I can't recall anything he said or did in the last few years that would make me assume he's done something good for the general public (or the humanity), and not for himself first and foremost.
Nothing to see here. There's no corruption in the civilized world, even less in Nordic countries which are maximally developed culturally and socially.
Considering where it is it might be protected from logging, so the economic value of the land might be low. The seller is a paper manufacturer, so if they could get more value from it they would have charged more.
Not super familiar with this part of Sweden, but at least for similarly remote parts of northern Canada, if you're buying crown land with no road access, no facilities, etc it can be similarly cheap when buying large parcels.
Why does it quote 37,000 acres, then show a picture with a large swath of Sweden highlighted as if that is the area purchased - though Sweden is approximately 111 million acres of land, so this would be 0.003% of the land, so nowhere near the representation in this picture - seem disingenuous to me.
That’s a strange map in the article. It makes it looks like he’s bought all of Härjedalen, rather than two orders of magnitude less. It’s still a chunky piece of land, but it’s definitely not that big.
> Alex Karp, CEO of Palantir Technologies, purchased 15,000 hectares (37,000 acres) of forest in Härjedalen, Sweden, for 235 million kronor ($22 million).
Seems like he could buy all of Sweden's forests if he wanted to.
But would he still have Palantir? Also a large portion of thr forests are likely in public trust, and they'd be hesitant to sell all of it I'd think. Especially to one person with no track record of land management.
Maybe he wants his own version of Nathan's estate in Ex Machina (redditor calculations from in-movie clues put it at 7 million hectares, though, so this isn't even close :-)
I don't know exactly where the land is, but according to media it's south of Storsjö kapell [0]. There's plenty of fell there, and he can't just build whatever he wants even if he owns the land. When a billionaire says he spent $22 million to by it for recreation, I don't see a big reason to not believe him, there's not much else he can use it for.
It's not far from Funäsdalen which is a relatively popular ski resort [1], there are also hiking trails and similar [2].
The seller SCA is Europe's biggest private forest owner and owns 2.7 million hectares by the way.
I do not understand billionaires. I don't know why Alex Karp is buying large chunks of forests, the vast majority of which he will never see. I don't know why Larry Ellison is buying entire Hawaiian islands he'll never be able to fully use. I don't know understand the appeal of any of this shit.
Is it just that when you're worth billions, hoardings thousands of Steam games you'll never play isn't enough?
i doubt it's for a bunker but it's kind of interesting to think about. i think if you have a ton of money, why not build a bunker? you don't have to believe that you'll need it. if the money isn't an issue, it's better to have it and not need it than the opposite, and plenty of non-rich people do the same at a smaller scale too.
if i had that much money i'd have all sorts of contingencies for myself and my family/friends all over the world. like, why not?
Having your own bunker just tells everyone you are a loser, neither smart nor important enough to simply get picked up by your government and be put into the good full-service government bunker at taxpayers’ expense.
There will also be no help coming if you’re not in that bunker, so what do you need doomsday preparations for if the people who will be rebuilding consider your life worthless and kill you on sight if you tried wasting some of their resources even if your Temu bunker survived.
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[ 0.20 ms ] story [ 19.8 ms ] threadI can't recall anything he said or did in the last few years that would make me assume he's done something good for the general public (or the humanity), and not for himself first and foremost.
I had no idea Sweden was this cheap. Why wouldn't he drop $22mm on this...
Not a particularly surprising number.
The purchased forest (15k hectares, 37k acres) is therefore ~1.3% of the region.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A4rjedalen
Seems like he could buy all of Sweden's forests if he wanted to.
Given the current turmoil, building a bunker in the Swedish forest would be like building your porch underneath a tree with 50 beehives.
It's not far from Funäsdalen which is a relatively popular ski resort [1], there are also hiking trails and similar [2].
The seller SCA is Europe's biggest private forest owner and owns 2.7 million hectares by the way.
[0] https://maps.app.goo.gl/hQp2Rw9tM6kWTuTdA
[1] https://funasdalen.se/en/winter/skiing/cross-country-skiing/
[2] https://funasdalen.se/en/summer/hiking/
Billionaires associated with that company especially.
... Wait
Is it just that when you're worth billions, hoardings thousands of Steam games you'll never play isn't enough?
if i had that much money i'd have all sorts of contingencies for myself and my family/friends all over the world. like, why not?
There will also be no help coming if you’re not in that bunker, so what do you need doomsday preparations for if the people who will be rebuilding consider your life worthless and kill you on sight if you tried wasting some of their resources even if your Temu bunker survived.
also the point of the bunker is to be located far away from other people, nobody puts a doomsday bunker in manhattan