How To Spend Your 100cr

(or 10, or 20, or 200, or 4000 — whatever it is that the last stock market or Bitcoin rally or recent IPO made you!)

With all the absurd action in the financial markets, crazy (and inexplicable) valuations, there’s a fair bit of money being made by many folks, including friends and acquaintances.

The next, obvious question is what to do with that money? Most were living on much lesser, have financially achieved most of what they ever dreamed off or wanted to do, and are now stretching their horizons.

This isn’t financial advice, and I have no personal experience of what to do with — or even access to — that kind of personal wealth :D But this is an appeal, a laying out of some realities I see, and hopefully some perspective.

1. Pending wishes. Don’t Invent new ones
   Get these out of the way. There’s surely some little things you had wished for — you’ve grown up, like many of us, on some of these dreams and it’s important to buy that car, take that vacation, etc. Record these, and do these quickly and ack that you did — counting your blessings is one of the most important skills for a happy life :) And do NOT keep adding to that list and escalating the war — that can be an endless quest and there’s no “enough” that will happen itself unless you define it. A huge bonus is that you might realize that those were indeed mrigtrishna, and real solace and happiness aren’t found in them.
2. Secure the family. Food, shelter, water, weather!
   Given the uncertainty we face in the coming decades, the basics are more important than ever before. Do not underplay the role of securing the basics — a good house and the ability to take care of its maintenance and upkeep, a place you can grow some food in, some source of water (trust me, that could be a game changer in the coming world), some level of climate resilience, a minimal source of energy self sufficiency. It’s also a secure platform that allows you to do a lot with complete freedom, and might someday kick in as the ark for the kids. Ok, if you’re done being amused by this, read it again, think about this — it’s already not as impossible a scenario that it sounded like even a decade ago to many.
3. Invest to cover running needs
   Understand your running expenses. Make sure there’s an “enough” defined for the family, and your goals for the basics are crisply defined, and accounted for. Do account for some inflation — different numbers for different heads — living expenses, healthcare and education all.
4. Invest in Community
   Everyone, without exception, sooner or later realizes that it’s finally the people you can call up, turn up for sharing a coffee or beer with, sound out for help or advice, and expect support from when things aren’t as great that are one’s biggest wealth. And this happens at various depths of relationships, and across the spectrum. Your farm will need friendly neighbours, your startup will need friendly and loyal vendors and teams, your personal life will need all of the above and more. Sometimes you forget to invest time into these when you’re running hard. You get used to running alone and forget even how to have conversations. It’s something to learn again, or do more of. Absolutely nothing is more important than this.
5. Invest in the Planet and its Commons
   So you’re one of the haves. As the winners of our times, we’ve benefited from the games we won. The same games have directly or otherwise caused much destruction in the world. We were taught to be good at these games, taught to extract and accrue value to ourselves most efficiently, and we did. It’s gotten to a point where the planet, the commons and all that we depend on are at breaking points, and may not be viable for the coming generations — and that includes your own kids. It is indeed the responsibility of the winners to fix these games and help imagine new ones where the commons not only survive, but regenerate, where there’s less inequity of distribution of wealth that goes to a few and the detrimental outcomes from the creation of it that largely goes to most others. Please do think about what role you want to play in this biggest fix of all times that we need the best, most capable focused on. If not you, then who?
6. Invest in ideas you couldn’t chase but wanted to
   Last, there are always ideas you might have wanted to chase or invest in, or help with that you never had “enough spare change” to set aside for. If you’ve accounted for the earlier ones, including (5), and can set aside a certain portion for this, please do. It is because many invested in ideas they believed in that you directly or indirectly got to where you are — both in the public commons (FOSS, Linux etc) and in entrepreneurial or social ideas. Pass this one on forward.

As part of Rainmatter.org, I am engaged with many a problem wrt (5). I plugged out of the formal work-stream over a decade and a half ago, and realized the value of much of the rest as I learned to live with what we had. I’m no financial whiz and have a very humble net-worth, but I do believe I can help with perspective on a lot of these fronts. So if you want a sounding board and a conversation over coffee, look me up in Bangalore.