Meta employee buys 12-year lease on cruise ship to see the world while working | Hacker News Reader

Meta employee buys 12-year lease on cruise ship to see the world while working

moneycontrol.com

62 pointstaubek92 comments

I saw this ad/article multiple times the last few days, good ad placement. About $300k for a 12 year lease on a ~250 sf apartment with a bathroom, small bed. This is at storylines.com. Travels to cool cities all over the world, stays at each for a few days. Has an option to prepay for food, has coffee places, bars, "5 star" restaurants, entertainment. Includes booze but not the absolute top shelf stuff. They have internet and wifi. I thought I saw somewhere the annual everything (laundry, cleaning, food, etc) fee was 3-4k/month, laundry, gym but I can't find it today. The cheaper rooms have a murphy (fold down) bed.

I'm sure there will be fees. Suppose you spend 400k total for 12 years, that's only 30k / year. Add in another 40k and you are spending 70k/year for a kind of peramanet vacation. If you are "working" like this teaser article says at a high paying software job it could actually work for a while. You'd be constantly shifting timezones though. Would be fun if you had a low stress job without a lot of meetings.

It's appealing to me as I sit here after xmas, but but but cruise ships are pretty destructive to the environment.

> About $300k for a 12 year lease

12 years?

Why can't you do a smaller commitment like... 6-12 months? There's only so many destinations, right?

You can, it's called a cruise.

The website also talked about "shared" rooms. I'm sure they don't want you to sell your space like an air bnb though. You don't own it. Maybe if you bought an expensive one you could share it with your kids.

That works out to 2083 per month. That is about the same (or less then) rent in many major Cities. I wonder:

1. If the Cruse Ship is retired, will he get a berth on another ship ?

2. What if the Curse Line goes bankrupt ? He looses the balance ?

3. Taxes, will be liable for taxes, and what about working while in another Country ? In many places that is illegal.

4. Medical ? That could be an issue too.

So many questions :)

> 4. Medical ? That could be an issue too.

It very much is, but young folks tend to ignore it.

I had a friend who was a Chaplain on a cruise ship, and had a heart attack, while they were at sea. He didn't get proper medical care for about a month, and, by that time, considerable damage had been done.

He had to resign that commission, and was never the same again. He ended up dying before reaching 70.

To me the idea of living on a cruise ship is pure madness, I find it even madder that people think it can be a viable lifestyle.

How can you have or start a family like that? Have meaningful normal relationships? How can you explore different aspects of life? Access advanced medical centers in case you need.

Nothing about this sounds sane, to me it feels like the worst of tax evasion meeting pointless planet pollution, meeting void and "luxurious" lifestyle.

Some of us out here absolutely do not want to have children, so it's not a problem for us.

>Some of us out here absolutely do not want to have children, so it's not a problem for us.

And some of us (not me) want children's in every harbor, and i think that's his plan.

Family is optional but having human relations is not unless there is a mental disorder involved.

Different people have different lives. It’s okay for you to not agree , but it can be viable for someone else.

Starting a family? Who says this person wants that. Many people don’t.

Having meaningful normal relationships? Again, who says that’s important? For all we know this person may be polyamarous or content with just hookups. Or they’re asexual.

Additionally, does his lease not allow reselling or subletting? He could get out of it early if he wanted or just share it with friends and family instead.

I can't even imagine going on a cruise ship for fun anymore, let alone live on one. Once COVID hit, I was convinced that if society was sane, the floating petri dish industry would finally die. Hell, I get the heebie-jeebies just walking into a 400 sq. ft. retail shop. If I had to live in a cell of one of these disease-honeycombs, I'd lose my mind.

I mean, I'm not a big fan of cruise ships, but it sounds like your life is a little antiseptic. Perhaps literally.

> Perhaps literally.

Huh?

An antiseptic is a substance used to slow down or kill microorganisms. It's also an adjective meaning boring or uninteresting. I'm saying that they're being a bit boring, but also that their life might literally be too full of hand sanitizer.

Isn't this more of a stable set of people on the cruise ship? You would be able to have normal relationships with the other long term contingent of the ship. I don't think starting a family would be viable, and you'd have to get anything but first aid elsewhere, but that would be arrangable.

That said, I agree on the tax evasion and planet pollution.

Imagine your home moving four timezones away as you need to be hospitalized for a few days.

I've never been hospitalized in my 45+ years on this planet, so this is pretty hard to imagine. As I'm sure it is for most young people. What's with the medical emergency astroturfing on this thread?

Young people may have trouble imagining it. But, while medical concerns for a healthy person shouldn't keep someone from traveling, they should have a plan for a multi-year trip because young people do get sick and suffer serious injuries.

I spent Christmas Eve in the emergency room with a question about if my leg was broken, my knee's ligaments were damaged, or what was going on. Just lucky, I guess!

As soon as I can get an appointment, I'll be going to a doctor to sort out the next stage but best case scenario is I'm laid up for 6 weeks and the worst case is surgery.

> I'm sure there will be fees.

Those fees are going to be in the neighborhood of $40k/year. I couldn't find any good documentation, which I suspect requires going through more of the sales process. However, this page [1] has children's rates as $15-20k/year, and another article suggested around $25k/year for adults. That's assuming double occupancy though - single occupancy gets an 18% discount off the rates for double occupancy.

[1]: https://knowledgebase.storylines.com/assessment-for-single-r...

So in other words, for what this costs, you can get an apartment pretty much any place you want and/or AirBnB or VRBO etc. around the world for what to me at least would be a far more interesting experience.

Note that there is a separate page [1] about tax benefits on the company website:

"When finances are structured accordingly, people who plan to run a business, foundation or other entity from the ship, can be considered to be on a continuous business trip. In this case, it may be possible to write off most annual fees."

"The ship is flagged in the Bahamas and the related fund is based in Liechtenstein. These could be considered the domicile for a business, foundation or other entity based on board (or another jurisdiction). While some ‘offshore’ models are illegitimate, in this instance, the asset is an investment in a fund attached to the rights to use a home office based offshore; so this is a perfectly legitimate use of offshore structures in tax-advantaged jurisdictions."

[1] https://www.storylines.com/tax-benefits-page-v1

I have experienced something similar. I drive around the world and document my adventures with video and in print. For years at a time I drive from country to country, only ever on a tourist visa for 30 or 60 days per country. I don't set foot in my "home" country for years on end.

It was perfectly legal for me to be a resident of no country for tax purposes and pay no income tax.

Things have changed a bit now - in my "home" country they changed the laws so that if you even have a bank account there you're considered a resident for tax purposes and you must pay income tax there.

Assuming my understanding is correct - that your documentation of travels in video and print form is what brings you the revenues that would be taxed - aren't you committing visa fraud? Usually a tourist visa forbids any work or revenue generating activity (of course there are exceptions such as the UAE, but that's generally the rule).

No, I just a tourist in each country I pass through because I don't get paid by an employer from the country I happen to be in at the time, and I don't do any kind of freelancing in that country. I don't do anything to generate revenue in the country I'm in and I also don't get paid in that local currency, nor do I have a bank account in that country.

No that’s not how tourist visa works. Most tourist visas forbid any kind of business activities done in the target country with the exception of business meetings. I’ve had a lot of tourist visas and I’ve been told this rule by multiple lawyers.

The details depend on the country of course but in the real world people traveling to a country for events and business meetings do all sorts of other routine business activities back home while they're in the country. Which could include writing of various sorts.

The spirit of the law is protectionism, to avoid people working unregulated and taking jobs away from locals, like with customs the spirit is to prevent fraudsters from skipping import tax and hurt legitimate businesses.

Probably every one who travels (even you) broke the letter but not the spirit of both multiple times. Check work email? Illegal. Did not declare a purchase? Illegal. Even if they want to comply and declare eligible personal purchase via red corridor they would be waved through because they are not the target.

Otherwise you can jail every writer or artist who dared to practice their craft without a work visa and who sold/published later.

This isn’t an option for US citizens. Income made anywhere in the world is taxable and requires reporting and payments to the US. Furthermore, giving up one’s US citizenship requires an exit tax that taxes all unrealized gains as if you sold all assets the day before renouncing citizenship.

If the IRS suspects that you are renouncing citizenship to avoid future taxes, I believe that they can tax your next 10 years of (worldwide) income as well.

US tax laws and regulations are complex and I’m not a lawyer so don’t take my advice. (I plan on keeping my US citizenship.)

[1] https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/taxa...

[2] https://www.escapeartist.com/blog/us-taxes-worldwide-income/

Right, I read that's a big part of the reason people are giving up US Citizenship. I'm not a US citizen, so it's not a concern for me.

To each their own but being on a cruise ship for more than a week sounds like a prison sentence to me.

I spent long periods at sea in the Navy and used to joke that going to sea was my time to go to jail. There's a big difference though that Austin may have figured out: There's a lot of women looking to have casual sex on a cruise ship, which wasn't the case in the Navy.

From acquaintances who have taken a cruise, the selection of non-retirees is pretty limited. Which does not necessarily change the odds, but does cater to a specific audience.

This is a residential cruise ship, for long-term residents. Think of it more like a condo on a keel, rather than a party hotel.

Reminds me of that David Foster Wallace piece "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Supposedly_Fun_Thing_I%27ll_...

Wonder if that's who the CFO from The Office is named after...

The ship is still being built and will set sail in 2025. What is the chances that this Reality Labs employee who plans to remote work from a boat permanently is still going to be employed by Meta at Reality Labs in 2025? Seems like a bit of a long shot to me.

Reality Labs at Meta is itself a long shot so the employees there are probably used to taking risks.

I find this to be amazing and terrifying at the same time. I love the idea that we have finally reached a place in human existence where people can create basically a sci-fi reality to live in for nothing more than amusement.At the same time the gulf between those at the bottom and this ship's existence has never been greater.

For an HN spin. This actually is proof of why Meta verse and VR will never catch on. The creators of VR themselves are not downsizing their life to use VR. They are going full real life experiences instead. Digital life is just a poor persons substituent for lacking the funds to enjoy reality. Nobody aspires to "VR" their life.

Isn't this environmentally irresponsible? I thought cruise ships had a huge carbon footprint and many negative impacts.

Yep, and they aren't even covered by some basic pollution standards, so they pollute a lot more than the equivalent in land or air vehicles.

While a cool idea.

Aren't most cruise ships and their parents companies behind the ball when it comes to environmental impact and they're responsibilities to be good to the planet?

I hope they choose a company/liner that is not one of these companies otherwise I think this is a terrible decision.

Once these companies sort out their behavior, I'm all aboard

The thing is it’s not really possible to remain a cost effective cruise company while not destroying the environment and exploiting the people working on the ship.

Absolutely not condoning their business model; I think buying cruises is immoral because of that.

Is he going to be known as the one employee whose Internet connection keeps dropping during meetings because he's sailing somewhere?

This seems to be some kind of combo ad for the cruise ships plus meta.

As someone who did the digital nomad thing for ~5 years I think this guy will hugely regret this, especially the 12 year obligation element. As someone else said, he's basically signing up to live in a mall where he will never be able to form long term in person relationships.

I was living a much more dynamic lifestyle than this in much nicer living conditions and I was thoroughly burned out after 5 years. I'd imagine he's had his fun with this by the end of 1 year, maybe 3 max.

Personally, I have no interest in cruise ships. I get seasick pretty easily and they seem somewhat unsanitary. But $300,000 for 144 months works out to ≈$2,083/month. If you consider cruise ships to be a luxury, and that cruise ship has good enough internet for work, that's really not a bad deal.

>> If you consider cruise ships to be a luxury, and that cruise ship has good enough internet for work, that's really not a bad deal.

Rent is rarely a good deal. Since he can work remote, he could buy a home any number of places and be able to sell to get money back.

Not everything in life is about buying a house and investing money. Life is for living and enjoying it while you still can. You never know what’s going to happen in the future, I think this guy is doing something amazing.

People can obviously do what they want but... You can live in one place you enjoy (don't need to buy a house) and both enjoy what the local area has to offer and travel to other places that interest you. He mentions maybe doing this for 3 years; there are few guarantees he'll be able to unload the rest of his $300K lease. Living in a 237 sq. ft. room and being able to make presumably brief stops at cruise ship destinations hardly sounds amazing. And, as someone else mentioned, it's something like a $40K/year fee on top of the lease. So about $5K/month for room, board, and utilities.

Which is in the range that upper middle-class people may pay anyway but certainly isn't a bargain and opens up many other options.

The unique selling point is that he can see a lot of places without having to move, and without having to travel away from his home, and without having to do much (or any) travel planning. I can see the attraction.

A very superficial see on someone else's schedule. Sounds pretty uninteresting to me but one's mileage may differ.

I mean, I've purchased a place and generally agree, but that's relatively low rent for a faang employee and he also would basically be getting (what he considers to be) a continuous low cost vacation out of it, where someone else manages all his home maintenance and repairs, and he gets to travel to a bunch of new locations.

Like I said I don't have interest in cruise ships, but I can't say I haven't considered trying to set up a similar continuous arrangement with a hotel.

Looking back at this comment, I have no idea how the $300k would be financed and there's probably some interest payments that make it higher than $2,083/month. Regardless, the concept stands, especially given how much people normally pay per day or week of vacation.

I've never read anything that screams bait and switch more. And if you want to complain, I'm reminded of the sunny episode where the gang buys a boat - you won't complain because you're at sea and you know, the implication...

The Meta employee is currently 28 years old and works in Reality Labs.

What a fantastic way to spend your life until you hit your 40s and are ready to settle down and start a family.

I would love to read more coverage or updates about his life in the coming years.

> What a fantastic way to spend your life until you hit your 40s and are ready to settle down and start a family.

I’ve thought about doing this for years, and when Covid made WFH a thing it piqued my interest even more. My partner can’t work on a boat, and we have a dog… and we love to cook… and we have too much stuff. In another life they’d write an article about me

While a 28yo with a great job may feel empowered now, I’d be worried about life changes that really impact the plans.

What if you lose your job and you can’t find the right one to keep up this very atypical lifestyle?

What if your family gets sick? What if you fall in love with a land-lover? What if you want/already had a pet?

Are people generally waiting until their 40s to start a family? I know people are having kids later nowadays, but I didn't think it was that late. I wouldn't want to still be raising my kids when I'm over 60.

Less and less people these days care about having kids. I know so many people in their 30s now choosing to be child free and this lets them do things like the guy in the article.

For me personally, I’m also child-free and I’ve lived in 7 different countries now working in tech, saving lots of money, living in various tax free locales etc.

It's hard for some people with kids to wrap their minds around those of us who reject the lifestyle. I've overheard a few parent co-workers of mine in the past label being child-free as "selfish."

I can't think of one compelling reason to have a child. All the reasons parent friends list off are so unappealing or selfish in their own way, I have to try and not laugh at the irony and lack of self-awareness.

Today's kids are going to pay for your healthcare and pension when you'll be old. On average, 50% of an individual's medical spending is spent during the last 6 months of its life. Add around 30-40 years of retirement income, it's an enormous burden for the society.

Even if you're (very) rich and saved for it, the fact that less and less young people are available to create wealth means that the economy becomes inflationary, or has to use immigrants, depleting the other poor countries of their skilled workforce.

Unfortunately, a volontary "child-free" or rather childless, it's not a disease, thanks, is a kind of freeloading. Politically it's very destructive, as people without children don't want to fund infrastructure or services for them, aggravating the problem.

If you want an example, Italy is a great example of a dying society due to the lack of reproduction and the State' disinterest for it.

So much of your argument is just plain wrong I can’t even begin to reply. Our society is not dying because people are having less children. Stop trying to justify your bad decisions and offloading guilt on the rest of us lmao.

Which bad decision? I'm very happy to have a kid, and I wish I had one earlier.

Who's going to take care of you when you'll be old, either physically or financially? Someone else's kid. Please let me know how this is wrong.

As for Italy, there's almost no childcare, no financial help for parents, no infrastructure for families. Pediatrics are quite expensive, and here people have children at an older age, or don't. As many interesting shops/workshops/industries are struggling to find competent workers and their owners will retire, we'll see a massive wave of value and cultural destruction there in the coming decades.

And given the wet eyes from the 40-something "childfree" women I see daily when they get a smile from my todler, I'm not sure it's all chill and cool. I see rather pain, suffering and cope.

But yeah, ok, don't try to argue man, just keep your convictions.

> until you hit your 40s and are ready to settle down and start a family

imo if you've waited until your 40s without having kids, you probably just don't want kids and would be better off without having them.

Starting a family in your 40s sounds terrible. Not only are you physically in decline, so playing and keeping up with kids is not as much fun, but when your kids have kids, you will be too old to be an asset, and likely to be a liability.

Not to mention issues with fertility and increased probabilities of birth defects.

People seem to have an odd sense of fertility time nowadays. My wife was watching some reality dating show last night be a woman on there mentioned wanting 10 children, and hopefully starting to have them once she was 33 or 34.

Good luck. Age 35+ is considered a geriatric pregnancy. Above 40 and the risks are quite large, if you even manage to get pregnant. Almost all of us are having kids way too late, biologically speaking.

not any more odd than getting sense of the world from from reality dating shows.

Heh, that's just one data point I've noticed among many. I've heard plenty of people "start thinking" about having children once they're in their mid 30s. Hell, it's rare for most people to get married until their late 20s/early 30s. I'm not sure what we can do about this and it's certainly nothing that should be rushed, but I feel a good segment of the population doesn't realize the downsides of waiting that long either. Everyone wants to be "ready," but the truth is you never will be.

Well Madonna had her second child rather late in life at 42 but then she has nannies, drivers, private schools and access to the best possible healthcare.

Kids are a taxing experience not only financially - the myriad school activities, transportation needs, doctor appointments, keeping track of what needs to be done, it is like having another YOU.

My parents had me when they were 23, my firstborn when I was 33 and the wife 34 and then two years later, we had the other one.

There seems to be a big uptick in the number of people who like to scold others for their family planning choices, especially women, and especially for choosing to delay beyond some particular threshold the scolder takes to be ideal (often representative of some imagined sepia toned traditional time). The truth is if you're reasonably affluent nearly all of these supposed downsides can be mitigated and are usually preferable to trying to take care of kids on a shoestring budget while still building a professional and economic foundation.

My comment was not intended to scold anyone. Just an opinion based on experience of having to take care of a couple kids, and watching my dad neglect his kids to take care of his excessively old dad.

> usually preferable to trying to take care of kids on a shoestring budget while still building a professional and economic foundation.

Which does not apply to the person deciding to lease space on a cruise boat for 12 years for a few hundred thousand dollars.

Incorrect. Many think the downsides can be mitigated but the fact is that many women over 30, and especially over 35 will struggle with infertility. Methods like IVF may work but you’re often signing up for a year of stress and anxiety for every child you want. Methods like egg freezing fail far more than people think, and then you’re left with an empty family for the remaining 40 years of your life. It’s a bleak situation and I think people should stop putting it off. At the very least, they should put in some serious thought before they’re 30 to understand their options.

Sure, I guess you can hire someone to represent you posthumously to attend your child’s high school graduation or wedding.

lol I am 37 and would have no problem parenting. I do go to the gym 3x a week though so wonder if that plays a part.

> hit your 40s and are ready to settle down and start a family.

I don't think we've conquered biology to quite the degree needed to make that a sensible path to plan for.

They must be an IC6 or IC7 because earnings for all was kneecapped by hyperinflation.

I wouldn't do it because of legal quagmires of jurisdiction should anything happen. No delivery of mail or packages in a timely fashion. Plus, neighbors? Going to the park? Major medical? I don't think they've thought this through completely.

It seems like living in a hotel with extra disease risk, not to mention motion sickness.

Mmmm. 12 Years of Norovirus. Sounds like fun.

This is so sad. Cruises ships are literally the opposite of seeing the world. You’re stuck in a floating mall, in a place probably populated at 90% by wealthy boomers on holidays.

What a way to waste your prime years.

>What a way to waste your prime years.

what even are those "prime years"?

The time where you’re young enough to start a family and old enough to earn good money.

2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23... you get less of them as you get older :/

Though they feel like they arrive at the same rate.

Sounds horrible to me too, but to each his/her own.

Couldn’t he just buy his own boat at that price?

Well, he could buy a small boat, sure. But isn't that like comparing commuting by train to buying a car and sitting in traffic? There are pluses and minuses to sharing the ride, but at least he doesn't have to drive (or know how to sail, in this case). Personally I think it'd get old after a year or two, but maybe the right person could last 12 years.

Not one with a captain, gym, coworking space, restaurant, bar, and gas to get you to cool places for 12 years!

Really not all that bad as long as he’s allowed to bring food/alcohol from ports onboard. Does it have a kitchen? Or does he have to always buy overpriced cruise ship food. That seems like it would be the dealbreaker for me.

According to Business Insider¹, "food, drink, and laundry services [are] provided".

¹ https://www.businessinsider.com/meta-employee-spends-300000-...

As this is a cruise ship, the Meta employee is also purchasing a 12-year lease on repeated covid infections.

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