Mountain Home Near Aspen, Built for Monks, Sold to Palantir CEO for $120m
Key topics
A $120 million mountain home near Aspen, originally built for monks, has been sold to Palantir's CEO, sparking a lively debate about the implications of such a massive transaction. Some commenters took a humorous tone, joking about the buyer being the "antichrist," while others pointed out the error in identifying the CEO, with one clarifying that Peter Thiel is not the current CEO. The conversation quickly turned to the broader issues of wealth inequality and the national debt, with commenters expressing concerns about the "Too Big to Fail" concept and the likelihood of a bailout that would be paid for by the general public. Amidst the discussion, a contrarian view emerged, suggesting that instead of complaining about others' wealth, individuals could invest their time in building something meaningful.
Snapshot generated from the HN discussion
Discussion Activity
Very active discussionFirst comment
55m
Peak period
49
0-6h
Avg / period
9.9
Based on 69 loaded comments
Key moments
- 01Story posted
Dec 21, 2025 at 12:38 PM EST
12 days ago
Step 01 - 02First comment
Dec 21, 2025 at 1:33 PM EST
55m after posting
Step 02 - 03Peak activity
49 comments in 0-6h
Hottest window of the conversation
Step 03 - 04Latest activity
Dec 24, 2025 at 1:41 AM EST
10 days ago
Step 04
Generating AI Summary...
Analyzing up to 500 comments to identify key contributors and discussion patterns
Want the full context?
Jump to the original sources
Read the primary article or dive into the live Hacker News thread when you're ready.
Signs of the antichrist:
The United States has ~$38,000,000,000,000 in debt which means a baby born in the US will get $1000 in Trump Bucks to invest in S&P 500 along with a $111,000 share of that debt with its $3,000 a year interest per person. Can someone explain to me how long this will be sustainable?
I'm a little sad that I'm not getting any free borrowed money in order to funnel it into $100M mountain properties. However, I'm trying to be objective. Given this situation what is the investment with the little bit of wealth that I have acquired? Do I need to worry about this not being sustainable and crashing?
This is not your battle alone, so don’t worry like it is.
You’re welcome.
I call this neoliberal fatalism where what they do is inevitable and resisting is useless.
All these fake trump bucks and investment plans are not for the children, they are for the investors that need the money in the market as another way to prop it up. The whole thing with Dell giving this money to these kids? Bullsht. He gave it to himself and to other investors. Nothing but a new kind of stock buyback plan.
Get ready to see poverty, and get ready to help each other. We are living through the 1920's again and it is crazy very few see it.
This. This will make all the difference, everything else is secondary.
In today’s media/social-media hellscape, how does one even begin to build a community? Every front page is filled with negativity, divisiveness.
I used to think preppers are nutjobs. As I grow old now, it feels more like they have a point
It's as much a state of mind as physical actions and good for you for starting to see the need and opportunities.
There’s a widespread faith and believe in the idea that there’s opportunity in every corner, regardless of familial status or other shortcomings.
This belief is largely factual, as the vast majority of unicorn founders and billionaires come from an upper middle class uninteresting background.
I guess it depends on what opportunity means to you. Does it mean something that’s “likely” or “less than one in a thousand”? To me, a “one in a thousand” chance to strike it rich is not good enough to justify the immense suffering our economic system causes.
51st in percentage of the population that lives in poverty [1]
Decent but worse than social democratic countries like France and Germany in hunger [2]
Ranked below Canada, France, Germany, the UK in healthcare outcomes, which all have more socialized systems than we do [3]
So I stand behind my broader point: the culture of individualism in the US benefits a select few and hurts us as a whole.
1: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/poverty-r... 2: https://journalistsresource.org/home/food-insecurity-health/... 3: https://www.commonwealthfund.org/sites/default/files/2024-09...
If someone has a good argument regarding x, it is not a good response to say “why are you defending x?” Just respond to the argument on its merit. You’re not adding anything useful to the conversation.
You mean elite capture¹ of government resources. Government money has repeatedly shown to create a lot of wealth, but the government should be free from the oligarchy. The monopolist sponsored narratives don't match with the data.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_capture
It fails through stagflation. There are lots of people speculating the US is doing that right now, but since their most recent inflation numbers are bad, nobody has the data to say it for sure.
Just increasing government debit isn't a problem by itself. It becomes a problem when that raising debit isn't making the economy grow.
or being a billionaire.
Since there aren't enough monks, the church would have to pay people to come in and maintain the place - but they can't really afford that. So, either they let these beautiful places crumble and decay, or they sell them to someone who will hopefully be able to take care of it. Between the two, the latter seems like the least bad option to me. I certainly wish that these places could stay as part of the church and not be some billionaire's home, but I would rather they be a billionaire's home than go to ruin.
(Not related to Hellraiser (1987)).
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cenobite#English
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/coenobium
Honestly, Palantir is one of those companies where I think I'd rather be homeless than work there. The amount of direct evil Palantir is responsible for is hard to overstate (eg [1]).
The rich are just trading assets with Monopoly money at this point. None of it's real. I have to wonder how far we are from the richest 10,000 owning literaly everything where the rest of us are just living in worker housing on grand estates, in debt that'll never be paid off, the latest incarnation of South Asian brick kilns.
[1]: https://www.business-humanrights.org/es/%C3%BAltimas-noticia...
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=St.+Benedict%E2%80%99s+Monastery+i...
Laughing at billionaires is the antichrist.
How does this make any sense in any context? An individuals actions can never have zero impact on others. The mass concentration of wealth in the hands of a few has an enormous impact on the rest of the population.
The stratification has become much worse the last few decades and the trend is not showing signs of slowing. This cannot be taken out of context of the larger going ons in the US and the world. People see the kleptocracy because they are so brazen they do it right out in the open
Some people: “we do not like this”
Random internet guy: “stop disliking this guy!”
[1] https://bsky.app/profile/takedemocracyback.org/post/3lk4u55a...
Enjoy your mountain fortress Karp. The afterlife won’t be kind to you.
None of which are incompatible with a soul or afterlife.
The Mountainhead https://www.imdb.com/title/tt35396529/
I went and thought I would hate it at the time - mostly because I really really hated the narrow catholic mindset i grew up in at that time - but it actually was a really profound experience that I think back to often.
The life the monks led was simple, almost primitive, but it radiated a contentment and mindfulness that was inspiring. Also the brotherhood and love they had for each other. Of course I only saw the surface and as a teenager I didn’t appreciate a lot of the lessons, but looking back it was one of the better parts of being in a heavily catholic coded school.
So the God's envoy on Earth, bought a house. Really sweet.