Hacker News Reader

Comment by SJC_Hacker | Hacker News Reader

I'd say it really depends on the mentality of the very rich person

The very wealthy are going to fly private. Upper middle class could swing this on a case-to-case basis, but not regularly and especially if not if they frequently travel

Other than that, the main difference is the very wealthy having a mentality of getting people to "take care of problems" to a much larger extent. For example, routine tasks like cleaning. An upper MC person might have a weekly cleaner at best. But they still have to load/unload dishwasher, do their own laundry, etc. A very rich person has a full-time housekeeper.

The very rich have circles of people they rely on to take care of problems. Like having "a lawyer" who they go to for and have known for years. There seems to be much more of a sense of personal relationships / loyalty. Almost like the old feudal oaths.

View on HN

> The very rich have circles of people they rely on to take care of problems.

At the higher levels, there's a "family office" which takes care of such things. All bills go there, and anything that needs to be done, they take care of. The first big one was the Rockefellers', which was in Rockefeller Center in New York. (That turned into a business. Now it offers Being Rich as a Service.)

Family offices manage investments. Personal staff are typically separate.

Traditionally, yes. That's for the people who inherited a mansion, retainers, and trusts. Now there are family office concierge services. "Luxury lifestyle as a service" is available.[1] That's for people who made a lot of money all at once and need guidance in spending it.

(The people I've known with serious money made most of it themselves, and didn't need a family office. Except for one married couple who blew through 8 figures and went broke.)

[1] https://www.maisonbenjamin.com/familyoffices

> Now there are family office concierge services

These are between multi-family offices and scams targeting new money. (The intersection between the best hospitality folks you can privately hire and the best money managers is roughly zero. Consolidating those functions makes no sense unless someone cannot afford them.)

> These are between multi-family offices and scams targeting new money.

That's a good way to look at it.

Just take the website you presented. There is a contact us page. Who do you think they’re targeting?

Maybe I'm not rich enough to get it, but in the footer this site identifies itself as a member of a travel agency which is itself a member of a third travel agency. I'm getting the same vibe you see from the "wealth advisors" who run around trying to feed people structured notes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quintessentially_Group would be another one. American Express has a concierge service for their wealthier clients as do most big banks with services for their wealthy clients

What comes to mind here is Up In The Air starring George Clooney.

Now Ryan Bingham doesn't command any particular status or wealth, but he makes a living firing people on behalf of other companies ("Concierge firing-as-a-service"?) and he leads a nomadic lifestyle that many of us would find completely intolerable.

His one lifelong dream is to earn 10,000,000 Frequent Flyer miles and hold the special Unobtanium card from American Airlines. [SPOILER WARNING] He achieves this during the final flight of the film, and when he dials the number on the back, he comes to realize that this is his unique number and there is a specially-assigned staffer waiting by the phone to personally take his call.

I can envision this sort of revelation as the experience of someone who comes into money and suddenly finds their needs being personally met by a concierge or family office.

> this is his unique number and there is a specially-assigned staffer waiting by the phone to personally take his call.

For small values of "personally". I once visited a rent-an-office place which had a live receptionist. She had a phone with about thirty line buttons. Each time she answered a different line, she gave a different company name.

Virtualization.

> A very rich person has a full-time housekeeper.

So does any middle class family living in a developing country with high economic inequality.

And it would be heartless not to. Those housekeepers need jobs and incomes.

Perhaps not exactly comparable, but I went to a talk at wlog REI from some relatively ordinary person who climbed some famous, but accessible peak (Kilimanjaro?). I asked about the practice of hiring local porters, and got basically this answer.

The local economy pretty much depends on the influx of foreign money from the people climbing. A fit person would be physically capable of carrying their full load, but it simply isn't done because of the economic disparity between the foreign climbers and the local porters. I don't know if that was enforced by law or custom, but the presenter was quite clear that it's not really possible to climb without local porters.

On Kilimanjaro you must employ a guide, a cook for the guide, and a porter to carry the gear of the cook and the guide. You are welcome to carry your own gear but at this point you've already got a support team of 3 people and are paying $1500+. An extra porter is probably around $100.

I don't know why you are getting downvoted. Over the years I have heard several anecdotes from "expat" wives in various places (Kenya, Philippines, New Guinea) of being taken aside by a local headman soon after arrival and being told that they will hire a cook and a housekeeper and a laundrymaid.

On the mediocrity principle, I think this is how things worked in general. Necessary to the local economy.

Yeah I think this is something that people in countries like the US don't instinctively understand, or at least I didn't.

My Filipino friend explained to me that back home, if you have more than a certain amount of money, it's seen as incredibly selfish not to employ people as housekeepers, etc.

I'd imagine that's true in a lot of places with income disparity and/or high unemployment numbers. It made a lot of sense to me.

We have that in the USA for some things - depending on where you live.

Some places if you’re the only house on the block who mows their own lawn, you’ll be considered stingy or weird.

My mom visited a professor in an African country a few years back, as part of a project.

She told me the professor had a guy employed to open and close the gates for when he drove to work and came home in the evening. That's all the guy did. Full time job.

Sounded so preposterous at first, but after thinking a wee bit I came to a similar conclusion that the alternatives might be a lot worse. It was steady income, albeit not a lot.

I assume he also stayed actively present at the gates during the day and/or night and functioned as some kind of watchman?

Sounds like any gated community with a security guard post at the entrance.

I understand where this is coming from but that argument simply doesn’t make sense. There are many ways to give back to society; providing low-status jobs is only one of them. And a poor one, because it locks people in that status and heteronomy. Within 10 minutes, anyone can come up with some ideas that would contribute to other people’s development and growth in a more sustainable fashion.

It serves other purposes. That narrative is a convenient collective lie, full stop.

> And a poor one, because it locks people in that status and heteronomy

What is the current alternative? Are they any better?

When I was kid growing up (in Brazil), we had a live-in housekeeper. She moved to São Paulo from some poor rural area in the South of Brazil. As many people from poor rural areas, she was forced to drop out of school on 3rd grade to help her family.

If I remember it correctly, she was 21, 22 years old when she first moved in. The agreement was she would get minimum wage + regular benefits + free housing. She would work from ~7:30am until 3pm, get a break in the afternoon and then go to night school from 7 to 10pm. On weekends she was free, so she could either be out with her friends or coming along our weekend camping trips.

She worked with us for 5-6 years, finished school, moved out of our home when she got married. Had two daughters, the oldest one just finished college. I know all that because 30+ years later my mom and her still keep in touch.

Possibly stories like these are not the majority, but they were pretty common. Today, this would be unthinkable not because economic inequality has diminished, but because whatever we had that passed for "middle class" in Brazil got completely squeezed out by governments over the last 25 years.

    There are many ways to give back to society

Right, but ultimately what (nearly all) people want is frigging jobs. Or to be even more specific: steady, dependable income.

    because it locks people in that status and heteronomy

Yeah there's so many incorrect assumptions here.

I can tell you that here in the US, my somewhat upper middle class aunt used to clean homes part time. Husband was an engineer, she was a housewife, kids were away at school. Not the type of person with hobbies and such. Was a bit bored.

Not sure of the specifics but I think she pulled in a couple of grand a month cleaning. Pretty handy when you're putting two kids through college. Or so I thought. Thanks to you, today I learned it was all "a lie." ((giant eye roll))

It's not an uncommon side gig for bored suburban housewives. There are a few women in my middle class town that do it.

I don't think full time housekeeping, which seems more common in other countries, necessarily locks anybody into anything. Anecdotally I think it's a fairly common thing to do when getting an education. I also don't know that it's always low-paid, either, especially if it includes nanny duties etc.

> Yeah I think this is something that people in countries like the US don't instinctively understand, or at least I didn't.

Guilty as charged. I have the American mentality due to being raised here, and I would be horrified to hire a housekeeper or servant. The "well, it's better than nothing" argument, while true, feels icky and exploitative. "Better than nothing" is a terrible bar and a sign of a broken society, and I personally just don't want to be part of continuing that brokenness. Totally understand if someone grew up in a different culture, they likely have a totally different view on it.

Does it feel "icky and exploitative" to you to use Über/DoorDash/TaskRabbit?

Kind of. I don't do food delivery at all, and only hire uber/lyft when all other options are exhausted, and when I do, I at least I feel sufficiently bad about it. I would definitely feel "icky" hiring a personal shopper or hiring a chauffer to drive me everywhere.

And yea, I know there are other less visible areas in every product and service value chain where people are exploited and yet I am part of society. I don't have an answer or solution to this that is politically feasible.

> I would definitely feel "icky" hiring a personal shopper or hiring a chauffer to drive me everywhere.

Do you feel "icky" by going to a supermarket and having a cashier scanning your products? Do you feel "icky" by taking a taxi? How about by taking a public bus, train or plane?

Do you go to restaurants or bars? Do you feel "icky" about someone taking your order, cleaning up your table, pouring out drinks for you?

Do you have kids? Have you ever hired a babysitter? Do you feel "icky" about someone else being temporarily responsible for the well-being of your child?

> I know there are other less visible areas (...) where people are exploited and yet I am part of society. I don't have an answer or solution to this that is politically feasible.

I'm honestly more concerned about people who think that they should have "an answer to this" than all the exploitation that exists.

I can tell you what it's *not* the solution. Eliminating all sort of manual labor is *not* a solution. Eliminating manual labor will lead to even more isolation and atomized individuals. It will put us all in different bubbles and make us completely unable to relate to other people and it will make us even more susceptible to be defined by what we consume.

If you are part of a society, it will be better for everyone if you start participating in it. Instead of looking down on people whose work is not as valuable as yours (because that's what honestly your "feeling icky about it" seems to boil down to), look at these interactions as opportunities for mutual, voluntary help. If you think their work is worth more than what they are getting, tell them so and back it up with your generosity. There is no point in "feeling bad" about it.

Are all jobs and incomes alike?

It doesn't heartless.

You can, instead of paying for a housekeeper pay for machines etc. made in the country in question, thus creating technical jobs there that might develop people more than housekeeping does.

The machines are more expensive than the housekeeper and the housekeeper doesn't have the education to make them.

In the US (and Europe...) labor is expensive so it make sense to have technical people design machines.

Personally I'd hate the lack of privacy

Or an UN judge living in UK https://www.reuters.com/world/ugandan-un-judge-jailed-britai...

Wait, you can't be serious.

One of my coworkers - a senior engineer - came to the US from India and found it a big change - sure he knew how to cook, but he didn't realize he would have to cook every meal. He has two house keepers before who would come in the morning make breakfast, and clean the house. They would then leave for the afternoon and return to make supper and minor tidying up. He really only had enough work for 1 house keeper but having 2 meant if one was sick or quit he had time to find a second. Since he was paying them less than $1/day each the total cost was very reasonable.

Who know if or how long the above will continue, but it is still possible in many countries if you can get a job there.

Yup, no big deal. One of my cousin has like 2 housekeepers full time and 2 comes are different time of day like help with cooking and cleaning during lunch and dinner. Their luxury car is however lowest end Audi and another is Corolla.

On flip side he had to change 2 jobs because travel distance as ~20 miles but in term of duration it was 4+ hrs daily. And no such thing as peak hours there, day-in/day out, morning, afternoon, late night, week day, weekend, same worst possible traffic.

Any interaction with real world outside of home can wear people down specially the kind who keep multiple household helps. From traffic, to pollution, medical care, school admissions, doing groceries, shopping, parking and on and on.

One way to think is at absolute top level like senior most politicians, industrialist, CEOs, other types of super influential people, developed vs developing countries' lifestyle can match, but as one start moving down the ladder, the quality falls very rapidly in developing world and serious compromises can start just 2 step down from top.

>The very rich have circles of people they rely on to take care of problems. Like having "a lawyer" who they go to for and have known for years. There seems to be much more of a sense of personal relationships / loyalty. Almost like the old feudal oaths.

That has more to do with owning business interests than wealth. The guy who owns a small chain of a mundane business, has stake in another business via investment, etc, etc, his social circle looks roughly the same.

> Other than that, the main difference is the very wealthy having a mentality of getting people to "take care of problems" to a much larger extent. For example, routine tasks like cleaning. An upper MC person might have a weekly cleaner at best.

Pfft... amateurs. I've solved the same problem by just living in filth.

It's one of the soft skills I picked up in college, like drinking three mountain dew game fuels in a day

I would pay to avoid flying : private or public…

You can hire a private rail car: https://www.amtrak.com/privately-owned-rail-cars

Well your link is to have Amtrak tow your private rail car. You have to provide it yourself. There is a different company that offers luxury private cars that I can’t remember the name of now.

There’s a number that provide rentals (many are preservation societies/charities that hire out their cars for income).

https://www.aaprco.com/charter-a-private-car

Of course, if you’re really rich, you’d have your own. ;)

If it's continental, having a driver and a comfortable car would go a long way then.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com