‘Your brain literally atrophies’: Tech payouts are leaving people suddenly rich — but also depressed, distant and delusional

Take SpaceX, Elon Musk’s space exploration company, which recently experienced an out-of-this-world IPO last June. More than 4,400 current and former SpaceX employees were expected to crest seven-figure status, according to an analysis by Hill.com, a San Francisco-based investment platform. Of those, 400 were pegged to reach a wealth value of $100 million or more.

Anastasia Koroleva, founder of the Exit Paradox podcast, can relate. Sixteen years ago, Koroleva and her husband cashed in on a nine-figure sale of a software startup they backed. She expected instant gratification, but what she got was years of anxiety that resulted in her splitting with her spouse.

“Everything was very different from what we expected, and that was shocking for me,” she told Bloomberg last week. “I went through quite a difficult adjustment to that new reality.”

Other instant millionaires agree, noting that the feeling of immediate gratification quickly gave way to the question, “What do I do now?”

“Your brain literally atrophies if you’re not working and pursuing things in life,” Michia Rohrssen, co-founder of automotive software firm Prodigy, which sold for $110 million in 2021, told Bloomberg. “It’s a very dangerous place to be.”

Here’s what’s behind the wealth stress issue

Instant wealth can shock people like Rohrssen, who grew up in poverty.

“When someone becomes wealthy very quickly, their external circumstances often change faster than their internal world,” Doriel Jacov, a psychotherapist and former corporate attorney, told Moneywise.

Most of those big check-cashers might be accomplished and successful, but their internal world, possibly consisting of insecurity, anxiety, or a sense of emptiness, remains the same, Jacov noted.

“They may have reached the milestone they thought would alleviate their insecurity, but that may not necessarily be the case, which can be quite disorienting,” he said.

A Wall Street banker or a Silicon Valley software engineer can also be destabilized and feel less driven.

“For many high-achievers, striving itself can provide motivation, structure, community, self-esteem, and a clear benchmark for progress,” Jacov said, adding that when drive is no longer necessary, people can lose structure, community and self-worth.

“Sudden wealth doesn’t always translate to a sudden sense of well-being,” Jacov added. “While financial security can solve very real problems, it doesn’t necessarily resolve the underlying emotional experience.”

A payout also brings conflict, as the instantly rich know that timing, luck, and circumstance play an enormous role in becoming wealthy.

“When colleagues who worked just as hard but do not make it, or fail, the gap between what we think and what we feel becomes deeply unsettling,” Silvia Dutchevici, a psychotherapist and founder of the Critical Therapy Institute in New York City, told Moneywise. “The myth of doing anything alone is just that, a myth, and sudden wealth has a way of exposing it. In some sense, in becoming rich, one viscerally experiences the lies behind our values.”

Take some well-deserved time after achieving sudden wealth

Experts say that, psychologically, it can help to allow time for the internal world to catch up with external reality.