Here's what $580 million bought Tom from Myspace: the right to never have to work again.
While Elon's tweeting at 3 AM about who knows what and Zuck's building metaverses nobody asked for, Tom Anderson is somewhere taking pictures of sunsets. No manifestos. No world-saving missions. No desperate attempts to stay relevant in a world that's moved on.
Just... peace.
For all intents that's probably the most radical thing a rich person has done in recent times.
The Recipe We've Been Sold
We've been conditioned to believe that success is a seat at the chef's table with no final dish. That ambition should be infinite. That once you "make it," the real work begins: scaling, optimizing, disrupting, changing the world.
But something about that screams a tale of being caught in yet another trap.
We celebrate founders who sell their companies for hundreds of millions, then immediately start new ones. We worship billionaires who could retire tomorrow but instead choose to colonize Mars, buy social media platforms, or turn our conversations into training data for their AI models.
It troubles me that stopping is framed as kin to failure. That contentment is stagnation. That if you're not building an empire, you're wasting your potential, even after you've already built one. What if the "next big thing" was actually having the audacity to do none of it?
Tom cracked the code most people have missed: What good is having "fuck you" money without the courage to actually say it? To be able to step away from it all without distress or conflict, especially when the next thing you'd do wouldn't come from a philanthropic or helpful place.
The Attention Addiction Economy
Most of these ultra-wealthy empire builders aren't actually trying to change the world. They're trying to stay the center of it.
We talk a lot about how social media changed the way we interact with ourselves and each other, but often don't consider the creators of these platforms as part of the pool. They too, are living in the world they created. Visibility became currency. Platform growth became the ultimate goal, regardless of whether you do anything meaningful with it. The dopamine hit of being mentioned in headlines, the allure of having your every move analyzed and debated is a trick of the enemy that they too are succumbing to.
They've confused being chronicled with being valuable, helpful, meaningful to any greater, collective purpose.
Tom understands something they still don't: the most expensive thing you can buy with extreme wealth isn't a yacht or a private island. It's the right to hit game over. The discernment to step away from the slot machine even though you have more than enough coins to keep playing forever.
The Performance of Never Being Satisfied
It seems we live in a culture that's terrified of "enough." Everything has to be optimized, scaled, disrupted. Your morning routine needs to be "intentional." Your side hustle needs a bulletproof model to scale. Your hobby needs a newsletter.
Even our leisure is painted as productive. We don't just watch a TV show—we "consume content." We don't take vacations—we "document experiences" for the feed.
This performance of perpetual improvement has infected everyone, including people who literally never need to work again. Bezos could have retired after Amazon became profitable. Gates could have stopped at Windows 95. Musk could have cashed out after PayPal.
Instead, they chose to stay in the game, remaking the world in their image rather than simply living in it, or God-forbid making it substantively better for the rest of us in ways that didn't directly contribute to their bottom line.
What Tom Knows That They Don't
When Tom sold Myspace he also sold the idea that he needed to be anything other than "the guy who sold Myspace".
While his peers are building personal brands, Tom built a personal life. While they're accumulating followers, he's accumulating experiences. While they're optimizing their legacy, he's enjoying his Tuesday afternoon.
He understands that visibility isn't victory. That influence isn't fulfillment. That the best part of having options is being able to choose the quieter ones.
His Instagram is a grid of photographs that he hasn't updated in years. No thought leadership. No "10 lessons I learned building a social media empire." No podcast about "scaling creativity in the AI age."
Just a guy with a camera and the free time and financial security to use it.
The Radical Act of Enough
Now look, should hundred-millionaires do more to help the world? Absolutely. Should they use their resources to address inequality, climate change, and systemic injustice? Without question.
But in a world where most of the 1% seem to wake up with a life goal of being actively detrimental to human flourishing, the nothingness of neutrality is unfortunately refreshing.
Tom isn't trying to put chips in our brains or turn our data into his profit margins. He's not buying media companies to control the narrative or funding politicians to protect his tax breaks.
He's just existing. And somehow, that feels revolutionary.
The Recipe's Real Ingredients
The recipe for fulfillment isn't more ingredients. It's knowing when the meal is done and when you've had your fill. Further, it's having the self-awareness to understand why you're even still seated at the table. Owning the fact that you're still eating not because you're hungry, but because it all tastes good, you want more, and nobody's coming to tell you to stop.
It's recognizing that optimization culture has convinced us that "enough" is a dirty word. That contentment is complacency. That if you're not growing, you're not living.
But what if the opposite is true? What if the people constantly building empires are the ones who are actually trapped? Addicted to the performance of being important, terrified of who they'd be without the platform?
Tom chose freedom over fame. Presence over platform. Slow Tuesday mornings over trending topics.
And maybe that's the most important lesson a billionaire has ever taught us.
Stop Building Castles in Other People's Consciousness
The next time you feel pressure to optimize your life, scale your creativity, or build your personal brand, remember Tom taking photographs in places you've never heard of.
Sometimes the most powerful thing you can build is an exit.
Sometimes the best use of your influence is choosing when not to use it.
Sometimes the recipe for success is actually knowing when you're full.
We need more people to be like Tom. Not because disappearing is the goal, but because having the option to disappear—and actually taking it—might be the only way to know if you're truly free.
As always, stay curious. Stay inspired. And when given the opportunity to keep eating, ask yourself whether you're still hungry or whether it all just tastes too good to get up from the table.
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