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On Bunkers and Billionaire Exit Strategies
The billionaire with the bunker in New Zealand isn’t actually preparing for the apocalypse.
Not really.
He’s telling us a story.
It’s a story about scarcity and exclusivity, about knowing something others don’t, about having options when others won’t.
The ultra-wealthy don’t build elaborate escape plans because they necessarily believe society will collapse tomorrow. They build them because these fortresses represent the ultimate luxury: guaranteed safety when everything else fails and the world goes to shit.
These bunkers, missile silo condos, and private islands are status symbols.
Possibly, the ultimate status symbols.
Consider: Most billionaires made their fortunes by betting on human connection, on networks, on civilization itself improving. Their wealth depends on functional markets, on people buying things, on shared infrastructure.
So why do the same “geniuses” who invest millions in consumer tech startups also invest millions in off-grid compounds with years of supplies?
It’s not because they’re hedging their bets.
It’s because they can afford to indulge in contradictions the rest of us cannot afford to even imagine.
