'Rich and depressed': Founder says his mental health worsened after selling firm for $100 million

As time passed after the sale of his company, Jake Kassan said he couldn’t help but start to feel a void growing inside him. (Image credit: @ jakekassan/Instagram)

In 2018, When Jake Kassan was 27, he sold his company for $100 million. At the time, he thought the money would make him happy. Now, however, the entrepreneur has opened up about how after becoming rich, he lost his sense of purpose and got into cycles of anxiety and depression.

“The North Star when I was younger, was always financial freedom,” Kassan told CNBC Make It. “So my purpose, I always felt was: I wanted to make money.”

Kassan, a college dropout, had started a Los Angeles-based accessory brand MVMT Watches, and sold it to the Movado Group. The deal left him walking away a multi-millionaire.

“I think I lost purpose," he told the publication. "For the first time in years... I couldn’t find anything that felt as important as that entrepreneurial journey." Moreover, although he had struggled with anxiety and panic attacks before, his mental health worsened after selling his company.

As time passed, Kassan said he couldn’t help but start to feel a void growing inside him. “I finally climbed to the top of my mountain, but I didn’t find what I was looking for,” he said in a YouTube video. Moreover, Kassan also struggled to find the right person to talk to about how he felt.

“I turned 30, I [had] just gone through a breakup ... I had friends and stuff, but still, just finding people who understood [how] lonely it felt at times ... it just felt emotionally depleting,” he told CNBC Make It. “How do you empathise with someone who is rich and depressed?” he said in the video.

Today, the 33-year-old is working on regaining his sense of purpose by working on building his YouTube channel. He is also an angel investor for companies.

“I can’t buy more peace of mind,” he told the publication. “That’s my relationship with money. I’m grateful for it. I appreciate it. I’d rather have it than not have it... but there’s nothing that it can do that is going to make me a happier person.”