Opinion: I Am Rich And Know Exactly What I'm Doing With My Life

Welcome to the club.

[Editor’s note: we usually don’t publish letters to the editor, but this one was so good that we made an exception.]

An article has recently been generating some hubbub in the tech community: a story of an ex-founder getting rich from selling their company and then not knowing what to do with their life. To which I say: welcome to the club.

I too was in this situation not so long ago. I had spent years of my life single mindedly working on a bootstrapped startup, only for its growth to flatline and for me and my cofounders to burn out. In the end, we sold it for a mere $300 million dollars. A disappointment to be sure: I earned modest riches but not self-actualization. After the deal closed, I was left with the crippling depression of having complete freedom and no idea what to do with my life.

One day, as I cruised around SF in the back of a self-driving Waymo, I was struck with a crippling sense of loneliness. I had tried to explain my situation to normies and all they said was stuff like, “Wow, I guess you’ll have to cry into your piles of money” or, “Excuse me sir, this is a Blue Bottle.” Typical NPC responses for sure, but another reminder that nobody understood my existential pain.

Fearing the judgement and lack of understanding of other humans, I turned to Claude for help. After we spent many hours delving into the depths of my despair, I realized I needed to find other like-minded rich people to talk through my dilemma. After countless hours of skiing at Palisades on a weekday, courtside seats at Warriors games, and sauna, I found the answer.

And the answer is: it depends. There are a multitude of purposes to dedicate yourself to and everyone has to find their own way. But for inspiration, a few purposes that some of my peers have found:

• Starting a nightclub.

• Racing yachts.

• Making an award-winning molecular gastronomy cookbook.

• Collecting fine art.

• Building a chocolate factory.

• Reading ancient scrolls without unrolling them.

If there are a few themes that emerge from these examples, it’s building cool shit with good people, finding a way to help others, and earning enough money to own a private jet instead of chartering one.

One word of caution though. I know many others have also ‘studied physics in the jungle.’ I’ve done it too and would advise readers to be cautious with this path. We’ve lost too many good founders to ayahuasca.

As for me? After hanging out with many similarly restless wealthy people, I realized what I loved most was helping people figure out what they want to do after they didn’t have to do anything. So I started my own fund to invest in my modestly rich friends when they inevitably start their next companies. By the way, we lead Seed and Series A rounds - feel free to reach out if you are worth more than $20M.

John Zwick is the Managing Partner of Kismet Kapital and previously the cofounder and CEO of Hoolagun.