7 ms·

Bloomberg has a good running series on this 'city of the future'. As you will expect consultants are making good money on this. I personally can't get enough o

Bloomberg has a good running series on this 'city of the future'. As you will expect consultants are making good money on this. I personally can't get enough of this foolish mega-project, I love the dry reporting on it. Here's one of the latest: https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2022-mbs-neom-saudi-arabia/ https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2022-mbs-neom-saudi-arabi... There was also a very telling interview with architects, builders, concept people etc... and after talking about Neom in all enthusiasm for a bit the interviewer asked each a simple question: would you live in Neom? And the uncomfortable shifting in the seats and vague answers that followed were very telling. No one believes in this, not even the people working on it.

pavlov 4y ago
"As more of them arrived, foreign employees began describing their experiences with a joke: When you start at Neom, you bring two buckets. The first is to hold all the gold you’ll accumulate, and with so many living expenses taken care of, it will soon grow heavy. The second bucket is for all the shit you take. When that bucket is full, you pick up your bucket of gold and leave. It often doesn’t take long; many people Neom hires last less than a year." So it's basically like working at a FAANG, except you have to go sit in the middle of a remote desert to work on your PowerPoints.
- ignoramous 4y ago
  The difference in media coverage and the reaction that follows when folks in the West (say, Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates) dream up ambitious future, and when folks in the East do so, is quite telling.
  - bambax 4y ago
    Untrue. Most of Musk's "dreams" are ridiculed everywhere, and rightly so. Dystopia is dystopia, no matter where it comes from. (Although, to make matters worse, MBS is a criminal and a despot.)
    - jjeaff 4y ago
      Ya, I think ideas coming from someone who calls himself "his royal highness" deserve some extra scrutiny. It's so strange seeing these futuristic dystopian ideas coming from a ruling monarch that was born into the position. It's like they are preserving the worst of humanity's past and preparing to carry it directly into a dystopian future.
  - concordDance 4y ago
    Have you been living under a rock? The sheer amount of vitriol Elon gets rivals that Trump gets!
    - rbanffy 4y ago
      We must measure the amount of unearned or undeserved vitriol. Trump’s is 110% deserved. Musk is at about 83%.
      - concordDance 4y ago
        The amount at least is very disproportionate. He seems to get a more vitriol than Xi Jinping, the Koch brothers, Rupert Murdoch, Andrew Wilson, Bill Gates, the Sacklers, Hillary Clinton and Larry Elison combined. Despite far lesser crimes (by the standards of those who dump on Musk).
      - eastbound 4y ago
        Only because he didn’t declare himself candidate. Actually the vitriol seems very much oriented, in French newspapers, it’s unnatural. He doesn’t do a tenth of Jeff Bezos’ evils and journalists are not talking about Jeff Bezos’ actions on national TV.
        rbanffy 4y ago
        He's much louder than Bezos. The upside (EV's going mainstream, reusable rockets, full-globe high-speed low-latency internet connectivity) of Musk also seems bigger.
  - Bayart 4y ago
    You think nobody takes the piss out of them ? Bezos was the joke of the day he launched a dick rocket.
  - coffeeblack 4y ago
    What do you think it tells you?
  - simonh 4y ago
    The difference between those people is not east and west. It's that the first three built their own companies using their own skills and experience in the face of an awful lot of people saying No, while the last one was born a prince to a Trillion-air royal family and grew up surrounded by people terrified to say anything but Yes. But that's really beside the point. The real issue is this project is a monumental waste of resources. Innovating on advanced technology takes a huge amount of investment, but it doesn't follow that a huge amount of investment, by itself, will result in useful advanced technology.
    - idlehand 4y ago
      It's probably not a very efficient use of capital, but it's better than the Saudis spending it on their military.
- lrem 4y ago
  I work in the G and it doesn't seem to be like that. First point, the average tenure in my team is somewhere between 6 and 8 years.
  - asah 4y ago
    Many of my friends are still there, 15 years later!
- Jedd 4y ago
  Hmm, a friend of mine worked in Saudi in the mid 1990's, and the (similarly metaphorical) story he told me was slightly different. When picked up at the airport you are presented the two buckets. When either one is full, it is time to leave. I expect all employment requires the same trade-off consideration, but I gather in those parts of the world, for ex-pats, both buckets feel like they fill up at an alarmingly brisk rate.
baybal2 4y ago
> There was also a very telling interview with architects, builders, concept people etc... and after talking about Neom in all enthusiasm for a bit the interviewer asked each a simple question: would you live in Neom? Another question, WHO will live in Neom? Saudi Arabia only have 19-20 million native citizens, the rest are all expats.
- bambax 4y ago
  > the rest are all expats That's probably the point. It's a "city"/prison for people who have no other choice.
- barry-cotter 4y ago
  > Another question, WHO will live in Neom? Saudi Arabia only have 19-20 million native citizens, the rest are all expats. People from extremely poorly managed countries or countries unable to attract investment because of lack of law or other factors. The UAE is 90% or so migrants who will never become citizens. If you have quasi-competent government and are willing to allow migrant workers in you can print money. Paying people from a country where the average daily wage is $2 $20 per day leaves a lot of room for profit margin even in low profit margin low skill manufacturing like textiles, the classic way to kick start the transition from agricultural to manufacturing based economies.
  - baybal2 4y ago
lordnacho 4y ago
A friend of mine works on the NEOM project, and it really is like winning the lottery. Remote work with an occasional field trip to look at the place. But Google level salary to tell them how to save some data. The scale of the feeding trough is unimaginable. I saw an advert for NEOM on Piccadilly Circus, the whole entire e-wall, and the place isn't even built yet, so I'm not sure if they're using it to recruit. It's not just what you think of as traditional civil engineering which would require you to be in the desert. The thing is supposed to be a smart city, whatever that means, but every buzzword seems to be required. Machine learning, green energy, internet of things, they seem to want everything. I did read an article saying the Saudi guy in charge was a bully, so maybe it's not at positive, but worth a look if you can be a sub contractor.
- AtlasBarfed 4y ago
  "It's like winning the lottery" "Guy in charge is a bully" I certainly don't want to defend the saudis, but let's face it, everyone views the Saudis as semi-gullible fools to be parted with their money, it wouldn't surprise me if they are a bit gruff. Look, Saudi Arabia should be the ... Saudi Arabia of solar energy, they have a huge amount of capital from oil, and Saudi Arabia is at the juncture of 1) the richest continent 2) the largest continent, 3) the second-largest continent, they have ports with the Mediterranean and Red Sea and Indian Ocean.
  - Gud 4y ago
    I spent two years working in Dubai, from 2019 to 2021. I hardly view them as anything but intelligent and ruthless. The upper - upper-middle class studied in the western world, they know more than you think. Plus they have a shitload of money. Don't underestimate the Saudis just because they stick to some weird customs.
    - AtlasBarfed 4y ago
      You are probably correct, but I've also heard that the Saudis have one huge challenge diversifying out of oil: they are so damn lazy after decades and decades of oil money revenues. They tried setting up all the satellite colleges in Saudi Arabia, and they couldn't get students to actually try. The US higher ed is full of party students getting rubberstamp diplomas, but there are also a segment (usually harder sciences and premed/prelaw/etc) that work REALLY hard. As I understand it, all of the saudi schools are just rubberstampers, they can't get the hard sciences students. MBS probably needs to have a really nasty streak, because there is such massive corruption in the Saudi ruling structure. But again, I don't want to seem like I'm defending them. I cannot wait for alternative energy and BEVs to drop the floor out from under them. They SHOULD have a soft landing with all that sovereign investment money, but... those slush funds can disappear fast... And once America DGAF about the middle east from a security standpoint, they'll just be a bunch of lazy billionaires. Once the oil is meaningless, America's military shield is gone. Shiite Iran can invade Saudi Arabia, and Iran actually has fighting forces. Saudi Arabia does not.
cinericius 4y ago
https://archive.ph/NI1eP https://archive.ph/NI1eP
N19PEDL2 4y ago
> [...] and after talking about Neom in all enthusiasm for a bit the interviewer asked each a simple question: would you live in Neom? I wonder what the architect of this building [0] would have answered the same question. However, many people live there. [0] https://i.pinimg.com/originals/07/0c/1f/070c1f5ab8a54d907cca238032ba7e1e.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/originals/07/0c/1f/070c1f5ab8a54d907cca...
- oblio 4y ago
  As someone who's lived in a commie building, smaller than the one you show, though, I can tell you something. It's better housing that what you find in many parts of the rich West, at least Western Europe. You can live a pretty solid middle class life in those buildings and you're not losing much, if anything, you learn a lot, being so close to other people.
- panick21_ 4y ago
  Those are different things. The promise of Neom is to be this amazing tech city that will attract people to live there. The building you posted is most likely a public housing or some kind of government trying to build housing for the poor.
  - DemocracyFTW2 4y ago
    Well it's actually more likely a block of condos (by which I mean apartments all individually sold to owners who then move in or rent out) in China, and judging from this zoomable version https://www.flickr.com/photos/photocapy/252736005 https://www.flickr.com/photos/photocapy/252736005 it's actually not even vacant. So, not housing for the poor paid for by taxes but rather housing for the above-the-medians who can afford a flat of their own (not cheap even in China I hear).
  - N19PEDL2 4y ago
    > The promise of Neom is to be this amazing tech city that will attract people to live there. That's a good point.

pavlov 4y ago

"As more of them arrived, foreign employees began describing their experiences with a joke: When you start at Neom, you bring two buckets. The first is to hold all the gold you’ll accumulate, and with so many living expenses taken care of, it will soon grow heavy. The second bucket is for all the shit you take. When that bucket is full, you pick up your bucket of gold and leave. It often doesn’t take long; many people Neom hires last less than a year." So it's basically like working at a FAANG, except you have to go sit in the middle of a remote desert to work on your PowerPoints.

ignoramous 4y ago
The difference in media coverage and the reaction that follows when folks in the West (say, Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates) dream up ambitious future, and when folks in the East do so, is quite telling.
- bambax 4y ago
  Untrue. Most of Musk's "dreams" are ridiculed everywhere, and rightly so. Dystopia is dystopia, no matter where it comes from. (Although, to make matters worse, MBS is a criminal and a despot.)
  - jjeaff 4y ago
    Ya, I think ideas coming from someone who calls himself "his royal highness" deserve some extra scrutiny. It's so strange seeing these futuristic dystopian ideas coming from a ruling monarch that was born into the position. It's like they are preserving the worst of humanity's past and preparing to carry it directly into a dystopian future.
- concordDance 4y ago
  Have you been living under a rock? The sheer amount of vitriol Elon gets rivals that Trump gets!
  - rbanffy 4y ago
    We must measure the amount of unearned or undeserved vitriol. Trump’s is 110% deserved. Musk is at about 83%.
    - concordDance 4y ago
      The amount at least is very disproportionate. He seems to get a more vitriol than Xi Jinping, the Koch brothers, Rupert Murdoch, Andrew Wilson, Bill Gates, the Sacklers, Hillary Clinton and Larry Elison combined. Despite far lesser crimes (by the standards of those who dump on Musk).
    - eastbound 4y ago
      Only because he didn’t declare himself candidate. Actually the vitriol seems very much oriented, in French newspapers, it’s unnatural. He doesn’t do a tenth of Jeff Bezos’ evils and journalists are not talking about Jeff Bezos’ actions on national TV.
      - rbanffy 4y ago
        He's much louder than Bezos. The upside (EV's going mainstream, reusable rockets, full-globe high-speed low-latency internet connectivity) of Musk also seems bigger.
- Bayart 4y ago
  You think nobody takes the piss out of them ? Bezos was the joke of the day he launched a dick rocket.
- coffeeblack 4y ago
  What do you think it tells you?
- simonh 4y ago
  The difference between those people is not east and west. It's that the first three built their own companies using their own skills and experience in the face of an awful lot of people saying No, while the last one was born a prince to a Trillion-air royal family and grew up surrounded by people terrified to say anything but Yes. But that's really beside the point. The real issue is this project is a monumental waste of resources. Innovating on advanced technology takes a huge amount of investment, but it doesn't follow that a huge amount of investment, by itself, will result in useful advanced technology.
  - idlehand 4y ago
    It's probably not a very efficient use of capital, but it's better than the Saudis spending it on their military.
lrem 4y ago
I work in the G and it doesn't seem to be like that. First point, the average tenure in my team is somewhere between 6 and 8 years.
- asah 4y ago
  Many of my friends are still there, 15 years later!
Jedd 4y ago
Hmm, a friend of mine worked in Saudi in the mid 1990's, and the (similarly metaphorical) story he told me was slightly different. When picked up at the airport you are presented the two buckets. When either one is full, it is time to leave. I expect all employment requires the same trade-off consideration, but I gather in those parts of the world, for ex-pats, both buckets feel like they fill up at an alarmingly brisk rate.

baybal2 4y ago

> There was also a very telling interview with architects, builders, concept people etc... and after talking about Neom in all enthusiasm for a bit the interviewer asked each a simple question: would you live in Neom? Another question, WHO will live in Neom? Saudi Arabia only have 19-20 million native citizens, the rest are all expats.

bambax 4y ago
> the rest are all expats That's probably the point. It's a "city"/prison for people who have no other choice.
barry-cotter 4y ago
> Another question, WHO will live in Neom? Saudi Arabia only have 19-20 million native citizens, the rest are all expats. People from extremely poorly managed countries or countries unable to attract investment because of lack of law or other factors. The UAE is 90% or so migrants who will never become citizens. If you have quasi-competent government and are willing to allow migrant workers in you can print money. Paying people from a country where the average daily wage is $2 $20 per day leaves a lot of room for profit margin even in low profit margin low skill manufacturing like textiles, the classic way to kick start the transition from agricultural to manufacturing based economies.
- baybal2 4y ago

lordnacho 4y ago

A friend of mine works on the NEOM project, and it really is like winning the lottery. Remote work with an occasional field trip to look at the place. But Google level salary to tell them how to save some data. The scale of the feeding trough is unimaginable. I saw an advert for NEOM on Piccadilly Circus, the whole entire e-wall, and the place isn't even built yet, so I'm not sure if they're using it to recruit. It's not just what you think of as traditional civil engineering which would require you to be in the desert. The thing is supposed to be a smart city, whatever that means, but every buzzword seems to be required. Machine learning, green energy, internet of things, they seem to want everything. I did read an article saying the Saudi guy in charge was a bully, so maybe it's not at positive, but worth a look if you can be a sub contractor.

AtlasBarfed 4y ago
"It's like winning the lottery" "Guy in charge is a bully" I certainly don't want to defend the saudis, but let's face it, everyone views the Saudis as semi-gullible fools to be parted with their money, it wouldn't surprise me if they are a bit gruff. Look, Saudi Arabia should be the ... Saudi Arabia of solar energy, they have a huge amount of capital from oil, and Saudi Arabia is at the juncture of 1) the richest continent 2) the largest continent, 3) the second-largest continent, they have ports with the Mediterranean and Red Sea and Indian Ocean.
- Gud 4y ago
  I spent two years working in Dubai, from 2019 to 2021. I hardly view them as anything but intelligent and ruthless. The upper - upper-middle class studied in the western world, they know more than you think. Plus they have a shitload of money. Don't underestimate the Saudis just because they stick to some weird customs.
  - AtlasBarfed 4y ago
    You are probably correct, but I've also heard that the Saudis have one huge challenge diversifying out of oil: they are so damn lazy after decades and decades of oil money revenues. They tried setting up all the satellite colleges in Saudi Arabia, and they couldn't get students to actually try. The US higher ed is full of party students getting rubberstamp diplomas, but there are also a segment (usually harder sciences and premed/prelaw/etc) that work REALLY hard. As I understand it, all of the saudi schools are just rubberstampers, they can't get the hard sciences students. MBS probably needs to have a really nasty streak, because there is such massive corruption in the Saudi ruling structure. But again, I don't want to seem like I'm defending them. I cannot wait for alternative energy and BEVs to drop the floor out from under them. They SHOULD have a soft landing with all that sovereign investment money, but... those slush funds can disappear fast... And once America DGAF about the middle east from a security standpoint, they'll just be a bunch of lazy billionaires. Once the oil is meaningless, America's military shield is gone. Shiite Iran can invade Saudi Arabia, and Iran actually has fighting forces. Saudi Arabia does not.

cinericius 4y ago

https://archive.ph/NI1eP https://archive.ph/NI1eP

N19PEDL2 4y ago

> [...] and after talking about Neom in all enthusiasm for a bit the interviewer asked each a simple question: would you live in Neom? I wonder what the architect of this building [0] would have answered the same question. However, many people live there. [0] https://i.pinimg.com/originals/07/0c/1f/070c1f5ab8a54d907cca238032ba7e1e.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/originals/07/0c/1f/070c1f5ab8a54d907cca...

oblio 4y ago
As someone who's lived in a commie building, smaller than the one you show, though, I can tell you something. It's better housing that what you find in many parts of the rich West, at least Western Europe. You can live a pretty solid middle class life in those buildings and you're not losing much, if anything, you learn a lot, being so close to other people.
panick21_ 4y ago
Those are different things. The promise of Neom is to be this amazing tech city that will attract people to live there. The building you posted is most likely a public housing or some kind of government trying to build housing for the poor.
- DemocracyFTW2 4y ago
  Well it's actually more likely a block of condos (by which I mean apartments all individually sold to owners who then move in or rent out) in China, and judging from this zoomable version https://www.flickr.com/photos/photocapy/252736005 https://www.flickr.com/photos/photocapy/252736005 it's actually not even vacant. So, not housing for the poor paid for by taxes but rather housing for the above-the-medians who can afford a flat of their own (not cheap even in China I hear).
- N19PEDL2 4y ago
  > The promise of Neom is to be this amazing tech city that will attract people to live there. That's a good point.