10 ms·

What it's like to staff the home of a billionaire

70 points by wallflower 3y ago

neom 3y ago
Recently I was chatting with a friend who has a net worth in and around there (made his money in mining/exploration), he was in a kinda bad mood and I asked what was up... he was supposed to be flying to Italy, but his crew where late putting his USA Yacht away and they hadn't arrived in Italy yet to get his Europe Yacht unpacked and ready to go. I hadn't really considered before... he employs 6 people full-time to travel around the world and deal with his boats. Very different problems from my problems anyway, heh. :)
- yieldcrv 3y ago
  yeah that would be annoying I have a friend that basically throws the high net worth welcoming party that’s missing from people’s lives identify a friction and cater to it, this is an underserved field because people are not willing to validate wealthy people’s problems, or specifically invalidate them
  - bxparks 3y ago
    I don't understand. Your friend has a catering business that throws parties for wealthy people? Because wealthy people don't get enough parties? Or did you mean metaphorically. In that case, what kind of metaphoric "welcoming parties" are missing from wealthy people's lives?
    - yieldcrv 3y ago
      yeah, not metaphorically, a lot of newly wealthy people are surrounded by resentful people and they spend a lot of cycles hiding it or trying to blend in rather than enjoying it, in comparison to generationally ultra high net worth people that already operate in specific locales and environments there is no round of applause or red carpet for them, no “wow dude you made it”, and people are fine with that….. until you present them with that specific thing and new circle of socioeconomic equals that also like that specific thing thats a friction he solves and it is very lucrative I think you understood fine, its the entertainment and hospitality sector
      - itronitron 3y ago
        sounds easier and less expensive than building a music hall or museum
      - jahnu 3y ago
        I think I still don’t understand what this service is providing.
        lph 3y ago
        It sounds like a debutante ball for the newly-minted ultra wealthy
        simonh 3y ago
        Linking people up with other people in the same soceoeconomic class with similar interests.
        whatshisface 3y ago
        If anyone's being that cagey about the "interests," it can only be one thing...
        yieldcrv 3y ago
        I thought it was pretty clear to be honest
        firecall 3y ago
        They organise events and parties for people who have come into or made a lot of money. The intent of the party is not to celebrate a birthday or occasion, but rather to get introduced to a new social group of similarly wealthy people. The service would also construct a guest list and so on for you. So you wouldn’t need to invite your old social circle, who probably now hate you because you are so rich! LOL ;-) Yes, this sort of thing does sound utterly grotesque to a generation that can’t find a place to live or afford rent! But here we are, and if there is money to be made from this, then it’s good that someone is making it! :-) TLDR; we hate it when our friends become successful.
  - hnthrow289570 3y ago
    Well, you need to be in proximity to wealthy people to get that information, and that's why it's under served. There's not really a public clearinghouse of unaddressed wealthy-people-problems to inform this market that I know of.
  - lumost 3y ago
    I believe that these issues were handled by retainers historically. You would employ someone, then that persons children and so on. Thus some knowledge of these problems was built-up over time. Unfortunately, if wealth inequality continues growing - these will be the most lucrative problems to solve. I'd be quite interested in whether there have been studies of where market forces begin to stop existing.
  - mozman 3y ago
    A good friend of mine built a niche to go into high value homes and test all electronics / internet before the owners arrive. In addition to cleaners, landscapers, people attending to cars, etc. He makes quite a good living.
hermitcrab 3y ago
>They then realized that their two dogs weren’t allowed in the apartment, so they purchased a £10 million property opposite the apartment called the dog house, purely for the dogs. I find that utterly revolting. Imagine how much good you could do with that money. "Every billionaire is a policy failure." Patagonia’s founder Yvon Chouinard
- Geeek 3y ago
  I am not sure why someone would downvote this. It is 100% revolting and indicative of a really rotten system that allows this to happen.
  - gv83 3y ago
    yeah, it was way better when you worked the fields for a duke who had dibs over your underage wife for the first night of marriage. and don't forget the round robin slave labour in the castle! and don't forget to set aside some grain for the taxes, who cares if this year has been bad and it all goes to the duke... capitalism has its faults, but these platitudes about rotten systems really miss the mark.
    - scarecrowbob 3y ago
      I mean, I suppose we're not chattel slaves or sending our kids into mines. I mean, someone is, because that is the only way to get billionaires. But it's not us or our kids, at least. HN is great for getting a little window into how the rich sociopaths in this culture live. When folks write ahistorical fantasy, as you've done here, it's a very useful picture to help understand what kinds of really bad things folks are capable of thinking about the world.
    - marnett 3y ago
      I could get behind your general sentiment perhaps in the context of 19th century industrialism, or maybe even 20th century robber barons, but what paradise for the masses does the 21st century of “billionaires with no nation-state allegiance” bring exactly? Also, concentration of wealth doesn’t reverse without action - so your initial remarks on fiefdoms and feudalism may not be too far from where we find ourselves in this century, which king do you bend the knee to: House of the dragon, Zuckerberg, or House of the camel, Musk?
demondemidi 3y ago
"I mean, when you see the principal renting a chalet and spending over £1 million on a week’s holiday, and then you look at the full spectrum of the household, it can be jarring. You’ve got the housekeepers who might’ve come from a less developed country"... Absolutely disgusting. I like my exploited labor to be hidden through two or at least three layers of abstraction so that I don't have to feel sick about it: like electronics or clothing or produce harvesting or ... just about everything produced at scale. But scale feeds the wealth of billionaires' theft so my sarcasm is ourobourean. I seem to recall reading a book about this back in the 2000's. Wealth was split into three groups: 1-10 million 10-100 million 100-1000 milllion+ The first group tends to be very conservative, as they worked extremely hard to amass that wealth (recall this book is from like 2003, not today where there are over a million millionaires in the US, albeit paper). The second group tends to be inherited wealth and is more liberal. The third group is absolutely cuckoo bananas. Once you cross the into the near-billion/billion range, you live in a bizarre fantasy world curated to your every whim. Maybe David Brooks wrote it? I can't for the life of me remember, but it was fascinating. There was a woman who paid a young lady $100k a year to sprinkle birdseed around her house so that her indoor cats would be able to watch the birds. And there were a number of stories of kitchen staff servers who do nothing but show up and serve food in highly choreographed ways, but still need to go to a finishing school for a year to do this.
- ghaff 3y ago
  The definition of conservative is flexible. The first category is probably not willy-nilly flying private jets and having a lot of dedicated personal staff today. So, in that respect it does seem different from the other categories. Of course, priorities play a role.
- medler 3y ago
  Sounds like Richistan by Robert Frank
- hilux 3y ago
  I don't know exactly how much money my friends and relatives have, but I suspect that several are in the second group, and none inherited that wealth. A book written in the 2000s may pre-date much of Silicon Valley wealth creation.
oldtownroad 3y ago
The article is fiction. The company launched less than a year ago. The founder claims that the company has had more than 100 clients, in less than a year? Pure marketing fiction — I doubt more than 10% of this article is true.
- codetrotter 3y ago
  Could be fiction. But could also be that the people that launched the company have contacts going many years back prior. Not every company is started from zero.
- pakitan 3y ago
  Not sure if fiction. But right from the start smelled like a 'submarine' PR fluff.
- jwnin 3y ago
  Same site that published the story about the woman who 'got scammed for $50K'. https://www.thecut.com/article/amazon-scam-call-ftc-arrest-warrants.html https://www.thecut.com/article/amazon-scam-call-ftc-arrest-w...
  - apsurd 3y ago
    i read the whole story. is it made up? what's wrong with it? it's at least, well written.
    - ptero 3y ago
      I may be wrong, but I think the alleged victim writes a financial column at one of the pretty big houses. And covered scams before. I would be really surprised if that person stuffs $50k in cash into a shoebox for an "undercover CIA agent". Sorry if I confused this story with something else.
      - apsurd 3y ago
        thanks, you got the story right! It does sound crazy, but that also seems to be the point: scam victims are shamed and it's worth level setting on how "it can happen to anyone" because there's very sophisticated psychological warfare going on here.
EchoChamberMan 3y ago
https://archive.is/TiiWA https://archive.is/TiiWA
thunderbong 3y ago
Reminds me of this - https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/2s9u0s/what_do_insanely_wealthy_people_buy_that_ordinary/cnnmca8/?context=3 https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/2s9u0s/what_do_i...

70 points by wallflower 3y ago

neom 3y ago

Recently I was chatting with a friend who has a net worth in and around there (made his money in mining/exploration), he was in a kinda bad mood and I asked what was up... he was supposed to be flying to Italy, but his crew where late putting his USA Yacht away and they hadn't arrived in Italy yet to get his Europe Yacht unpacked and ready to go. I hadn't really considered before... he employs 6 people full-time to travel around the world and deal with his boats. Very different problems from my problems anyway, heh. :)

yieldcrv 3y ago
yeah that would be annoying I have a friend that basically throws the high net worth welcoming party that’s missing from people’s lives identify a friction and cater to it, this is an underserved field because people are not willing to validate wealthy people’s problems, or specifically invalidate them
- bxparks 3y ago
  I don't understand. Your friend has a catering business that throws parties for wealthy people? Because wealthy people don't get enough parties? Or did you mean metaphorically. In that case, what kind of metaphoric "welcoming parties" are missing from wealthy people's lives?
  - yieldcrv 3y ago
    yeah, not metaphorically, a lot of newly wealthy people are surrounded by resentful people and they spend a lot of cycles hiding it or trying to blend in rather than enjoying it, in comparison to generationally ultra high net worth people that already operate in specific locales and environments there is no round of applause or red carpet for them, no “wow dude you made it”, and people are fine with that….. until you present them with that specific thing and new circle of socioeconomic equals that also like that specific thing thats a friction he solves and it is very lucrative I think you understood fine, its the entertainment and hospitality sector
    - itronitron 3y ago
      sounds easier and less expensive than building a music hall or museum
    - jahnu 3y ago
      I think I still don’t understand what this service is providing.
      - lph 3y ago
        It sounds like a debutante ball for the newly-minted ultra wealthy
      - simonh 3y ago
        Linking people up with other people in the same soceoeconomic class with similar interests.
      - whatshisface 3y ago
        If anyone's being that cagey about the "interests," it can only be one thing...
        yieldcrv 3y ago
        I thought it was pretty clear to be honest
      - firecall 3y ago
        They organise events and parties for people who have come into or made a lot of money. The intent of the party is not to celebrate a birthday or occasion, but rather to get introduced to a new social group of similarly wealthy people. The service would also construct a guest list and so on for you. So you wouldn’t need to invite your old social circle, who probably now hate you because you are so rich! LOL ;-) Yes, this sort of thing does sound utterly grotesque to a generation that can’t find a place to live or afford rent! But here we are, and if there is money to be made from this, then it’s good that someone is making it! :-) TLDR; we hate it when our friends become successful.
- hnthrow289570 3y ago
  Well, you need to be in proximity to wealthy people to get that information, and that's why it's under served. There's not really a public clearinghouse of unaddressed wealthy-people-problems to inform this market that I know of.
- lumost 3y ago
  I believe that these issues were handled by retainers historically. You would employ someone, then that persons children and so on. Thus some knowledge of these problems was built-up over time. Unfortunately, if wealth inequality continues growing - these will be the most lucrative problems to solve. I'd be quite interested in whether there have been studies of where market forces begin to stop existing.
- mozman 3y ago
  A good friend of mine built a niche to go into high value homes and test all electronics / internet before the owners arrive. In addition to cleaners, landscapers, people attending to cars, etc. He makes quite a good living.

hermitcrab 3y ago

>They then realized that their two dogs weren’t allowed in the apartment, so they purchased a £10 million property opposite the apartment called the dog house, purely for the dogs. I find that utterly revolting. Imagine how much good you could do with that money. "Every billionaire is a policy failure." Patagonia’s founder Yvon Chouinard

Geeek 3y ago
I am not sure why someone would downvote this. It is 100% revolting and indicative of a really rotten system that allows this to happen.
- gv83 3y ago
  yeah, it was way better when you worked the fields for a duke who had dibs over your underage wife for the first night of marriage. and don't forget the round robin slave labour in the castle! and don't forget to set aside some grain for the taxes, who cares if this year has been bad and it all goes to the duke... capitalism has its faults, but these platitudes about rotten systems really miss the mark.
  - scarecrowbob 3y ago
    I mean, I suppose we're not chattel slaves or sending our kids into mines. I mean, someone is, because that is the only way to get billionaires. But it's not us or our kids, at least. HN is great for getting a little window into how the rich sociopaths in this culture live. When folks write ahistorical fantasy, as you've done here, it's a very useful picture to help understand what kinds of really bad things folks are capable of thinking about the world.
  - marnett 3y ago
    I could get behind your general sentiment perhaps in the context of 19th century industrialism, or maybe even 20th century robber barons, but what paradise for the masses does the 21st century of “billionaires with no nation-state allegiance” bring exactly? Also, concentration of wealth doesn’t reverse without action - so your initial remarks on fiefdoms and feudalism may not be too far from where we find ourselves in this century, which king do you bend the knee to: House of the dragon, Zuckerberg, or House of the camel, Musk?

demondemidi 3y ago

"I mean, when you see the principal renting a chalet and spending over £1 million on a week’s holiday, and then you look at the full spectrum of the household, it can be jarring. You’ve got the housekeepers who might’ve come from a less developed country"... Absolutely disgusting. I like my exploited labor to be hidden through two or at least three layers of abstraction so that I don't have to feel sick about it: like electronics or clothing or produce harvesting or ... just about everything produced at scale. But scale feeds the wealth of billionaires' theft so my sarcasm is ourobourean. I seem to recall reading a book about this back in the 2000's. Wealth was split into three groups: 1-10 million 10-100 million 100-1000 milllion+ The first group tends to be very conservative, as they worked extremely hard to amass that wealth (recall this book is from like 2003, not today where there are over a million millionaires in the US, albeit paper). The second group tends to be inherited wealth and is more liberal. The third group is absolutely cuckoo bananas. Once you cross the into the near-billion/billion range, you live in a bizarre fantasy world curated to your every whim. Maybe David Brooks wrote it? I can't for the life of me remember, but it was fascinating. There was a woman who paid a young lady $100k a year to sprinkle birdseed around her house so that her indoor cats would be able to watch the birds. And there were a number of stories of kitchen staff servers who do nothing but show up and serve food in highly choreographed ways, but still need to go to a finishing school for a year to do this.

ghaff 3y ago
The definition of conservative is flexible. The first category is probably not willy-nilly flying private jets and having a lot of dedicated personal staff today. So, in that respect it does seem different from the other categories. Of course, priorities play a role.
medler 3y ago
Sounds like Richistan by Robert Frank
hilux 3y ago
I don't know exactly how much money my friends and relatives have, but I suspect that several are in the second group, and none inherited that wealth. A book written in the 2000s may pre-date much of Silicon Valley wealth creation.

oldtownroad 3y ago

The article is fiction. The company launched less than a year ago. The founder claims that the company has had more than 100 clients, in less than a year? Pure marketing fiction — I doubt more than 10% of this article is true.

codetrotter 3y ago
Could be fiction. But could also be that the people that launched the company have contacts going many years back prior. Not every company is started from zero.
pakitan 3y ago
Not sure if fiction. But right from the start smelled like a 'submarine' PR fluff.
jwnin 3y ago
Same site that published the story about the woman who 'got scammed for $50K'. https://www.thecut.com/article/amazon-scam-call-ftc-arrest-warrants.html https://www.thecut.com/article/amazon-scam-call-ftc-arrest-w...
- apsurd 3y ago
  i read the whole story. is it made up? what's wrong with it? it's at least, well written.
  - ptero 3y ago
    I may be wrong, but I think the alleged victim writes a financial column at one of the pretty big houses. And covered scams before. I would be really surprised if that person stuffs $50k in cash into a shoebox for an "undercover CIA agent". Sorry if I confused this story with something else.
    - apsurd 3y ago
      thanks, you got the story right! It does sound crazy, but that also seems to be the point: scam victims are shamed and it's worth level setting on how "it can happen to anyone" because there's very sophisticated psychological warfare going on here.

EchoChamberMan 3y ago

https://archive.is/TiiWA https://archive.is/TiiWA

thunderbong 3y ago

Reminds me of this - https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/2s9u0s/what_do_insanely_wealthy_people_buy_that_ordinary/cnnmca8/?context=3 https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/2s9u0s/what_do_i...