Live Like Royalty for $20,000

There are advantages to living in Lima, Peru.

I don’t know where my laundry goes. It disappears from my hamper and then reappears in my closet a few hours later, freshly pressed. 

My bed is always made. My bedsheets have that crispness you normally only get in hotels. 

When I get up, my breakfast and coffee are ready and waiting for me at 6:30 a.m.

And my shoes? 

Lima is filthy. But my shoes are so clean you could lick the soles. (Please don’t. That would be weird.)

That’s not to say I do a lot of walking. A driver takes my son across town to his soccer practice four days a week.

Like most gringos, this felt extravagant – even absurd – when I first got here. But when I realized I could hire a staff to run my household for roughly the cost of a monthly car payment, it was a no-brainer. 

I have limited time in my day. A large chunk of that time is spent researching investments for you. And I try to spend as much free time as possible with my kids… or doing something that brings me pleasure.

Why would I spend any of my most precious resource, time, doing housework if it can be avoided?

You may be tempted to drop everything and take the next red-eye to meet me in Lima. If so, bienvenido! I’ll take you out for a proper limeño ceviche and an ice-cold Pilsen Calao. 

But here’s the truth.

In another couple years, you may not have the same incentive to come here. 

Elon Musk has promised to have his Optimus humanoid robot for sale this year, possibly even before Labor Day.

With a rumored price tag of only $20,000, you, too, could live a life of luxury for half the price of the average car today.  

Your Own Personal RD-D2

If you’re unfamiliar with Optimus, you won’t be for long. 

Like the iPhone, it will start slowly. You’ll see early adopters trotting them out as novelties. Then it will hit critical mass, and there will be one in every shop floor or kitchen. 

Here’s what Musk had to say about it late last year:

We’ve made a lot of progress with Optimus. We’ve progressed dramatically year after year. So, if you extrapolate this, you’re really going to have something spectacular, something that anyone could own. So, you can have your own personal R2-D2, C-3PO. It’ll do basically anything you want. It can walk your dog, mow your lawn, get groceries… be your friend. Anything you can think of – it will do. It’ll be awesome.

I can think of a lot of things…

I’m writing this from my father-in-law’s ranch in rural Peru. I’m watching a team of three men unload massive bales of alfalfa. My back hurts just watching them. Then I picture an Optimus effortlessly stacking the bales while the workers order it around.

Or take horse training. My father-in-law breeds prizewinning Peruvian pasos.

Training a young horse that’s too small to be saddled is exhausting. You have to hold a long rope and run with it. 

Could you keep up with a horse? 

Yeah, me neither. 

I’m nearly 50. There’s no reality in which my creaky knees could handle that for more than five minutes. Then I imagine an Optimus doing it.

Think about construction tasks such as carrying piles of two-by-fours or heavy bags of cement. That’s brutal for even a strong man in his prime. But it’s nothing for an Optimus. 

A small team of skilled contractors could do the work of a much larger team with the help of a few robots – handling the finesse work while an Optimus does the grunt work.  

The list goes on. Loading or unloading a pallet at Home Depot or carrying a heavy box to the truck? An Optimus could do that. 

Moving cargo or suitcases around an airport? An Optimus could do that too.  

Then there are all of the domestic chores that magically get done in my house. An Optimus could handle most of those as well.

The robot could haul baskets of clothes upstairs, sort them by whites and colors, and start the washing machine. 

It could make the bed and fluff the pillows. 

It could prepare breakfast and clean the plates once we’re done eating. 

You probably wouldn’t want one babysitting your kids. But in another few years, even that might not sound insane.

Productivity Beyond Imagining

Let’s be clear: I don’t expect the first-generation Optimus to do any of this well. 

Think back to 2007. The first iPhone didn’t do all that much either. There were only a few apps. It was basically just an iPod music player that could make and take calls. 

But it was the start. 

Every smartphone iteration since then has become more powerful and more ingrained into your life.

It may take a couple years, but then all of these scenarios are virtually guaranteed. 

Now, imagine how productive you will be with a small army of AI-powered robots to do your bidding.

To life, liberty, and the pursuit of wealth.