Billionaires swap home offices for 'working from yacht' with high‑tech floating offices

Billionaires are reportedly swapping out the home office for a ‘working from yacht’ option.

In recent years, more and more people have been working from home, rather than spending all five weekdays in an office building.

Whilst many people enjoy this arrangement, how many can say they have a WFY – Work from yacht – situation?

It turns out that there is some historical precedent for working from your yacht; it’s not something that’s only come about thanks to Zoom.

EXPLORE SBX CARS – Supercar auctions starting soon powered by Supercar Blondie

Working from yacht is the new trendy thing for billionaires

Kevin Koenig, a journalist at The Wall Street Journal, took a closer look at this curious phenomenon.

He spoke to several billionaires who have taken to working in ‘floating offices’, including Jimmy John Liautaud, the proprietor of the sandwich chain Jimmy John’s.

Liautaud is something of a workaholic, as he finds time to work whether he is – and that includes any superyacht he happens to be stationed on.

And he’s not alone.

With designers including offices in superyachts, there’s clearly a demand for this kind of lifestyle.

To hear Dimitris Angelakos, who runs his own yacht-for-charter fleet, describe it, you would think this is the perfect work set-up.

With views of the water from his desk, he’s able to take a plunge after his morning emails.

And if he doesn’t feel up for the ocean, he can pop into the jacuzzi.

What’s behind this rise in working from yacht?

Well, according to Henry Smith, a founding partner at the London yacht brokerage, Cecil Wright, Elon Musk deserves some credit.

“The main driver behind more people working from their yacht is connectivity, and by that I mean Starlink,” Smith told the Wall Street Journal.

“Before Starlink, you could spend hundreds of thousands in a month and still not have very good data. The costs were prohibitive.”

Business packages would set most yacht owners back around $2,150 a month – a drop in the ocean for billionaires.

Smith also said that they didn’t know of a single yacht that didn’t have it.

Superyachts – the definition of work hard, play hard?

Superyachts seem to be everywhere these days.

Well, they do in the super-affluent world of billionaires at least.

There was the 466-foot mega-yacht that belonged to Google co-founder Sergey Brin.

Jeff Bezos’ boat was so big that it got turned away from Monaco. Also, Venice.

And there’s The World, Residences at Sea, which undergoes a ‘refresh’ every three years.

DISCOVER SBX CARS: The global premium car auction platform powered by Supercar Blondie