Vinay Hiremath, the co-founder of Loom, recently shared a note about the insecurities he has been experiencing after getting rich. The Indian-origin entrepreneur made millions after selling his startup to Atlassian for $975 million in 2023.
In a blog post titled "I am rich and I have no idea what to do with my life," Hiremath wrote: 'Life has been a haze this last year. After selling my company, I find myself in the totally un-relatable position of never having to work again. Everything feels like a side quest, but not in an inspiring way. I don’t have the same base desires driving me to make money or gain status." He added that he has infinite freedom, yet does not know what to do with it. "And, honestly, I’m not the most optimistic about life."
Hiremath also dressed a few key phases in his life spent in trying to create some meaning out of it.
He said that he broke up with his girlfriend -- with whom he had spent "two years of unconditional love" -- because of his insecurities. Hiremath described the breakup as "extremely painful" but clarified that it was the right call. He also apologised to his former girlfriend without naming her. “If my ex is reading this. Thank you for everything. I am sorry I couldn’t be what you needed me to be,” he wrote.
The Loom co-founder also spoke about how he didn’t want to stay at the company that acquired Loom but found it difficult to walk away from a potential $60 million pay package as the CTO. After he retreated to “the redwoods” to work through his disorientation, Hiremath decided to leave the work behind “to do something. Anything. To be alive again.”
In the next two weeks, he met with dozens of investors and robotics experts, because he wanted to give computers "arms and legs," but it left Hiremath uninspired. “It started to dawn on me that what I actually wanted was to look like Elon, and that is incredibly cringe,” he wrote. “It hurts to even type this out.”
The 33-year-old then turned to climb the Himalayas without any experience, fell ill and had to be rapelled downward “while tripping out of my mind.” After he recovered, his friends suggested he reach out to Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy at DOGE. He did so and even managed to get a job there but soon realised that it wasn’t for him.
“[A]fter 4 intense and intoxicating weeks, I called off my plans to move to [Washington,] D.C. and embark on a journey to save our government with some of the smartest people I’ve ever met,” Hiremath wrote. “And I booked a 1-way ticket to Hawaii.”
Now, he is learning physics, with his gaze fixed on starting a company that “manufactures real world things” and stated that he would be okay even if it doesn’t reach the soaring heights that Loom did.
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