I would really love to know the billionaire's thinking.
Why go on that crappy homemade sub when you have the means to have a better experience in a Triton.
With the means he has, why wouldn't he want the best possible experience, instead of what he actually did?
If I had a billion and had a desire to go to the titanic, I'd go on a sub that I read is the only submersible ever to be certified to unlimited depth.
That's the weirdest thing. He has gone down to the bottom of Mariana Trench (3x deeper than the Titanic) in a Triton sub relatively recently:
This is so true and I, too, find it fascinating. There just aren't really any industries set up to serve billionaires that aren't equally accessible to multi-millionaires worth a fraction of a billionaire's net worth. Bigger yachts? Bigger mansions, I guess? Problem with those is bigger isn't really that much better after a certain point that's not even all that big, I'd imagine. Like, going from a 10,000sf mansion to a 40,000sf mansion would be kind of unsatisfying.
At the end of the day, you spend eight hours a night in a bed no bigger than the one I have. You drop a deuce on a throne that probably looks cooler than mine, but really, I have a heated seat, heated bidet, LED-lit bowl and remote control with two profiles. How much better is a billionaire's? I'm guessing not that much. So now you have an extra 30,000sf of mansion over the multi-millionaire's 10,000sf mansion? Awesome. You get to have a bunch of roommates (aka staff) to maintain it. That would suck.
So then you buy a private jet. Okay, the guy with 1/4 your net worth has one, too. You have a yacht? Okay, awesome. More roommates on your boat with you. Maybe you like having servants around? I wouldn't; it would feel skeezy. Like, when my kids were young my wife and I toyed with having a live-in nanny. Where I just couldn't do it is I refused to live in the same house as somebody, but live better than them. That's morally corrupt IMO. Like, we're all going out for steak, nanny, there's some KD in the cupboard for you. Or, we're going on vacation to Thailand...we'll say hi to your family for you while we're there. Would you like us to drop some of your paycheque off with them to save you from having to go to Western Union? My wife and I knew we'd just start treating this person as a total equal to us because we're not selfish psychos, but we didn't want another adult equal in our house, so we just carried on with a mix of after-school care, day homes, etc. while we worked.
So what can billionaire's actually buy with their billions? Luxurious time off, yes. Wild experiences (space tourism and deep-sea adventures, I guess). The step up in lifestyle from the poverty line to a net worth of, say, $2 million is incredibly dramatic. $2 million to $200 million insanely dramatic as well. $200 million to a billion+? I don't think you get that much richer of an experience. It's probably pretty isolating, weird and anticlimactic. And who are you going to complain to? Nobody wants to hear your poor little rich man story.
Sports Teams
It’s why their value is through the roof . One of the few things at that price point that brings the excitement for a billionaire and doesnt guarantee success . Money can’t buy a championship , the team has to still win .
A debris field was discovered within the search area by an ROV near the Titanic. Experts within the unified command are evaluating the information. 1/2
But then he opts to go on this bucket of bolts to the Titanic rather than use a certified sub that he already has experience going 3x as deep with?
That's what I find really odd about this. I like to think that very wealthy people have a lot of resources available to them, to do an exhaustive analysis on this kind of endeavour. I understand these wealthy, extreme adventure types, have likely programmed themselves to accept massive amounts of risk, but in the end, there's got to be some gut self preservation instinct that kicks in?
Mind you, some of this information that's coming to light about this sub may have not been so publicly present before, but again a wealthy person with resources, you'd think they could have done some extensive home work on this.
I'd much rather go to space than this. I can go in the water on earth. I can dive down, and sure, not experience the depths, but still know kind of what to expect. Space though? That'd be wild.
The Following 3 Users Say Thank You to Fuzz For This Useful Post:
I think it's naturally easier for us to point fingers at people who are far richer than we can ever hope to be, and talk about them as if they are furniture. Elon Musk, Jeff Bazos, Bill Gates, etc. On the one hand it is interesting sociologically. The people on the sub are not no name nobodies like poor people crossing the Mediterranean by the hundreds. Maybe it's easier mentally to deal with it, to focus on it. I am not sure. Just reading the responses, jokes, etc, I understand it. They played with fire. You get burned. Rich people doing things we can't imagine.
I wonder if this isn't similar psychologically to people with Bill Gates conspiracies. It's outside the range of what we normal people can fathom. We then come up with our own explanations, rational or outlandish.
Exploration has always been the pursuit of the rich. I understand the consternation. At the same time, maybe it's just me, I think of the families on shore. Their loved ones missing. I've been there but it wasn't plastered on social media. It wasn't over the news. But family went missing, and the consequences are the same. Lost loved ones.
I just think if the lose of the people especially ri those closest. The Ukraine. Russians who we agree with or not doing things we can't fathom, condone or understand, climbers in Everest. The circumstances are different, but the lose of people regardless of race, financial situation, economic or political beliefs, lose in general, is sad. Maybe I'm out to lunch. I don't know. Just thinking of them, of me, of you. Our family could be going through the same situation regardless of circumstance.
The Following User Says Thank You to Playfair For This Useful Post:
That's what I find really odd about this. I like to think that very wealthy people have a lot of resources available to them, to do an exhaustive analysis on this kind of endeavour. I understand these wealthy, extreme adventure types, have likely programmed themselves to accept massive amounts of risk, but in the end, there's got to be some gut self preservation instinct that kicks in?
Mind you, some of this information that's coming to light about this sub may have not been so publicly present before, but again a wealthy person with resources, you'd think they could have done some extensive home work on this.
I don't know, if you look at the inside of the sub that guy used in Mariana trench and compare it to the OceanGate one, even to someone who has no experience with any of this, they're clearly in a completely different class:
I mean, you'd think the fact that you at least get a seat with the Triton one would be enough to convince someone. I guess it'd be significantly more expensive though, since you'd need to pay for your own crew.
I'd much rather go to space than this. I can go in the water on earth. I can dive down, and sure, not experience the depths, but still know kind of what to expect. Space though? That'd be wild.
I feel like both are probably equally uninteresting once you're past the initial "I'm in space / the bottom of the ocean!" phase. Dark, cold, empty, and completely inhospitable.
I feel like both are probably equally uninteresting once you're past the initial "I'm in space / the bottom of the ocean!" phase. Dark, cold, empty, and completely inhospitable.
Weightlessness would be amazing, though. Plus a view of the earth? View of the stars? Looking at the moon? IDK, dude...hard to think of space as uninteresting and I'm not even a space guy.
The Following 8 Users Say Thank You to Sliver For This Useful Post:
I don't know, if you look at the inside of the sub that guy used in Mariana trench and compare it to the OceanGate one, even to someone who has no experience with any of this, they're clearly in a completely different class:
I mean, you'd think the fact that you at least get a seat with the Triton one would be enough to convince someone. I guess it'd be significantly more expensive though, since you'd need to pay for your own crew.
You'd have to think that if you had the resources of a billionaire, you could ring up Five Deeps (or Triton directly) and get them to take you down there for the cost of the expedition... Charter a boat to get you out there, compensate the pilot and support crew, etc... Probably all for a similar price as was paid to Ocean Gate.
I would really love to know the billionaire's thinking.
Why go on that crappy homemade sub when you have the means to have a better experience in a Triton.
With the means he has, why wouldn't he want the best possible experience, instead of what he actually did?
If I had a billion and had a desire to go to the titanic, I'd go on a sub that I read is the only submersible ever to be certified to unlimited depth.
It's so that that they can call themselves explorers instead of tourists. Going on an uncertified experimental vessel probably carries more weight in their circles.
__________________
"A pessimist thinks things can't get any worse. An optimist knows they can."
The Following User Says Thank You to FlamesAddiction For This Useful Post:
This is so true and I, too, find it fascinating. There just aren't really any industries set up to serve billionaires that aren't equally accessible to multi-millionaires worth a fraction of a billionaire's net worth. Bigger yachts? Bigger mansions, I guess? Problem with those is bigger isn't really that much better after a certain point that's not even all that big, I'd imagine. Like, going from a 10,000sf mansion to a 40,000sf mansion would be kind of unsatisfying.
At the end of the day, you spend eight hours a night in a bed no bigger than the one I have. You drop a deuce on a throne that probably looks cooler than mine, but really, I have a heated seat, heated bidet, LED-lit bowl and remote control with two profiles. How much better is a billionaire's? I'm guessing not that much. So now you have an extra 30,000sf of mansion over the multi-millionaire's 10,000sf mansion? Awesome. You get to have a bunch of roommates (aka staff) to maintain it. That would suck.
So then you buy a private jet. Okay, the guy with 1/4 your net worth has one, too. You have a yacht? Okay, awesome. More roommates on your boat with you. Maybe you like having servants around? I wouldn't; it would feel skeezy. Like, when my kids were young my wife and I toyed with having a live-in nanny. Where I just couldn't do it is I refused to live in the same house as somebody, but live better than them. That's morally corrupt IMO. Like, we're all going out for steak, nanny, there's some KD in the cupboard for you. Or, we're going on vacation to Thailand...we'll say hi to your family for you while we're there. Would you like us to drop some of your paycheque off with them to save you from having to go to Western Union? My wife and I knew we'd just start treating this person as a total equal to us because we're not selfish psychos, but we didn't want another adult equal in our house, so we just carried on with a mix of after-school care, day homes, etc. while we worked.
So what can billionaire's actually buy with their billions? Luxurious time off, yes. Wild experiences (space tourism and deep-sea adventures, I guess). The step up in lifestyle from the poverty line to a net worth of, say, $2 million is incredibly dramatic. $2 million to $200 million insanely dramatic as well. $200 million to a billion+? I don't think you get that much richer of an experience. It's probably pretty isolating, weird and anticlimactic. And who are you going to complain to? Nobody wants to hear your poor little rich man story.
Not to defend them, but I don't think many realize how similar the ultra rich are to the everyman. I've spent time partying with some kids of ultra rich families in the past. They're pretty normal and similar to us. They certainly have certain societal concerns that are significantly upscale to the rest of us because they live in that type of social circle and would face certain types of social back lash for failing to adhere to a certain type of expectation (ie: conspicuous consumption). Many of us regardless of wealth are attracted to the same places, like Lake Louise, Santorini, Alps, mega cities to go "oo" and then go back to our temporary place of dwelling that has a daily cost/value "congruent" to our level of wealth and comfort expectation.
A lot of billionaires are asset rich and cash poor. Investing wise, cash is trash and they often just borrow against their assets to do things.
A lot of billionaires are also used to pure luxury and comfort in all things. We proletariat only dream of regular luxury, but after a while, it wears on you. This is why some rich people who live in comfort like traveling to third world countries, camping/remote villages or adrenaline junkies to basically try and reset or feel something. Otherwise, you go all John McAfee on a luxurious compound in Belize and just get high all the time until you go crazy. You desensitize to the point it isn't good and no longer enjoyable. Going up a tier doesn't help. Going down is the way to do it.
And you're on the right track about scaling up. Our bodies are similar regardless of wealth. We can only drink so much, eat so much, get so much drunk, so much high, endure so much excitement or activity... that doing something at 10x or 100x or 1000x doesn't make sense. The main difference is hindrance to access of upper echelon items and experiences. Like flying out to Italy to see the leather swatches that will be in your car vs clicking on links on a computer to see what it might look like digitally. And just because you can afford and regularly eat $500 meals doesn't disqualify you from being able to enjoy a $5 comfort street stall food.
Lots of the ultra rich are just regular dudes with nicer stuff. That's why some of them buy sports teams. They enjoy sports as much as the next person. They just want to try and influence them more or enjoy the prestige of it more or get more behind the scenes access that the rest of us enjoy. When the game starts, they're just spectators like us with no influence on the game, but perhaps more insight as to things that are behind the scenes. Sports connects them to the everyman. If they go out to the middle of nowhere (ie: Space), their first instinct is to return and tell everyone. They want connection.
Not all ultra rich want to be increasingly isolated from society as their wealth builds. That's why they'll live in cities like NYC, LA, London, SF, HK, Singapore etc. vs living on mega yachts out on the ocean, in mountains or party pamper country of their own establishment. They want someone who appreciates the similar things they do and they can brag to.
For the sub he built himself vs the triton argument, just because you have better doesn't mean that you abandon all to go to the higher tier. If you have a Maclaren F1, the best Bugatti ever, a Roll Royce, a piece of history car that's quite outdated vs modern cars like a Ford GT40 etc. do you abandon the others and drive one exclusively because the tech or the value skyrocketed and was higher in one of them? No. That's probably why he used that sub vs a Triton he had access to. Maybe it's his Ford GT40 and he wanted that discomfort and variation to reset his experiences against enjoying the Bugatti, Rolls Royce etc. It's still something wildly more expensive than what the average person could afford, even if it's several tiers down from the highest levels of technology that is readily available to them.
The Following 4 Users Say Thank You to DoubleF For This Useful Post:
I would really love to know the billionaire's thinking.
Why go on that crappy homemade sub when you have the means to have a better experience in a Triton.
With the means he has, why wouldn't he want the best possible experience, instead of what he actually did?
If I had a billion and had a desire to go to the titanic, I'd go on a sub that I read is the only submersible ever to be certified to unlimited depth.
I think I read the vessel made 20 previous successful dives to the site? (could be wrong but I think I did read that).
So if it had a bit of a track record, it may have weighed into their thought process, even though the engineering was experimental.
__________________
A few weeks after crashing head-first into the boards (denting his helmet and being unable to move for a little while) following a hit from behind by Bob Errey, the Calgary Flames player explains:
"I was like Christ, lying on my back, with my arms outstretched, crucified"
-- Frank Musil - Early January 1994
