Pine cone pickers, orchard ambitions, and more numbers

Pine cone pickers, a bunch of oranges, a more expensive truck, and more wild numbers.

$17m: What Twitch streamer Kaitlyn “Amouranth” Siragusa paid for a ~2.2k-acre fruit orchard in and around Florida that primarily produces Valencia oranges. Why? Several investment reasons, but also because she aspires to own more land than Bill Gates, who owns ~275k acres of US farmland.

A collage showing a bundle of citrus fruit, pine cones, a Tesla Cybertruck, and a couple standing in front of a two-story house.

58: The median age of a repeat buyer (i.e., someone who has previously purchased a home) in 2023, per the National Association of Realtors. What’s interesting about that? Well, in 1981, the median age was 36. While the real estate market has become pricklier for first-time buyers, older buyers are able to sell their existing homes to afford new purchases. Another surprising stat: 70% of recent buyers had no kids under 18 in their homes, compared to 42% in 1985.

$60,990: The starting price of Tesla’s Cybertruck base model, much higher than the $39.9k price tag announced in 2019. That price jump may lead some potential customers to cancel their $100 preorders — though the cost seems to be worth it for Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, who thinks he’ll now be the “coolest dad” picking up his child from school.

$87.50/hour: How much a pine cone harvester can make, per a Reddit user who said they once worked as one. That figure is based on claims that harvesters are paid $35 per every five-gallon bucket they fill, and that an experienced picker can fill 2.5 buckets per hour. Elsewhere, Michigan’s Department of Natural Resources offers $100 for a bushel (or two five-gallon buckets) of red pine cones, the seeds of which are used to replant state forests. This might sound like a fun seasonal gig, but it’s apparently very irritating to be covered in tree sap.

Topics: Digits

Related Articles

Get the 5-minute news brief keeping 2.5M+ innovators in the loop. Always free. 100% fresh. No bullsh*t.