Auction houses are making bank selling to tech bros looking for something interesting to do with their bulging pockets—like blow a wad on dinosaur fossils. The explosion in tech wealth is fueling record prices for dino bones—as well as art and expensive watches. The major auction houses racked up nearly $10 billion in sales in the first half of the year, marking one of the strongest annual starts yet, reports CNBC. Sotheby’s reported the best first half in its 300-year history, with $4.4 billion in sales, up 58 percent from last year. A big boost is coming from a new wave of well-heeled younger collectors, getting fat on the artificial intelligence boom, IPOs and zooming stocks. “The wealth being created now is the number one factor in our business right now,” Sotheby’s CEO Charles Stewart said. “It’s… very visible when you sit here in New York and talk about the SpaceX IPO and different tech IPOs coming and the AI fever.” Prehistoric dinosaur bones are especially hot. Sotheby’s this month sold a 38-foot-long fossilized skeleton of Tyrannosaurus rex “Gus,” named for the owner of the South Dakota ranch where the T-rex was reposing—for $50.1 million, the most expensive fossil yet auctioned. Seven bidders battled for Gus, believed to be 67 million years old. His new owner has yet to be identified.
