I’ve noticed in some people that if they get rich and stop working day-to-day, they can go off the rails due to not needing to align their behaviour with the needs/expectations of other “ordinary” people - colleagues, employees, customers, suppliers, etc.

I’ve seen it happen with people who made a lot of money in cryptocurrency and then didn’t need to work anymore, sometimes with disastrous consequences (broken families, spiralling psychotic episodes).

I used to find Tony Hseih inspiring, since I saw him speak at a conference in 2009 when Zappos was at its peak.

But over time he seemed to develop a messiah complex, and with all that money combined with the loss of the anchor to normality that comes with having conventional responsibilities, it just spiraled out of control. It’s very sad.

There were times in my life where I was becoming a bit unhinged - egotistical, even a bit messianic at times. In the end I just couldn’t afford to keep going like that; I wasn’t rich and needed to work so had to figure out how to get onto a healthy path. I now count myself super lucky I never had a big financial windfall before I was forced to go through that process; I could easily have gone down a very bad path if I’d had that.