Here are nine of the largest yachts owned by tech billionaires.
9. Sergey Brin: Dragonfly
Length: 239ft
Also in his fleet is the superyacht Butterfly, a mere 124ft long. Often moored in the Bay Area, her crew members spend their downtime kitesurfing and giving swimming lessons to local kids.
The rest of his marine line-up includes a smaller boat called Firefly, as well as jet skis, foilboards, dinghies, and kiteboards. It takes a team of 50 full-time employees to manage, steer and maintain the entire operation.
8. Laurene Powell Jobs: Venus
Length: 255ft
After spending years holidaying on Ellison’s yachts, Jobs wanted one for himself. He designed Venus with French starchitect and decorator Philippe Starck, and it’s estimated she was worth between €105 million and €120 million (US$114 million and US$130 million). Unfortunately, the Apple founder never saw his vision come to life.
Jobs and Starck began working together in 2007, the designer told Vanity Fair, and held monthly meetings over four years. Venus was delivered in 2012 to Jobs’ specification: six identical cabins, a design to ensure spaces of absolute silence, and the most up-to-date technology.
7. Larry Ellison: Musashi
Length: 288ft
He bought his current boat Musashi in 2011 for a reported US$160 million from custom-yacht giant Feadship. Reportedly named after a famous samurai warrior, the yacht has both Japanese and art deco-inspired design elements. She also boasts amenities including a lift, swimming pool, beauty salon, gym and basketball court, according to luxury yacht charter marketplace Yacht Charter Fleet.
Ellison is known for his extravagant spending – private islands, jets, a tennis tournament – and yachting is among his favourite and most expensive hobbies. He took up racing them in the 1990s and financed the America’s Cup-winning BMW Oracle Racing team.
6. Mark Zuckerberg: Launchpad
Length: 287ft
The ship made her maiden voyage in March, going from Gibraltar to St Maarten and mooring in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Little is known about her interior, but photos show a large swimming pool and helipad. Her price, too, has been kept under wraps, but is said to be nine figures. Zuckerberg shelled out US$30 million for a support vessel, the Wingman.
5. Charles Simonyi: Norn
Length: 295ft
Delivered in 2023, Norn is full of luxe features, including an outdoor cinema and a pool floor that lifts to become a light-up dance floor. It shares a militaristic style with Skat, which Simonyi sold in 2021.
Skat’s name is derived from the Danish word for treasure. It had a listing price of €56.5 million and was launched in 2002. (Other reports value it at €49.5 million.)
“The yacht is to be home away from my home in Seattle, and its style should match the style of the house, adapted for the practicalities of the sea,” Simonyi once said.
4. Jim Clark: Athena
Length: 295ft
Meanwhile, Netscape founder Jim Clark bought the massive sailing yacht Athena in 2004, also measuring at 295ft long like Simonyi’s Norn.
Athena has room for 10 guests and 21 crew members, and the only change Clark says he’d make in her design is converting the lower deck office into a children’s room, per Boat International.
The former Stanford professor has tried to sell it at various points – listing it for US$95 million in 2012, US$69 million in 2016, and US$59 million in 2017 – but it has yet to change hands.
3. Barry Diller: Eos
Length: 305ft
Barry Diller, the chairman of digital media company IAC, co-owns the megayacht Eos with his wife, fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg, who is immortalised on the yacht’s prow by a figurehead sculpture by Anh Duong, according to Harper’s Bazaar.
One of the largest private sailing yachts in the world, the three-masted Lürssen schooner measures 305ft long. She took three years to be built before being delivered to Diller in 2006 and, since then, little has come to light about her interior and features, though according to the specs on the website of boatbuilder Lürssen, Eos caters for up to 14 guests across seven cabins and features interiors by François Catroux. The boat has recently been given structural refit, as reported by industry publication Boat International.
The power couple has hosted many celebrities on the Eos, which spends its summers criss-crossing the Mediterranean and, last year, was in St Barts for New Year’s Eve. Over the years, guests have included Oprah Winfrey, Emma Thompson, Anderson Cooper and Jeff Bezos, leading some to believe she provided inspiration for his Koru.
2. Eric Schmidt: Whisper
Length: 312ft
Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt made waves last year when he agreed to buy the Alfa Nero, the yacht of a sanctioned Russian oligarch, for US$67 million in an auction conducted by Antigua and Barbuda. But he backed out of the deal following legal issues over its true owner, according to Bloomberg. He quietly bought Kismet instead, per Yahoo News. The 312-foot-long Lürssen-built boat was formerly owned by the Jacksonville Jaguars’ billionaire owner Shahid Khan. Schmidt renamed her Whisper.
The ship, which can fit 12 guests and a crew of 28, features a master deck with a private jacuzzi, full-service spa, lap pool, cinema and outdoor fireplace.
While her final sale price was not public, she was listed for €149 million, and at a charity auction in January, one week aboard the ship went for US$2.4 million, according to industry outlet Yacht Charter Fleet.
1. Jeff Bezos: Koru
Length: 417ft
Even before its completion, Koru made headlines. It drew the ire of some Dutch citizens, who vowed to hurl eggs after it was reportedly announced a historic bridge in Rotterdam might be taken apart to allow the Oceanco boat through. Luckily, the shipyard made alternative plans, and an egg crisis was averted.
Among yacht world insiders, Koru is widely praised for its craftsmanship.
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