Financial freedom - what next?
I followed the classic finance path for 14 years, top school + IB + PE + HF. Currently mid to late 30s, partner at a medium sized HF, net worth around $15m, income between $2-5m in the past few years. Married, stay-at-home wife and two kids.
Recently, I’ve been thinking of changing the direction of my work and life. Several factors: 1) work is feeling increasingly stressful, 2) I like investing but “managing volatility” isn’t super fun, 3) I have achieved financial freedom (not a big spender) and would love to do something with more purpose, 4) Thinking of moving back to continental Europe where my wife is from.
I look forward to more free personal time. At the same time, I do worry about falling into a hole if I stop this intense grinding that I have been engaged in basically since childhood because so far that has been my personal identity. I also ask myself whether I should shoot for a higher net worth target ($30, 50, 100) so I could have more impact just investing my own wealth. Of course I also know that there will never be an “enough.”
I would love to hear from you (especially older folks who made the transition but also younger folks) what you think. I welcome all perspectives. Currently I haven’t really figured out exactly what else I would do but could envision startups, non-profits, writing or even taking a long break for introspection. I especially welcome stories of people who have left the rat race - how do you feel about your decision and would you recommend it?
Thank you.
Know someone who was in the same position as you, maybe a few years older and a bit wealthier, but they left the HF world to become an environmental activist and write. Have enormous respect for this person for leaving behind a near term fortune but at a certain point you are just “comparing toys” and unless you love the game and must be in the markets, you should go do dabble in what you want. At that age you are relatively young and healthy, still have energy to make things happen but if you wait for $50m at 50 those things might not be true.
Ah yes the classic multi-millionaire who happily spent 3 decades profiting off of capitalism is now an "environmental activist"
You can be supportive of capitalism and still be concerned about the environment…
Am an idiot for not understanding what this guy is saying? Why does it have so many likes? Is he basically trying to explain that being an owner and building wealth through growing equity is different than being income based- isn’t that obvious?
Bro ripped a bong hit and went to town lol
Thank god I’m not alone, I have no idea what the fuck this guy just tried to articulate. Reads like a paragraph written by shitty AI
he's aware of his strengths/weaknesses, that's why he's in a HF. Imagine him in PE talking to bankers/lawyers/management.
I wish I was you fml
I always thought I would do something different once I reached financial independence. But you will realize once you are there that calling it quits is not easy.
Move to Europe and take up painting. Stop eating your life in an office.
Vronsky?
Count Nikolay Nikolayevich Raevsky?
No idea why the font is funky btw
post this on reddit at r/fatfire they give great advice and will have more perspective than here
Good advice. I have never used reddit before. Reading some of the fatfire content there now.
why don't you try to build something of your own (either a hedge fund or something else you have an interest in)?
you've clearly crushed. surprised you're asking a bunch of mostly kids here vs. your peers.
Reach out to your old PMs or bosses from the early years. See where they've transitioned to and how they like it. You've identified the threads of wanting to do something purposeful and returning to Europe. I think you should take a few weeks off to pull on those threads before committing to transitioning out of your role. If you take two weeks in Europe with your wife and contemplate what impact you could make there, it should clarify for you the worthiness of your idea.
I think a lot of us end up chasing our tail in these investing or advisory businesses. Once we catch it - what were we planning to do with it?
Personally I would buy a house with a beach view (somewhere along the Mediterranean coast since you said Europe), replace my entire wardrobe with linen clothes and float around in a pool with a steady supply of margaritas for the next couple years.
Sincerely,
An Alcoholic
Whatever you do, I wouldn't quit until you have a pretty good game plan of how you're going to spend the bulk of your time. Too many retirees (of normal retiring age) don't have anything planned and feel so lost after retiring since they put so much of their self-worth into work. Regardless of the specifics, I'd focus on two or three strong hobbies/activities, like personal goals (i.e. reading, artistic pursuits, woodworking), volunteering, or even finding a small part time job to fill in your time and find some fulfillment. You're at the top stages of Maslow's pyramid, so do your best to make the most of it.
I hear this from people my parents age all the time.
“Have a solid plan” is the most often repeated advice I hear. Doesn’t matter what the plan is as long as it is realistic / achievable and will give you some purpose that you won’t get bored of.
Obviously a troll post guys. Someone this successful isn’t asking a bunch of college students for advice
There a fair amount of mid to late career professionals on here. We don’t spend time reading the majority of posts (prestige rankings, my life sucks now, etc)
3 angles you could take this:
Have a mentor that was in the hedge fund industry and left to pursue entrepreneurship. Think the guy could have ended up a billionaire if he stayed, but his philosophy was “what’s the point?” You only get one life and being a hundred millionaire and then taking on individual projects and business ventures is way more fulfilling than just “making the market more efficient” his whole life which even he admits is kinda bs. If you ever had some desire to learn a skill or pursue an entrepreneurial endeavor or change policy, you have earned that right with your passive income. The world is now your oyster and you can switch the model of working to live to working purely for enjoyment and fulfillment. That said, if you take the entrepreneurial path, you leave the game and it can be hard to go back also the stress of being “the guy” and not having a system of competent individuals around you can be frustrating. You need to be honest with yourself about what your relationship to your current role is and what you wish to get out of work and life that you currently feel is missing.
Be as liquid as possible, if possible. My rich uncle sold a company back in the 1980's for $10 million (not inflation adjusted). He bought long-term US bonds, 30 years, at a yield of about 13%. Short-term timing wasn't perfect, as he could've gotten a higher yield, but was getting a sweet 13% in 2008 when rates went to 0%. US treasuries are non-callable.
His income for the next three decades was a cool $1,300,000 per year, free from state/local income taxes (and no federal withholding), zero credit risk, guaranteed principal repayment if held to maturity, no management fees and plenty of income to not only thrive but keep the wealth growing. As an implicit bonus, will also prevent (or at least make it harder) for you to do something stupid with your money or live beyond your means based on income. But you would never have stress about losing your income as with any job, business ownership and riskier investments.
In my opinion, accumulating enough [principal] capital is the hard part, don't overly complicate the rest.
OK strange perspective here: you dropped into this really complex and weird world out of no where as a fresh baby. After getting a basic idea of how the world and your body works, you spent two decades to make sure you will not starve to death and can get any material thing that you like.
Now what?
I think besides giving back to the community, you should probably start exploring who you are, what is your purpose, what you are set to experience, what is your story and journey, what you can do to get into and finish your life as if it is the most unique and grandest existence in the universe - because it is. And you will die very, very soon (just like every other human being).
As you can tell - the spiritual things.
All your spiritual mumble jumble is easy to say but God doesn't seem to treat everyone equally and not everyone who works their ass off gets 15 million USD. So the best thing the OP (if he's even telling the truth) can do is to donate that USD 15M to me, who deserve it just as much as he does. If he does not, he can fuck off and I hope he loses it all and dies a homeless loser on the streets with people throwing eggs at him!
Congrats, that's awesome! Curious -- did you work in a low tax jurisdiction to help you get to $15mm? Or was it just really good compounding of earnings over time? I'd love to hear how old you were when you hit $5mm, $10mm, and $15mm.
Invest in rental properties making 300k+ per annum initially, gradually increase and hire someone to manage them for 60k+, move to a place with best food and live log
bump
Donate it to me so I can spend it
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