It Takes a Village

IT TAKES A VILLAGE

Jerry’s Meetup — is in the Trophy Room of Menlo Soleil, just a few blocks from downtown Menlo Park. Menlo Soleil is just like a YMCA, if your family plays Polo and owns a two-to-three-digit home (the millions are implied). The Trophy Room overlooks the Polo Field from an angle, and has a pleasant waterfall burbling away. There are only about twenty of us in the intimate space, so I have about twenty tries depending on how many I pitch at a time. While the mini lobster rolls are being passed around, I go for one of the big fish.

“Hi Larry, how are things in Lanai?”

“Very nice: it is where I created my ultimate garden and retreat: very Zen and reinvigorating. You should visit sometime”

“That would be wonderful, but the drive will kill me.” I am quite sure the invitation was not sincere.

“Ha, most people fly, but I have heard you don’t”

“Not until I get wings or my own private jet”

“I understand the feeling”

“I am sure you do” I say with a smile, knowing full well he is neither a vampire nor plebeian enough to touch a commercial plane. So he does not understand the feelings of ‘most people’ at all. But still, I have to chase the money.

“I would like you to help with a problem ” I continue.

“I need a fair amount of land in the Bay Area, and I would like you to own it.”

“Prices in the Bay Area are a rip-off, even for me, can’t you just buy land in the Midwest or Hawaii?”

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“No, the people are here, and they don’t have private jets either”

“You are talking about the homeless I assume. Your reputation precedes you.”

“Yes, homes for the thirty-five thousand homeless. I am targeting getting about 350 acres around the bay. That would house the homeless in about the same or higher density as Buena Vista” . Buena Vista is a 4-acre mobile home park in Palo Alto that is worth about the same as the lesser fishes houses: a bit under $100M. It houses 400 people, or about 100 people per acre. Larry is more used to 100 acres per person, so this may be hard for him to fathom.

“That could be several billion dollars depending on where it was. ”

“It does not have to be quite that valuable of land. The goal would be to keep it under a billion.”

“I bought Lanai for about that, assuming a third of a billion. Lanai is a paradise of 90,000 acres.”

“Well, if you are offering 40 acres and a mule in Lanai, that is very generous if it includes travel”

“Um… no”

“OK, so returning to the easier-to-reach Bay Area. Google has 80 acres in San Jose, relatively close to the city, transit, and other resources. Wouldn’t you like to outshine them?”

“By owning an 80-acre mobile home park?”

“Well, it wouldn’t be mobile homes: they would look more like ‘normal’ houses except being very small”

“So like a homeless village?”

“Yes, but done more nicely. Basically trying to be as nice as a suburban village except at much higher density. The homeless

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would own their small homes. There would even be a HOA [Home Owners Association] to apply rules for keeping things looking good”

“Co-governing homeless villages have not been doing well”

“This isn’t co-governing, just normal home ownership. Except the lots are very small. That is also how it is different from mobile home parks where you are renting your lot vs. owning it.”

“OK. So I buy 40 acres in Fremont for a billion dollars; develop it for a few tens-of-millions to have water, sanitation, and power for the area; you figure out how to get four thousand people to build (or move) tiny homes onto it and we everyone is happy?”

“Well… at least most of those four thousand would be quite ecstatic”

“And I get the warm fuzzies for giving away a billion dollars?”

The rest of the conversation — did not go well. My actual proposal was to do a proof of concept (POC) on a 4-acre plot, ideally in East Palo Alto or Redwood City, but Fremont would be fine also. Fremont just meant I had to cross bridges a lot, and ‘modern’ vampires don’t have problems with that or running water in general. If I did, I could always swing around the San Jose base of the peninsula.

But Larry and others did not want to spend $100M (or less) on the land to house 400 people. Only special employees are worth $250K each because they can potentially cause a big-bump in stock price. Other people… “meh” .

Apparently these homeless are worth something though: about $1,500 each. Although no one wanted to buy the land needed for the homes, they were willing to donate to the cause. By the end of the evening I had $50M in the Firehorse (501c3) bank account and various electronic equivalents. A few even gave me paper checks, which made ‘El Toro’ feel like an armored car on the drive home.

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Maybe I should upgrade it a bit more.

Coffee with Jerry did ultimately enable a successful fishing trip, I just didn’t catch as much as I was hoping for. But the Skuna Salmon that Circus served must have been tasty.

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