Gabe Newell applies for NZ residency (opens in new tab)

NZ is a great country with wonderful people. But I wonder about the wisdom of apocalypse-proof property on an island that is prone to earthquakes. I have seen how far the waterfront receded in the 1931 Napier earthquake. [1] Christchurch has still not fully recovered from the 2010 earthquake. When you think of "geological" or "tectonic" shifts in the landscape, we are not used to thinking in the order of decades.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1931_Hawke's_Bay_earthquake#/m...

No love for Thiel or the mechanism by which he gained a NZ residency visa but the reality is the property in question is a sheep farm 3/4 of a square mile in size beside a pretty lake.

That article spends an inordinately long time speculating that there's an "everything proof" structure been built on it but (as far as I saw skim reading) provides no evidence for that at all. You'd be hard pressed keeping that sort of construction quiet in NZ, everyone knows everyone.

I smell a hilarious post-apocalypse remake of The Odd Couple coming up!

If I lived in NZ I'd make a note of these dipshits' addresses. Worse comes to worse, they'll make for a great supply of resources to plunder. At least if you get there before their employees/body guards kill them and steal all their stuff first.

10m satellite imagery from 2018-2019: https://data.linz.govt.nz/layer/103539-nz-10m-satellite-imag...

0.75m aerial imagery from 2005-2011: https://data.linz.govt.nz/layer/51934-southland-075m-rural-a...

I'm not sure what you think you're seeing in that picture, but it sounds like you've been listening to too many conspiracy nuts. Not many people live in or go to Stewart Island, so the demand for satellite/aerial imagery is pretty low. It's hardly surprising it's not as recent or accurate as, say, this 7.5cm imagery of Auckland: https://data.linz.govt.nz/layer/95497-auckland-0075m-urban-a...

This naturally happens on land which is steep and causes clouds to form as winds blow ocean air over them.

Since clouds form so regularly, mapping providers have a lot of difficulty getting a shot of the whole area in daylight with no clouds, so they end up using algorithms to stitch together the best image they can get from cloud-free parts.

In areas with snow, the problem is even worse, because an algorithm to separate snow and cloud is even harder.

The local council (QLDC) has online available high-resolution imagery of the entire of Thiel's Glendhu Bay property.

They are remote, defensible, politically and socially stable, self-sufficient in food and many materials. NZ does not have nuclear weapons, or host nukes for anyone else so they're not a retaliation or first strike target. They're also in the southern hemisphere, which is useful in a nuclear winter scenario.

Isolated and well developed probably, and small nation.

They have effectively eradicated COVID, have you seen videos from their elections?

Not sure if you're rich, as Gabe is. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/29/new-zealand-ga...

Why? It should be easy to immigrate to New Zealand and gain citizenship.

You can't really buy the citizenship. (At least officially) You still have to live there for years.

But the residency starts at $3M NZ if you're a recurring visitor https://www.newzealandnow.govt.nz/investing-in-nz/visas/inve...

Not NZ but in Malta it costs around 1-1.5mln eur. I imagine it could be more expensive than NZ as Malta's passport grants you free travel and work possibility across entire EU.

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/01/business/dealbook/malta-o...

>Looking at some of the social problems that SF suffers from, though, I’m not sure that you’d want us.

SF residents should be locked into the place and made deal with the mess they've made. Actually, you could probably expand that to Californians as a whole.

I feel utterly awful for the areas who are absorbing the brunt of the outward migration from that state.

Sure, come on in, we will embrace you with open arms. We already have SF like social issues here, so we won't mind. Our housing is messed up on even a grander scale than SF. It's not all flowery here either, but it's way better than many other places on the planet atm.

The time zone is an issue for synchronous things. Housing is expensive, and often poorly insulated. Apart from those, sure. Our internet is reliable, fast and fairly affordable (the ISPs don't own the lines/fibre, so there's a lot of competition). Power is good and mostly renewable (the South Island is ~100% renewable, and again, there's lots of competition).

Not if it's expensive

ICT is a significant export earner in NZ and grew 47% from 2017-2019, to $2.1B in 2019 [1]. Compare to the three largest exports, dairy ($16B), tourism ($16B) and meat ($8B) [2]. ([2] is missing education though.)

> I'd love to see a some economic data from StatsNZ that supports your case.

The case/point was that the tech sector in NZ should be supported to grow further. You didn't make an argument that that policy is wrong.

[1] https://techblog.nz/2080-Digital-overtakes-wine-exports [2] https://statisticsnz.shinyapps.io/trade_dashboard/

The bigger issue that NZ has is its old boys network, which wouldn't allow radical ideas and startups to succeed.

The solution is to dilute it with tech entrepreneurs and investors from outside NZ and recreate the landscape.

I live in Wellington and the tech scene here, although small, is quite vibrant.

There is no reason why we can't accommodate those companies and workers who want to move out of SF. The govt will need to give heavy tax incentives and easy route to residency for those entrepreneurs who move their company here.

Took me a sec, so true! :D

At times like these I wish HN had stars!

As an Aussie, that would be great. Doesn't feel like it's going to happen in Australia, we're still addicted to digging things out of the ground.

That would be nice.

> I would hang out in the Malaysian or Singaporean areas.

Not if all the billionaires are in New Zealand.

From the same episode of Gruen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xUYbI64QHI

I don't know if they still operate that way, but the Valve Manual For New Employees is actually a fun read. Evidently you just roll your desk over to the project group you want to be a part of and roll with it.

https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/apps/valve/Valve_NewEmployee...

> Gabe supposedly just hires smart people and trusts them to be smart enough to decide what needs to be done.

I mean... that's the dream for everyone responsible for overseeing workers and/or managers in more normally structured organizations, or am I wrong in that assumption?

Also, Valve can afford this "organization" because their money most likely isn't going to run out from a few failed projects over the years.

You also get fired on the spot for working on the wrong things, ask Jeri Ellsworth.

Tasmania is a shit-hole, stay away!

(I hope this works ;) )

"Stable" do you mean seismically stable?