Maxim Levoshin

Category: Business

  • Caribbean passports are rapidly turning into pumpkins

    Caribbean passports are rapidly turning into pumpkins

    First of all, let’s already recognize that we live in an extremely fickle world. True diversification is at least 3 different citizenships. Any state can go crazy, any bonus can be canceled

    Secondly, the era of investment citizenships for donations to “cocoa fund” states is coming to an end. Bank accounts on Caribbean passports have long been out, now it’s the turn of visas. For any regulator, Caribbean = person got documents without international checks and obvious distrust of such schemes

    How do investors diversify safely? Choose quiet stable stories with real business or real estate investments. The most accessible country for Russian passport holders is Paraguay

    Stable +40 outside the window all year round, stable citizenship for those who really invest in the country’s economy, stable 0 questions at the border and in EU and US banks.

  • While you’re banning your kids from computer games and social networks, top youtuber MrBeast plans to raise $200 million in investment in his company

    While you’re banning your kids from computer games and social networks, top youtuber MrBeast plans to raise $200 million in investment in his company at a $5 billion valuation and go public in two years.

    MrBeast, aka Jimmy Donaldson, started his career on YouTube at the age of 13 in 2012: streamings of computer game walkthroughs.

    But he gained real popularity in 2017, after publishing a video where he counted to 100,000.

    After that, it started: handing out money and expensive gifts on the street, reality shows and competitions in YouTube, for example, a copy of the squid game.

    Content for the masses and the masses love it.

    Today MrBeast is the most popular youtuber in the world, 371 million subscribers on the main channel, 66 billion views.

    The holding company, Beast Industries, made $500 million last year: half on content, half on murch chocolates.

    The money for content is almost entirely re-invested in the production of new content – look, it’s cosmic. The Mr. Beast team has a cool upbeat approach to project management, their guide has recently appeared online, be sure to read it! I’ll post it in the next post.

    By the way, Mr. Beast is only 26. According to the best entrepreneurial traditions, he didn’t finish university.

    Who do your kids want to be like?

  • Jeff Bezos convinced his siblings to invest $10,000 each in his online startup Amazon. Today, their stake is worth $1.3 billion.

    In the mid-’90s, convincing someone to invest $10,000 in an online bookstore – at a time when most people were just getting to grips with dial-up modems – was about as difficult as launching a startup selling decorative stones during the tech boom. But Jeff Bezos succeeded. And not just among venture capitalists, but also among his family members: his brother Mark and sister Christina took a risk, and their investment turned into $1.55 billion each – provided they didn’t sell their shares.

    In 1996, Bezos, armed with limitless vision and an Amazon website, offered his relatives a deal: for $10,000, each could get 30,000 shares of his then-tiny company.

    In 2018, Bloomberg calculated that Mark and Christina’s shares were already worth $640 million each – a staggering return on the $10,000 invested. But Amazon’s stock hasn’t stopped rising. At an exchange rate of $221.30 per share as of December 31, 2024 (versus $91 in 2018), their stakes are now valued at about $1.55 billion each – representing a return of 15,499,900%.

    Bezos’ pursuit of long-term growth has turned Amazon into a $2.33 trillion giant that has changed retail, logistics, cloud technology – and even how people buy toilet paper.

  • I continue to tell you what different Latin American countries are cool for life and business

    I continue to tell you what different Latin American countries are cool for life and business

    Last week’s series was about Argentina (you know where the link is), and today I will tell you about a country you are probably hearing about for the first time: Paraguay.

    This is where and why do people go here? Imagine throwing a dart into the center of South America. The most accurate will hit Bolivia (but you don’t need to go there). The wise ones will have a little shake of the hand and the dart will land a little lower – just in Paraguay.

    What’s Paraguay good for?

    💰Lowest tax burden for individuals and businesses. 0% on foreign income. 10% rnds, 10% income tax. That said, if the words “tax residency in the Caribbean” causes the “offshore!” light bulb to go off in the regulator’s head, Paraguay is still an unpopular country that no one will have any associations about.

    💵 Special trade zone with incentives and neighboring Brazil and Argentina: you’d be surprised how many business niches are untapped in Latam, and here’s a great entry point to the mainland.

    🪪A nice bonus is the easy path to citizenship through investment (visa-free entry to Schengen!)

    🏡 And finally, Paraguay is a quiet slow distant country, which in 2024 is a big plus. If some other shit happens in Eurasia, it’ll take a week for the news to even reach Paraguay. For 400$ here you can rent a great spacious apartment in a new one with a pool and security and wait out any apocalypse. It’s warm all year round. The local Yandex store runs like clockwork, a hipster introvert’s paradise.

    And what associations do you have with the word Paraguay?

  • Each year is more interesting than the last, don’t you agree?

    Each year is more interesting than the last, don’t you agree?

    This year, my core value was powerfully revealed: the freedom to live where you want to live the way you want to live. Our main home is inside and always with us.

    I am writing this post from the border of two beautiful countries (guess which ones?), I am sure that very soon there will be no borders in the world and we will all become citizens of one beautiful green planet Earth. But until it happens, I collect passports and new countries.

    Where do you recommend to go this year?

  • Imagine: night, desert, a cozy boutique hotel, the Milky Way…

    Imagine: night, desert, a cozy boutique hotel, the Milky Way…

    Imagine: night, desert, a cozy boutique hotel, the Milky Way… Suddenly the bus brings a huge Indian family: thirty cheerful pensioners, with them two guides: a round German and an unassuming student. The pensioners are bored on the road and are making so much noise that all the alpacas have woken up: what are we going to do tomorrow? What’s for dinner? Where is my room? And my suitcase? What time do we leave in the morning? The guides stoically tell us everything, smiling and nodding. Suddenly, above the hum of voices, the German guide’s joyful, 100% exclamation: yes, madam, I’m absolutely sure you’ll have a fantastic funeral!

  • Argentina: two years later

    Argentina: two years later

    Nothing has changed globally, come and visit!
    Still the same easy legalization, still the same strong passport – 11th strongest in the world, still the same ruthless slow-moving bureaucracy (don’t do it at home without professional stuntmen). Still the same friendly society, tolerant of all races, nations and other modes of expression. The unique nature has not gone anywhere! Mountains, volcanoes, glaciers, waterfalls – everything is still there. The whales have raised their calves and swam out into the big ocean, but they will be back by spring. The climate has not deteriorated, Buenos Aires is still as beautiful and pleases with exhibitions and music festivals.

    Yes, steaks are no longer the same: instead of $10 for a half kilo, they are now $20. Terrifying prices. And a babysitter/housekeeper/gardener is no longer $2 an hour, but $3, just brutal.

    The only good things new are a fun extravagant president who makes out on stage with pro-actresses, takes selfies with Ilon Musk, and is about to turn the economy in the direction of capitalism.

    The nice facts:

    1. My Argentine stock portfolio is up 53% in $ in six months (hello, skeptics)
    2. Banks have added settlement in dollars and crypto with no restrictions
    3. Contracts in any currency are allowed in the country, even in noncoins
    4. The national currency has strengthened, and inflation has slowed down significantly

    We are waiting for customs duties to decrease, real estate prices to rise, and we are happy to see new memes every week.

  • I wonder what I can pass on to my children so that these skills will help them in the future

    I wonder what I can pass on to my children so that these skills will help them in the future

    Obviously, it is not the gentleman’s set of “Soviet school”: academic hard-skills in all subjects at once. Who needs an encyclopedic knowledge of biology in the age of the internet in your pocket and AI?

    What then?

    I think the most important thing is the ability to negotiate with other people and create something together. Which means languages and lots and lots of practice communicating around non-obvious situations, psychology and business ethics. With a spice of finance, investment, management and programming. A little bit of law… Whoa.

    So where do they teach this kind of quality?

  • And do you remember recently there was such a covid

    And do you remember recently there was such a covid

    And do you remember recently there was such a covid, everyone sat at home, closed the borders and did not shake hands when they met?

    The question of where the epidemic has gone gnaws at the most inquisitive minds of mankind. Less than half of the population is vaccinated, judging by the posts here, people occasionally continue to get sick, but they treat it as seasonal flu: well covid and covid.

    Has the virus run out of batteries? Has humanity’s immune system adapted? Covid was man-made and they shut down its source?

  • Five years ago, I was just a cab driver

    Five years ago, I was just a cab driver

    (If and when I open an infobiz named after myself, I’ll say – how to become a millionaire in a week, the record is at the link).

    I rented a car with a cab license when my Mercedes was left in the service for a week, and then I got so involved that I got a license for myself. And what I’m surprised about is why everyone doesn’t do it: it’s much faster to drive in the center on a dedicated line, and it’s not necessary to carry passengers with you at all

    What are some of your favorite driving tricks?