Why are billionaires building bunkers?

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Hello and welcome to 6 Minute English from BBCLearningEnglish. I'm Neil and today we're joined by Hannah from The What in the World podcast. Hey Neil, it's great to be back. So Neil, do you think you're good at preparing for the future or for unexpected events?

Mmm, reasonably, uh, good I suppose. Depends what kind of event we're talking about. All kinds of events. Now I think I'm pretty organized, but I only have enough food to to ask me about a week. And today, we're talking all about preppers.

A prepper is someone who believes that disaster is likely to happen soon, and so they prepare for it. A prepper might learn survival skills, or they might build a bunker and underground shelter.

Yes, and recently, many famous billionaires from the tech industry have made the news for building luxury bunkers. So what these bunkers need to do,

is to keep you safe from danger, but they're also like something out of a spy film. They're huge, and they've got cool features, like gyms or home cinemas.

They allow someone to live a comfortable life while staying safe from danger. A very comfortable life. We're going to be talking about these luxury bunkers,

the people building them, and what they're so afraid of. But first, Neil, I've got a question for you. Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp,

is building a property in Hawaii, which is reported to include a huge underground bunker. So Neil, how much is he reportedly spending on the project? Is it a $10 million? B? $50 million? Or see? $100 million? Well Hannah, I don't know, but he's a pretty rich guy, so I think a hundred million.

Well, I will reveal the answer at the end of the program. Hannah, you've been looking into these luxury bunkers, like the one Mark Zuckerberg is reported to be building on what in the world. What have you discovered?

Well, I was joined by BBC report in a Tallya Jimenez to talk about preppers. And I started off by asking whether she had ever considered building a bunker and preparing for disaster. I love this question because I've actually been thinking about it for a while.

Fun fact. You're a prepress when you watch TV in the US. When you turn on a kind of US TV channel, what happens is that there's usually some ads about freeze dried food.

I'm not kidding. They pop up quite regularly and it's all about kind of the preprimentality. What are you going to do when the apocalypse happens? Natalia has thought about building a bunker and getting prepared because she sees adverse

for freeze dried food that would last a long time on TV in the US. When she talks about the adverse, she says, I'm not kidding, which means I'm not joking. Natalia says that these adverse are part of the preper mentality. A mentality is a person's way of thinking about things, so the preper mentality would mean thinking

about things like a prepper. Part of the preper mentality is to question what you would do if the apocalypse happens. And a apocalypse refers to a serious event which causes destruction and change. lot of people do think about preparing for bad things, Natalia's thought about it, and for

tech billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg, they're able to spend a lot of money preparing for disaster. So do you think they know something we don't? What are they preparing for? Let's hear from Natalia again, speaking to me on what in the world? So the reasons include nuclear tensions, AI, risk, climate disaster, essentially any world ending event.

But secondly, it's also a mark of societal status. So no matter what happens, no matter what comes our way, if you're a tech billionaire, you're going to be able to lift through that comfortably without compromising your lifestyle,

without compromising the standard that you have. So because these tech billionaires are essentially building the future, the fact that they're so afraid of it, Quarroquero, is telling within itself. So one tech billionaire is worried about things like climate disaster or AI.

Natalia says that luxury bunkers are also a mark of social status, or status, as we would say, in the UK. Someone's status is the amount of respect or importance given to them by other people. With their bunkers, tech billionaires would be able to survive without compromising their

luxury lifestyle. That means without lowering their standard of living. Okay, so now I need to know the answer to that quiz question you gave me, Hannah. Yes, Neil. So my question was Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Metta, is building a property in Hawaii, which is said to include a huge underground bunker. How much has he reported to be spending on

the project? Well, I think I gave options C, which was $100 million. Your right, Neil. The The property is said to include a large underground bunker, although Zuckerberg says it's just a little shelter. OK, it's time to recap the language we've learnt during the program, starting with Prepper.