens and an art museum, open to the public with free admission (even the audio tour is free) Construction cost was closer to $2 billion though
- pradn 5y agoAn endowment for history and translation. A 2003 gift of $200 million from philanthropist Ruth Lilly helped bolster the Poetry Foundation, which not only runs an an important poetry magazine but also funds a great number of poets and projects. I'd like to set one up for the study of regions where not enough funding has gone for historical research (including archaeology) and for translating poetry and literary works from a wider variety of languages. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poetry_Foundation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poetry_Foundation
- hourislate 5y agoSome folks spend their time changing the world and trying to get us off the planet to save humanity, some folks spend their time and money on yachts......
- rektide 5y agoGood time to link "The wealth of jeff bezos in rice"[1], because the numbers are so mind bogglingly hard to get your head around. His worth has gone from 120 billion to 190 billion in the 16 months since that video was made. Meanwhile this is a 0.5 B boat. It's, like, not a small amount of rice. It's notable. But amid 190 B in wealth? It's so hard to keep the scale of these figures in mind. The rice helps. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W56g5KdqZoo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W56g5KdqZoo