Redwood Trees and NFTs: Silicon Valley’s Holiday Gifting Arms Race Is Back

Each December, a few lucky individuals come home to a hefty package from Laurene Powell Jobs. The sustainable wooden crate, plopped on doorsteps in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond, has included honey from the Jobs family beehives, specialized teas, a collection of the Emerson Collective founder’s favorite books (The Overstory by Richard Powers, Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny, a pocket constitution) and—in an unusual twist—a seedling of a giant Coast Redwood.

“It is kind of a problem,” says one of Powell Jobs’ past recipients, who still has not planted last year’s seedling and fears the arrival of another. “I have it in a drawer and I don’t know how long you can keep it. I was thinking to myself, ‘Could I just go somewhere and find some dirt and put it in?’ But I’m not familiar with growing trees, so I’ve just kept it. It is a challenge. But it’s a good differentiator, right?”

Forget your generic Minted.com Christmas letters on flimsy card stock—for the Valley’s most prominent givers, the holiday season is all about that personal touch. A gravity blanket monogrammed with the giftee’s initials, an Oura Ring for networked sleeping, a non-fungible token that speaks to one’s cutting-edge tastes (a Damien Hirst x Drake NFT, perhaps?), or even a copy of Yuri Milner’s self-published manifesto, “Eureka Manifesto: The Mission for Our Civilization.” All are being deposited on C-suite and investor doorsteps at this very moment.