It's the dream of any startup founder. You make something people love, become wildly rich and then sell your company for billions. That's what every startup in Silicon Valley is trying to do. But after you do that, what comes next?
Markus Persson, who created the video game Minecraft, is revealing things aren't always as they seem. He sold Minecraft to Microsoft for $2.5 billion a year ago. He's now finding that the meaning of life has nothing to do with all the things that he thought it would.
Listen to Glenn's commentary below.
Below is a rush transcript of this segment, it might contain errors.
GLENN: It's the dream of any start-up founder. You make something that people just love, and you wind up wildly, wildly rich. And you sell the company for billions. That's what every start-up in Silicon Valley is trying to do. But after you do that, what comes next?
The guy who was the founder and the creator of Minecraft is revealing that things aren't always as they seem. He sold Minecraft to Microsoft for 2.5 billion years ago -- a year -- a year ago. Sorry, $2.5 billion a year ago.
PAT: There you go. That's a lot.
STU: Wow. Jeez.
PAT: That's a lot. But, I mean, that game is an unbelievable cultural phenomenon.
STU: Everywhere.
JEFFY: Yes, it is.
STU: Every kid in America I think owns it. Is that true?
PAT: Every kid. I think so. Pretty much every kid in America. And if they're not playing it, they want to.
STU: Yeah, and what is it? You're just building things with blocks, essentially.
PAT: I guess. I guess.
GLENN: It's basically virtual Legos. It's virtual Legos.
JEFFY: Yeah.
STU: Okay.
GLENN: But then you can chase people around in the land that you've created. You know, it's all kinds of different things. But it's a virtual world.
STU: Can you run over hookers? I just want to make sure that that's part of the game --
GLENN: No, you can't run over hookers.
STU: Aw, jeez.
GLENN: So he was living the high life. It looked like he was having a blast. $2.5 billion. What would you do with $2.5 billion, Pat?
PAT: I'd probably -- I'd donate most of it to charity.
GLENN: Shut up.
STU: All lives matter. That's where I would -- Nazarene Fund.
PAT: Yeah. I would get a house.
GLENN: That's the first thing he did.
PAT: I mean, I have a house. But I would get a bigger house.
GLENN: He bought a 70 million-dollar house.
PAT: I don't know if I would get a 70 million-dollar house.
GLENN: You should see this house.
PAT: I bet it's nice.
GLENN: It is. It's on the hills of Beverly Hills, and it is unbelievable. I'll post the link to the real estate video that they --
PAT: Does it say the square footage?
GLENN: No. But it has a movie theater in it. It has an infinity pool. It came all furnished. It is unbelievable. Sixteen-car garage that actually has elevators.
PAT: Nice. Jeez.
GLENN: In the place where there's a wall of -- in the candy room. Okay. There's a place where it's a bar and a wall of candy. And on one of the walls is behind glass, the garage. And it -- the picture of it shows a Veyron on a turntable.
PAT: Oh, my gosh.
GLENN: So the garage is actually behind glass in the downstairs, and it's got a Veyron.
PAT: And then he has a Bugatti Veyron, which is a $2 million car.
GLENN: Yeah, it's unbelievable. Okay. So here is a guy who has everything. And he earned it.
PAT: And did he go from poor or middle class to just wild wealth like that?
GLENN: I don't know.
PAT: Is that the one step to wild wealth?
GLENN: Wild wealth. I mean, you could have $250 million and then suddenly have 2.5 billion and it's a totally different world.
PAT: Yeah.
GLENN: So here's the latest string of tweets from him. Now listen to this, this just came out August 29th. Over the weekend. The problem with getting everything -- the problem with getting everything is you run out of reasons to keep trying. And human interaction becomes impossible due to imbalance.
Later: Hanging out with a bunch of friends and partying with famous people. Able to do whatever I want, and I've never felt more isolated.
In Sweden, I'll sit around and wait for my friends with jobs and families to have time just to do stuff, just watching my reflection in the monitor.
Next tweet: When we sold the company, the biggest effort went to making sure the employees got taken care of, and now they all hate me.
Next tweet: Found a great girl. She's afraid of me and my lifestyle. She went with a normal person instead.
I would Musk and try to save the world, but that just exposes me to the same types of people that made me sell Minecraft again.
Here's a guy who has absolutely everything and has created something great, who sounds a little suicidal, quite honestly. He's now finding that the meaning of life has nothing to do with all the things that he thought it would.
There was a New Zealand art director that -- his name is Linds Redding. He was one of the great guys of ads. I mean, he really created apparently a lot of stuff. And everybody was trying to get him -- ask him about ads and how things go.
He wrote towards the end -- he just had esophagus cancer. And it was inoperable. And he just passed away. But he wrote something before he died.
It turns out, I didn't actually like my old nearly as much as I thought I did.
This is what he wrote after he was diagnosed.
I know this now because occasionally I catch up with my old colleagues and work mates. They fall over each other to enthusiastic show me the latest project they're working on. They ask me my opinion. Proudly show off their technical prowess. I find myself glazing over, but politely listen as they brag about who has had the least sleep and the most takeaway food.
I haven't seen my wife since January. I can't feel my legs anymore. I think I have scurvy, but another three weeks, and we'll be done. It's got to be done, and then the client is going on holiday. What do you think?
What do I think? I think you're all mad. I think you're all deranged. So disengaged from reality, it's not even funny. It's a commercial. Nobody really gives a crap. This has come as quite a shock to me, I can tell you.
I think I've come to the conclusion that my whole life has been a bit of a con, a scam, an elaborate hoax. Countless late nights and weekends, holidays, birthdays, school recitals, anniversary dinners, were willingly sacrificed at the altar of some intangible, but indefinitely worthy higher cause.
If that were true, maybe it would be worth it in the long-run. But that's the con. Convincing myself -- convincing myself there was nowhere I'd rather be was just a copying mechanism. I can see that now. It wasn't important. It wasn't of any consequence at all. How could it be? We're just shifting product, our product, and the client's. Just meeting the quota. Feeding the beast.
The beast. Was it worth it? Of course not. It turns out, it was all just advertising.
The top five things that people regret when they die: I wish I let myself be happier.
Most people don't realize, until the end, that happiness is a choice. This is what we're trying to get across to you with all lives matter and never again is now. It's a choice. You can be angry. You can -- you can scream for vengeance. Or you can choose peace. You can choose love. You can choose happiness. You can choose unity. But it is our choice in the end. Choose light or darkness, life or death.
Number four, I wish I would have stayed in touch with my friends. In people's dying weeks, they usually try to track down old friends. They become so caught up in their own lives, we've all been so busy, that we lose track of people.
Number three, I wish I had the courage to express my feelings. Most people don't realize until the end of their life that they've been cowards their whole lives. They just wanted to keep peace with others. We're all told this in society. Don't bring up religion. Don't bring up politics. Don't bring up anything. Just make peace. Just don't argue.
And so most of us shut our mouths and don't make an impact. Most of us shut our mouths and we don't speak our true feelings. People at hospice say, every male patient they nurse always says, I wish I wouldn't have worked so hard.
