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The wealthiest of Silicon Valley have become super doomsday preppers by buying remote New Zealand properties, getting eye surgeries, and stockpiling ammo and food
The wealthiest of Silicon Valley have become super doomsday preppers by buying remote New Zealand properties, getting eye surgeries, and stockpiling ammo and food
Katie CanalesMar 13, 2020, 22:20 IST
Shutterstock and Neilson Barnard/GettyAs the coronavirus spreads worldwide, many are gearing up for uncertain times. But none are preparing quite like the wealthiest in society.
Some of the wealthiest of Silicon Valley have developed a penchant for prepping for the apocalypse in recent years.
Lasik eye surgery, multimillion-dollar real-estate investments in New Zealand, "go bags" filled with guns and food - they're going all out in the event of a disaster.
There may be something about extravagant doomsday prepping that is unique to Silicon Valley culture.
But it also could simply be that investing in preparations for the end of the world is a luxury only for the uber-rich, many of whom have the lucrative tech economy to thank for their wealth.
As the coronavirus disease, known as COVID-19, continues to infect thousands, our daily lives are being rerouted to adapt to the virus.
Many have been advised to work from home, if able, to help contain the disease. People are panic-buying toilet paper and hand sanitizer. Some city scenes have been called apocalyptic as we react to a viral outbreak that has now infected 127,000 people.
And the wealthiest in society, from Silicon Valley to Wall Street and beyond, take it to a whole other level, perhaps simply because they can afford to.
From buying up land in New Zealand to getting Lasik eye surgery, here's how and why some of the biggest names in tech have invested in doomsday prepping.
Survivalism is a movement whose participants actively prepare for a political, social, or natural global emergency by stockpiling food, weaponry, and other supplies.
It's more commonly referred to as "doomsday prepping."
There are subreddits and Facebook groups devoted to the community, and it's perforated pop culture in recent years, with TV programs like National Geographic Channel's "Doomsday Preppers" series that kicked off in 2012.
But how the average American prepares is going to look a lot different from how the wealthiest in society will go about it.
Investing in insurance for the end of the world has infiltrated the global elite lifestyle, and Silicon Valley's most notable figures are no exception.
Reddit CEO Steve Huffman tole The New Yorker in 2017 that he bought motorcycles, guns, and ammo for his San Francisco home in the event of a disaster.
Huffman got Lasik eye surgery to increase his odds of surviving some kind of world disaster. Yishan Wong, who served as CEO of Reddit from 2012 to 2014, did the same.
The head of an investment firm told The New Yorker that he keeps a gassed-up helicopter on standby at all times and has an underground bunker with an air-filtration system.
Tim Chang, managing director at the venture capital firm Mayfield Fund, told The New Yorker that he keeps a set of bags packed for him and his family in case of a disaster. He also invests in real estate for passive income and to have safehouses in place.
Ex-Yahoo exec and current 500 Startups partner Marvin Liao said he took archery classes to be able to protect his family in the event that all hell broke loose.
Doomsday real estate purchases have also become a trend.
Huffman told The New Yorker he estimated that more than 50% of his "fellow Silicon Valley billionaires" have acquired some kind of doomsday hideaway spot in the US or elsewhere in the world.
Antonio García Martínez, an ex-Facebook product manager who lives in San Francisco, bought five acres on an island in the Pacific Northwest. His island home features generators, solar panels, and weaponry.
There could be many reasons why those with money in the Valley opt to invest in doomsday preparations.
One, as Huffman told The New Yorker, could be that Silicon Valley needs an exit strategy for when the angry masses retaliate against them for building the kind of automated technology that is replacing human workers.
But their mere wealth and circumstances could also be the simplest explanation, as well as the experience that comes with operating in the risk-heavy venture capital industry.
As Wong, the former Reddit CEO, told The New Yorker, "The tech preppers do not necessarily think a collapse is likely. They consider it a remote event, but one with a very severe downside, so, given how much money they have, spending a fraction of their net worth to hedge against this ... is a logical thing to do."
The most popular location for buying up apocalypse land has become New Zealand.
"New Zealand is already utopia," Silicon Valley billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel told Business Insider in 2011.
He told The New Yorker that he and Thiel had an escape route to New Zealand planned in case of some kind of cataclysmic collapse, like a nuclear war or a viral outbreak.
The fixation on New Zealand could stem from one of Thiel's favorite books.
According to the Guardian's Mark O'Connell, Thiel has long cited "The Sovereign Individual: How to Survive and Thrive During the Collapse of the Welfare State" as one of the most influential in his life.
At its core, the book essentially details how a civilizational collapse would give way to the rise of the surviving "cognitive elite" who would then rebuild a new world after idling standing by — and hiding — as the existing way of life crumbled to pieces.
The book's authors also pinpointed New Zealand as the prime spot to hole up until the dust settled following a fallout.
That fact, coupled with Thiel's longtime fanaticism of "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy — which was filmed in the country — is how Thiel and the rest of the tech elite made New Zealand their target apocalyptic hideout.
Buying up New Zealand real estate became so popular among execs in the Valley that purchasing a house in New Zealand became Silicon Valley code for getting "apocalypse insurance," as Business Insider's Melia Russell reported in 2017.
So in 2018, the New Zealand Parliament passed a law barring most foreign visitors from purchasing homes or land within the country, which had begun exacerbating a nationwide housing crisis.
"If you've got the right to live in New Zealand permanently, you've got the right to buy here. But otherwise it's not a right, it's a privilege," New Zealand's minister for economic development and trade David Parker said in 2018.
The country of New Zealand requires foreigners who purchase land there to be "of good character," a clause that affected former NBC host Matt Lauer when sexual-misconduct allegations arose in 2017.
Lauer purchased a 16,000-acre ranch valued at $9.1 million in early 2017 before the allegations were made public. New Zealand ultimately allowed the former TV host to keep his land.
