Ask HN: 27, accidentally became wealthy, lost drive. What should I do?
After my Bachelor in CS I launched three startup, which all failed. So a year ago I decided to enroll in a Masters program at LMU at the age of 26. Back then I was living quite on the edge and thus was very motivated to ace my studies to get into a FAANG company.
Around the same time I also invested all of the ETH I had at the time into an ICO, which turned out quite well for me. In early November I sold everything and after taxes I now own 7.5 million euros. A sum I would have never imagined.
I have no idea what to do with the money. And I also have no idea what to do with my life now. I have not talked to anyone about it but I start to feel fatigued, even though I am not doing much. My motivation for my study is gone, I stopped working out, stopped reading books and am basically becoming insanely depressed in the process. The covid situation is not helping much either.
I am posting this here because I think there might be founders out there who sold their company and experienced similar issues afterwards. How did you get out of this? What can I do?
I am still doing my Master studies and will finish it within the next three semesters but I worry to fall into a void afterwards.
265 comments
[ 5.5 ms ] story [ 140 ms ] threadWhen was the last time you traveled overseas? Had a girlfriend? Developed a product or service that had an impact on society? Took up a new hobby that you enjoy?
Once you refocus on creating a new life, you’ll likely find your drive and ambitions returning.
I have no credentials whatsoever being rich, but I do have some experience having major plans diverted, and I would like to chip in that it's good to keep in mind it's not strange to get this sort of psychological impact from such a significant change to your life conditions and plans.
From where I sit it looks like you can afford to take your time about this more than ever before. Protect your bankroll and don't make any hasty changes to lifestyle. I suspect you'll have to re-examine what you really value the most, and suddenly you have one less excuse for not attending to that at the best of your ability, but as I understand it, the direct impact from suddenly getting wealthy (or deadly sick, or unexpectedly healthy, and so on) is basically pretty transient and people tend to soon come back to a similar set-point as before once they have adjusted their expectations to the new conditions. What could give a much more lasting impact is changes to habits or environment made while under the influence, so trying to exercise some care to make those judiciously seems in order.
Fundamentally, congratulations and good luck with it!
But these are much easier if they're already hobbies or interests.
Backpacking has been hit hard with covid though. As I understand it, hostels currently aren't quite what they were before the pandemic. And fear around this new variant will keep it that way for a while. Next summer things might pick up enough to explore Europe and beyond though, fingers crossed.
With the luxury of time, investing in oneself can be done in novel ways, e.g. flying or ocean sailing, triathlon, surfing, craftsmanship, golf.
underneath that I am passionate about lots of things and the non profit space is surprisingly low tech, especially when it comes to anything crypto and on-chain crypto. so I'm still building and occassionally in that space and noticing all sorts of market needs. which includes then board seats on other non profits.
which means I'm also in the fintech and crypto space, noticing everything else being built, as well as becoming more and more integrated with other "institutional investors", of which the non profit is as well and more.
ultimately you do need to find something you're passionate about, but people don't like hearing about actually achieving having money while doing things to obtain more, so non profit has been a great way for me to blend in.
I also do a lot of socialite stuff and don't like hanging out with crypto people. nobody cares how you can support your lifestyle. its great.
shoot me an email? its in bio
Are you a creative person? Think about what you can do with some of that money that you want to exist. Do that. Money is just what allows you to do whatever you want, at a certain scale.
Do you want to make a business? A community? Hire people? Buy servers? Marketing?
Be creative with your money, that should get your fire back. Please don't spend it in spurious shit, that yacht can certainly be rented on vacation instead of bought, LOL.
Is money cash? Or the bits on your bank's database holding your account.
Or the market value of the stocks you hold, or the cryptocurrency in a wallet, or gold you have in a safe somewhere
What if you are wealthy rich and just take loans (debt) on your stock or whatever?
Money is not just money, and at a certain point, money only matters for what it allows you to do without flexing too much muscle and taking a hit. Wanna cure cancer? Maybe 7.5M can't do it but are a good start. (Hey moderna is going there with the new mRNA vaccines...)
But yeah I'm broken, that I reckon.
Definetly not financial advise.
I’ve seen several men do that, it never ends well.
You could start angel investing or help with some philanthropic endeavors. Example of another person making a difference: https://youtu.be/bhKuNwAvsb0.
Make sure to set a floor (perhaps using FIRE guidelines) and invest enough to keep growing your wealth above that level as you spend some of it
There are many jobs you will not want to take because you know that you don't need to, and that makes it hard to put up with all the bullshit of a typical job. Ultimately you may want to focus on creative pursuits, perhaps investments, maybe start a business or a nonprofit to do something you find fulfilling.
Right now I'd say be patient, get used to your new life, focus on investing the money wisely. I'd say buy a place to live and invest the rest in a conservative portfolio designed to keep up with inflation. Roboinvesting is the easiest, or you could do it yourself via traditional brokers: a mix of bond and stock index ETFs, perhaps a small amount of crypto (I'd say no more than 10%) if you still believe in it.
Exactly. Not to mention the additional rich people's problems that poor or even merely well-off people don't have and could hardly imagine.
Fees are pretty low. Some will say it's unnecessary and you can avoid those fees if you do X on your own, where X is some form of buying index funds directly. I my experience the anxiety and uncertainty of doing so makes people delay and the loss of returns from not investing at all greatly outweighs the difference in fees (at least in the short term).
TL;DR; If you aren't investing at all, robo advisors are great. If you already have a diversified strategy then that's great too. They add value mostly by lowering the knowledge barrier to entry.
The greatest irony is that everything that was beaten into your unconscious mind as to what you "should do," and all the ways you learned to seek out human connection: all go out the window when you get a massive windfall.
The greatest two "shapes" our culture warps our spirits into are: a need for money (for its own sake) or a need for recognition (preftige) -- once the basic material necessities have been acquired (viz. stability of income and mind, reliable shelter and food, routine sleep, etc.). None of this is relevant anymore. You don't care what anyone else thinks about you, because you're completely self-sufficient. Just dump all your money into a balanced portfolio, and live off the income generated a la dividends and interest for the rest of your life. You no longer need anyone to satisfy physical needs. No boss to placate, no spouse to manage, and no "bridges" to tend.
Similarly, it becomes impossible to socialize with the majority of people. The things that their minds focus on, the habits they have, the lives they live are completely unrelatable when you have enough money to never doing anything again (yes, €7m is enough, if you're not a degenerate or foolish). It's like you're both from different planets, speaking completely alien languages, and unable to ever really understand one another. This assumes you'll find anyone truly interested in genuine socialization for pleasure alone; because as soon as those who still need to carry out the "daily toil" find out about your NW, the agendas come out in full force. You'll find that no, you never really had friends (or family). You simply had associates with mutual interests -- a give and take, transactional relationship was all that connected you.
OP, the only reason you were driven to do all those things was because you wanted to climb the social hierarchy. You saw your fellow apes with more money, more brains, and more status, and just like all those chimps before you, you thought "I need that. I gotta keep up. If I don't, I'm worthless. A loser, and no one will like me. I won't feel good about myself." But that's just an evolutionary trick nature pulled on us, because more-often-than-not animals with deep social hierarchies survived and reproduced more than those without. Once you've escaped the gravitational pull (see: the need to "fit" into a tribe in order to survive), you'll find that it was a scam all along. That all this shit around you exists to keep you busy so you don't start thinking too much about things, and can carry out your genetic directives (usually to the benefit of others), and then die.
The tragedy with you, OP, is that you're a young kid who never had to train his nervous system to become another "robot" that could continue successfully functioning in his society, until he became a corpse. You didn't work for that money, and so your spirit was never molded into the two most-successful "shapes": a need for more money, or a need for more prestige -- as you see with people that once started out with little, but forced themselves to work towards more (even when they're in the top 1% in either, they'll still keep going after more, because that's how they've molded themselves: to be a machine stuck in a loop -- coincidentally, staving off depression and other such "meaninglessness.").
You're basically on the same level as a trust-fund baby. What exactly do you do besides indulge in hedonism? If you're one of the aforementioned "keep on chugging," work-robots (an evolutionary-fit path) that have trained themselves to keep busy, then creative pursuits, investments, a new business venture, or non-profit/charitable work is what's in the cards. But OP isn't. Those things will never be satisfactory for him (remind me i...
First, focus on yourself. Eat well, spend time getting fit, meditate, see a therapist, spend time with your friends and family.
Then, when you start to feel more bored than depressed, look around. The world needs you, and there are opportunities for you to make things better where your skills and money could be of use.
Then I spend almost every day checking my wish list:
- Paragliding? Yeah, did the basic training in 2 weeks.
- Kite surfing? Why not! It took me 6 months but it's sooo much fun.
- Skydiving? HELL YEAH. Did the basic training and looking forward to start jumping in wingsuit next year,
- moving to Asia? Looking forward for January 2022 in Thailand!
In the mid time I'm just doing all from your list: gym every second day, meditate every day (hey, why not go to the Buddhist temple if all your "physical" dreads are gone?), meeting with therapist and just simply enjoying my life. Now when I'm reaching limits of joyfulness I wish to use my time to help others.
Nice! Thought about paragliding too, but decided I like the action of flying in a wingsuit more. Booked my first tandem skydiving jump and will start the basic training in 2022. In Germany we're only allowed wingsuit jumps when we complete 200 normal jumps, do you know if there's a jurisdiction where this requirement is lower?
Talking about the tandem jump - I don't know how it's in Germany but in Poland basic AFF training + one jump with 2 instructors cost the same price as the tandem jump thus making it a really foolish choice.
200 jumps requirement is shared across most of the world and to be honest it's not really that much. Skydiving in the details is really hard - you need to control and feel you body perfectly and also know how to move and behave in the air. You could probably try jumping in Ukraine - it's cheap like a bread and dangerous like a hell. I did my first jump in Ukraine and it cost me around 35$ (basic training was in ukrainian which I don't speak at all)
[1]: https://tandemy.pl/en/training-parachute-jump/
PS. Flying in Spain is an good and cheap option too! https://www.skydiveatmosfera.com/
2. Donate money to people that need it
Good luck and have fun helping others!