People seem to forget, but Notch was miserable well before he sold Mojang. In 2012, it was a breakup [0] followed by the sad story of a father with a history of

People seem to forget, but Notch was miserable well before he sold Mojang. In 2012, it was a breakup [0] followed by the sad story of a father with a history of substance abuse and depression killing himself [1]. Given the ~50% genetic component of depression [2] and the well known fact that large monetary windfalls do not affect baseline mood [3] I think it's fair to say that the only surprise here is that anyone is surprised. What I would do? I would stash the money away in low risk vehicles while I take all the time I need to study things I find interesting and/or potentially important, and assemble a prioritized list of topics and relevant people. Then, probably many years later, I would finalize a long-range plan to pursue the 1-3 top priorities I've identified, and maybe support a few more further down the list. Yes, this is "to Musk [4]" (behold, Notch gave us a new verb!) and yes, it brings the risk of exposure to assholes. That's inevitable if you don't want to feel isolated [5], but having a few billion $ at your disposal does bring advantages like the ability to hire a personal assistant or ten to manage those assholes for you. It would also help to stop trolling the interwebs with asshole-bait depicting you as a miserable, hence exploitable, walking wallet. [0] https://twitter.com/notch/status/235746965823033345 https://twitter.com/notch/status/235746965823033345 [1] http://notch.tumblr.com/post/37823268132/i-love-you-dad http://notch.tumblr.com/post/37823268132/i-love-you-dad [2] http://depressiongenetics.stanford.edu/mddandgenes.html http://depressiongenetics.stanford.edu/mddandgenes.html [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill#Major_empirical_findings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill#Major_empiri... [4] https://twitter.com/notch/status/637565210266570752 https://twitter.com/notch/status/637565210266570752 [5] https://twitter.com/notch/status/637563038258868224 https://twitter.com/notch/status/637563038258868224