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

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

#171

Post by mockingbirdy »

Hey prelifecrisis, I’m from Germany too and I have some friends who experienced windfalls in the 2-10 million range (some of them in crypto, some of them selling their businesses). I can connect you to them so you have trusted people to talk to in Germany that have lived through exactly the same stuff. I think talking to others who experienced this who can relate is really important (with friends and family it’s usually not necessarily useful advice). I see a ton of not-that-useful advice in this thread already.

> I have no idea what to do with the money.

Set aside €50k that you spent freely on whatever you want for half a year (for traveling, small things you always wanted to have). Put it in another bank account and live with it for half a year and have fun. Maybe take a break semester (Urlaubssemester), especially if you feel low right now.

Don’t do anything with the remaining money for the next 6-9 months - just hold fiat (I’d suggest holding CHF instead of Euro/USD), don't worry about inflation - it's about you now. Don’t spend it on luxury items to fill any holes you might feel inside right now. Then after that time you can still invest in conservative assets and real estate, but now it's about you and your well-being. - I really don't like the comments here talking about the money and what to do with it, please don't listen to it. It's secondary to your situation.

> And I also have no idea what to do with my life now.

> I start to feel fatigued

The fatigue is most likely happening because your mind is enumerating all the life options - it's working very hard right now and that's why you're feeling down. Before the windfall, it was all focused on building a startup and getting successful which is a very clear goal. Now that you've attained wealth, you’ve lost the clear goal you’ve had before.

Now that you have enough money, you are left alone with the question that most success-oriented people would rather avoid: Who am I? What’s my motivation for doing things? What do I really want? I really like the waitbutwhy articles to help with that [1].

Let me know if you want to connect, these friends of mine are really great and have battled with the exact same questions. It's not easy to find people who can relate to this situation, most non-millionaires can't imagine the tension the money brings to relationships with friends and family and stuff like that. Trust issues etc.

[1]: https://waitbutwhy.com/2018/04/picking-career.html

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

#172

Post by cruelty »

zamalek wrote: post #166

As for your question: you'll get bored soon enough. Enjoy your sabbatical. If you are sitting on cash you are not yet technically wealthy. You are rich. Rich is temporary, wealth is permanent (and intergenerational). You could completely bankroll wealth with your riches: turn that cash into passive income ASAP. Buying some rental properties is a good start (that could keep you busy), but you'll definitely want to bri…

Nah he just needs to cut his expenses and live frugally. Buying more shit will just limit his freedom. OP buy the next book you want to read then throw it away when you're done with it. Do that with everything. Buy the next few items you need to work on a project and focus on them. forget owning a million different things and being scatter brained like the rest.

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

#174

Post by wackro »

Symbiote wrote: post #52
ppg677 wrote: post #4

If I were you and in the United States, I would go hike the Appalachian Trail or something.

Another option is a round-the-world backpacking trip, or something like that. But these are much easier if they're already hobbies or interests.

I can highly recommend backpacking, OP. Especially if you haven't travelled before. Solo exploration of countries and cultures is a constant source of wonder, and you'll meet amazing people along the way. Setting your own agenda in a foreign land and putting responsibilities in your own country on hold is really liberating. It will give you an opportunity to assess what's important. Hostels are full of people doing the exact same thing and you end up making close connections with folk.

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.

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

#175

Post by throwaway24124 »

Honestly, you sound very burnt out. You went straight through 3 failed startups and then a masters program with the goal of getting into a FAANG? I have to imagine you were only grinding to get into a FAANG for the money, but you already solved that issue. And master's programs can be quite demanding. Take a semester break from your grad program immediately and do some traveling. Don't look at a computer for anything non-essential for that break. Your motivation will come back. You've just been grinding for way too long, and it paid off. Just not the way you expected. After a semester spent recovering you'll naturally get back into working out and eating right. You just need to stop staring at a computer for a bit :)

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

#176

Post by coldtea »

momopoco wrote: post #133

If you're worried about inflation, follow the barbell portfolio strategy. ITM index calls to keep ahead of inflation, and the rest of the money can be used for other investments eg. bonds, real estate, gold, etc. Alternatively JEPI seems ok. Not financial advice. If you want to own stocks instead, find a low margin interest rate broker (eg. IBKR), put your money in there, and down the road if you have profits and don…

His problem isn't keeping his money, it's what to do with his life...

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

#177

Post by starchild_3001 »

Your problems may not be caused by the money. 7.5M isn't infinity, you know. Especially if you get married, try to buy a house and have kids, you'll discover that the amount isn't all that much (in sunny california, that is). If you want to start feeling poor again, just move to silicon valley :)

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

#178

Post by toast0 »

€7.5M is a lot, but as others have said, it's not so much that you can't spend it all and be back to where you were before. The Bogleheads page on managing a windfall is highly recommended. And congratulations for cashing out and paying taxes is in order.

With that out of the way, assuming you are a reasonable steward of this money, you probably don't need income from work to have a good standard of living going forward. That offers you immense freedom; if you come accross something in your graduate studies that interests you, but has no commercial or academic applications, you can still work on it yourself, because you can.

If you want to benefit the world, you can work on being one of those open source maintainers that works on critical software without a lot of (financial) support --- because you don't need any financial support. Or you can jump from project to project and do things here or there.

Personally, I'm working on a hobby OS that makes me smile, and raising a kid and helping with our hobby farm, and that's enough for now. Make a list of things you think would be cool to do, or that you think would make you feel good about yourself and work down those. Getting your masters seems like a concrete thing that you can finish, and three semesters is plenty of time to have an idea for what's next.

You can still aspire to work at big tech, there's opportunities there that money can't buy. If you want to poke at sites and services and applications with hundreds of millions or billions of users, you kind of need to be at big tech. But, when/if you get there, you don't have to worry so much about trying to get glowing reviews and what not, because the salary isn't needed. Teaching/mentoring is also good for the soul and not usually good for the pocketbook, but your pocketbook is fine, so if you're up for that, it's something to look into.

One thing to think about is a lot of people's identity is tied up in their profession. When you're no longer a student, you'll need a socially acceptable cover story; because being wealthy and a loafer gets you negative points in a lot of situations.

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

#179

Post by cruelty »

drukenemo wrote: post #47

Look into helping others. Create a foundation for a cause you believe in. See what you could enact. You will reap rewards far greater by giving yourself to a cause. Sacrifice, not pleasure is the source of greatness, energy and happiness in life. I come from a country with a massive poverty problem, and yesterday was hearing about some great initiatives in there. It made me wonder what I am dedicating my life to (reg…

Pff sacrifice, he needs to keep his mouth closed and stop broadcasting to the society he has this money and keep it all for himself. life is long. He has avoided an enormous amount of suffering the society would have happily pushed on him for their gain if he was some broke suck. The entire society is set up to take advantage of him if he did not have this money.

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

#180

Post by Animats »

This is a good place to ask that question, because a reasonable number of people on here have done that.

First, you don't have to do anything immediately. Park the money someplace safe for a while. (That's harder than it used to be. When I was in this position T-bills paid 7.5%.)

Second, most people who make a lot of money all at once blow through it in seven years. Don't be that guy. I know a couple who blew through US$15 million, lost their house, divorced, and the wife had to take a job cooking in a restaurant.

So definitely finish the degree. You're going to need it later.

I basically chose to have a modest but comfortable life. Even if you win the rat race, you're still a rat. I still program for fun. My other screen has a program in test running right now.

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