Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: 27, accidentally became wealthy, lost drive. What should I do?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 266 posts

Re: Ask HN: 27, accidentally became wealthy, lost drive. What should I do?

#101

Post by gwbas1c »

Some things to consider:

The Hacker News founder matching network is a good way to find things to work on. Everybody wants technical labor but no one has enough cash to pay. You can take your pick of an interesting company. Just keep it quiet that you're wealthy, so you don't get taken advantage of.

Also, there's nothing wrong with getting a job. It's a good way to learn business. (I've worked with at least one person who worked for pleasure because they needed the stress.) Again, keep your wealth quiet because you don't want to be seen as the guy threatening to quit whenever you don't get your way.

Frankly, if I was in your shoes I'd either find or start an open-source software project, and spend about 30ish hours a week on it. But I'm not you, and only you know what you want to do with your time.

Re: Ask HN: 27, accidentally became wealthy, lost drive. What should I do?

#102

Post by ppg677 »

Maursault wrote: post #95

What I would do is reinvest half in safe investments to maintain independent wealth, then buy property in all the places I love, and build small (750sqft or less) but decent and interesting, though practical as opposed to luxurious, cottage residences, or just purchase a small but upscale condo if the area is urban. A place in the mountains, a place at the beach, a place in the country, places in my favorite cities a…

$7.5M euros is a nice sum, but not really enough to do what you suggest IMHO.

Re: Ask HN: 27, accidentally became wealthy, lost drive. What should I do?

#103

Post by orasis »

cantbecool wrote: post #58
revnode wrote: post #53

> How did you get out of this? What can I do? Get married. Your wife will know what to do with the money. Have kids. You won't need to worry about this sort of stuff again. I have 3. I get motivated at 7 AM, every morning.

He wants to keep his money, not pay a 21 year annuity. As a wealthy guy the worst thing you can do is get married.

Kids certainly give us purpose and meaning! :)

Re: Ask HN: 27, accidentally became wealthy, lost drive. What should I do?

#104

Post by oaiey »

Take time, find friends, find a passion outside of IT. Maybe work somewhere physical for a while. Woodwork helps many. Stay away from false friends, drugs and thing which derail life in general.

If you cannot stay away from planing stuff, maybe plan you villa. This is a project which also keeps your busy for a while.

You feel goalless because you have been founder/investment/career driven before. And this was ripped away from you. This is quite usual. I can only recommend to reset, detox, etc and then see afterwards whether you want to do another round on that or what you discovered meanwhile

Re: Ask HN: 27, accidentally became wealthy, lost drive. What should I do?

#105

Post by GDC7 »

cantbecool wrote: post #58
revnode wrote: post #53

> How did you get out of this? What can I do? Get married. Your wife will know what to do with the money. Have kids. You won't need to worry about this sort of stuff again. I have 3. I get motivated at 7 AM, every morning.

He wants to keep his money, not pay a 21 year annuity. As a wealthy guy the worst thing you can do is get married.

Au contraire, once you have beaten the long odds of going from 0 to 7.5M on what amounts to a lottery ticket, then beating the 50:50 odds of divorce seems a piece of cake.

More generally OP should feel like a god right now, what's the point of having 7.5M if succulent brain juices aren't flowing like the Mississipi river to signal that the world is yours?

He should be feeling confident about doing stuff way riskier than 50:50

Re: Ask HN: 27, accidentally became wealthy, lost drive. What should I do?

#108

Post by Trasmatta »

dathinab wrote: post #74
dathinab wrote: post #60

Consider getting involved in some IT area for which you have passion in a nice project (probably open source) and set a fixed amount of time you at least and at most spend on it per-week or bi-weekly and try to keep it. It also has the benefit that if you somehow lose you money you still have qualifications to show to get a new job even years after you finished you degree. Assuming software engineering is you passion…

Also be careful for most people 7.5 Million Euro seems like an endless amount of money and if you keep a grounded living style it is. But it's also easy to spend for vanity. Like people with more then that ended up accidentally going bankrupt due to bad spending patterns. (Or just bad luck with investments.)

Yeah, this is what I was going to say. Depending on how you use it, 7.5 million Euro could either last you your entire life (with some left over for your descendants), or it could all be blown in a couple years. Some people who receive windfalls think they're in the first group, but actually end up in the second.

Re: Ask HN: 27, accidentally became wealthy, lost drive. What should I do?

#109

Post by roguesupport »

Let me say, first off, that you are truly a kindred spirit. I really thought this is a problem only I had. I got out of it myself, and as I write this I find myself wishing someone had done this for me.

The biggest problem with "accidental wealth" is that the recipient always finds out the ugly reality that they don't know what money is (Debt, Surety, Accounting), because they have been trained from childhood that their fate is to labour 1/3 of their life for it. Now you HAVE it, and all the previous problems vanish.

The best plan is to build AGAIN. See if you can do it twice! Stay focused on creating/building. You already know you can do it. This eliminates the "backbone" of your current depression. You are still in study, and a Masters Degree is NOT easy, but you might consider expanding your studies to include ACCOUNTING

You sold what you created, and it is important to keep the value you attained. It cannot be stressed enough; SECURE YOUR WEALTH

First: Stop letting people know you are wealthy. Pretend you don't have it. live like everyone else.

Second: Start looking for ways to SECURE that wealth. Studying accounting is a VERY high ROI and will really help here.

While you do all that, look for a partner. You have the despair of someone who does not have anyone with them on their journey.

The replies to your post are inspiring! Read them! There's MILLIONS of dollars worth of free shit, just waiting to be exploited, in these.

That's my $10 worth of free advice.

Also: Thank you for posting this. It caused me to remember some very important things I've neglected.

Re: Ask HN: 27, accidentally became wealthy, lost drive. What should I do?

#110

Post by chilling »

projectileboy wrote: post #19

I’m just some internet stranger who doesn’t know anything, but as a 50 year old guy, here’s my suggestion: 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…

Nicely said. I share quite the same story as the OP with a few zeroes different in the final sum. I quit my job 8 months ago and basically felt the same boredom and depression feeling. But after 2 months of doing almost nothing my brain simply rested enough and returned to regular activity.

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.

Post reply on HN