Why My Co-Founder's Wife Saved Us From a Terrible Land Deal

My former co-founder and I almost bought 2000 acres of land near Yosemite, CA. His wife killed the deal and shortly after, the land caught on fire.

I know so many founders who want to do exactly this after they sell their startup.

The Fantasy

We want to own lots of land. We picture sheep roaming around and growing our own carrots to feed bunnies.

We work so hard that we're craving a sanctuary, a refuge away from tech. A place we can recover and become happy.

Founder Impulse

Co-founders are very impulsive with the decisions we make. We have many crazy ideas and we encourage each other.

In fact, Vungle only existed because Jack and I followed our impulse for crazy ideas. We also ignored 99% of the advice we got.

Unfortunately, the real world doesn't work this way.

Jack has a wife and she said NO.

Thank god.

Because that land actually caught fire months later.

The Real Lesson

The idea wasn't necessarily stupid.

We just had no idea what we truly wanted and had no clue about what it's like to live on or develop land.

Jack took many years to think about what he wanted. He eventually moved to Portugal, bought lots of land and is building an amazing retreat. He's living his dream.

I tried to retire but hated it. Living on that land away from Silicon Valley and the AI revolution would have been pure torture for me.

So I jumped back into another startup and finally feel happy again.

The Takeaway

Here's what this experience taught me: impulsive decisions can work in startups, but life decisions need more thought. Take time to figure out what you actually want before making big moves.

Sometimes the people closest to us see things more clearly than we do. And sometimes a deal falling through is the best thing that could happen.

So what's the real moral of the story? The wife is the boss.