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.
silverFork 1 minutes ago [-]
Ai farm to be.. I suspect.
LucaFromAlpha 5 minutes ago [-]
what's that meme about rich people just doing really rich stuff and not worrying about being some BS worldly image? yeah that.
dylanz 8 minutes ago [-]
He's a huge cross country skier so he probably wants his own little playground
theropost 15 minutes ago [-]
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.
bpodgursky 20 minutes ago [-]
$600/acre for timber forest???
I had no idea Sweden was this cheap. Why wouldn't he drop $22mm on this...
Ekaros 4 minutes ago [-]
It is somewhat north. So I would expect potential income to be in line. Thus price can be relatively low and there still is not much profit.
nazgulsenpai 11 minutes ago [-]
Perhaps there's a reason Sweden wants him to have all of this land.
mahboi 16 minutes ago [-]
Guessing it's more expensive if you're buying less, otherwise I kinda want to buy 4 acres.
Nothing to see here. There's no corruption in the civilized world, even less in Nordic countries which are maximally developed culturally and socially.
khat 13 minutes ago [-]
[dead]
nalekberov 11 minutes ago [-]
> 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.
NewJazz 10 minutes ago [-]
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.
mertleee 21 minutes ago [-]
Assuming this is for conservation, it's hard to find reasons this is a bad thing.
fnordpiglet 19 minutes ago [-]
This is where he will build 50 silos
elias_t 15 minutes ago [-]
They probably already have nano technology
xhevahir 17 minutes ago [-]
He's probably buying it so that he can ski through miles of virgin forest with his Norwegian bodyguards. I hate this weirdo but he's probably not going to do much to the landscape.
eckelhesten 8 minutes ago [-]
Weak reason given that Sweden has something called Allemansrätten.
subscribed 6 minutes ago [-]
This is a quite far fetched assumption.
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.
Naillik 8 minutes ago [-]
What are your reasons for assuming that would be the motive of the Palantir founder?
mahboi 18 minutes ago [-]
Why would Alex Karp randomly buy Swedish forest for conservation?
fhdkweig 15 minutes ago [-]
Trying to buy himself back into heaven, like Bill Gates did. We only have the article's quotation for evidence, but it does say:
> Karp made the purchase through his newly registered company Cladonia Skog AB. The chairman of Cladonia told the Swedish newspaper that the land provides valuable habitat for wildlife and space for recreation.
colordrops 13 minutes ago [-]
He plans to create a ground for hunting humans, a la "The Most Dangerous Game".
moralestapia 9 minutes ago [-]
I wouldn't be surprised.
This is not a joke.
Karp is the type of person that 100% would do this.
xhevahir 16 minutes ago [-]
Skiing. He arranges his life around Nordic skiing to an incredible degree.
fhdkweig 13 minutes ago [-]
I don't really know anything about skiing, but can you do that in a virgin old-growth forest?
raddan 6 minutes ago [-]
Yes. All you really need are paths. This is a bit of an overgeneralization since forests in different places have different growth habits, but many old growth forests have less underbrush. During the winter, these forests are pretty easy to navigate on Nordic skis. If he wants to skate instead of doing the classic stride, I’m sure he can afford to groom the paths. Grooming really just requires a fancy snowmobile.
germinalphrase 5 minutes ago [-]
Potentially. Depending on the style of skiing, you may only need a 2-3 ft wide pathway. That said, ski paths tend to be cleared of trees/large rocks and span about 10-15 feet wide.
rafram 7 minutes ago [-]
Who said it's a virgin old-growth forest?
daneel_w 5 minutes ago [-]
It might not get to remain a virgin old-growth forest. If the Swedish logging companies can get away with it, he probably can, too.
The purchased forest (15k hectares, 37k acres) is therefore ~1.3% of the region.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A4rjedalen
I had no idea Sweden was this cheap. Why wouldn't he drop $22mm on this...
Seems like he could buy all of Sweden's forests if he wanted to.
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.
> Karp made the purchase through his newly registered company Cladonia Skog AB. The chairman of Cladonia told the Swedish newspaper that the land provides valuable habitat for wildlife and space for recreation.
This is not a joke.
Karp is the type of person that 100% would do this.
https://fortune.com/well/2023/02/03/billionaire-palantir-ceo...