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After selling Loom, Vinay Hiremath opened up about feeling insecure after reaching the peak of his career.
The former Loom co-founder is currently in Hawaii. (Photo Credits: Instagram)
Vinay Hiremath, co-founder of Loom, is navigating a difficult period after stepping away from his plans to work with Elon Musk at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Instead, he made a bold move, booking a one-way ticket to Hawaii to study physics. Having sold Loom to Atlassian for $975 million (around Rs 836 Crore), Hiremath revealed his feelings of insecurity after reaching the peak of his career.
In a blog post, he expressed, “I am rich and I have no idea what to do with my life.” After selling his company, he faced a tough choice, a $60 million paycheck or the chance to find a new purpose in life. Hiremath explored various avenues, meeting with investors and robotics experts. However, none of these opportunities seemed to spark the motivation he was looking for.
Hiremath then spent time travelling with his girlfriend, but the relationship ended painfully after two years. He wrote, “Life has been a haze this last year. After selling my company, I find myself in the totally un-relatable position of never having to work again. Everything feels like a side quest, but not in an inspiring way. I don’t have the same base desires driving me to make money or gain status. I have infinite freedom, yet I don’t know what to do with it. This is a completely zeroth-world position to be in.”
Last March, Vinay Hiremath felt lost and unsure about the next step in his life. While he knew staying at the company that acquired Loom wasn’t the right fit for him and found it difficult to walk away from a $60 million offer. In the two weeks after leaving his decade-long career, he met 70 investors and robotics experts. He had been exploring robotics for a while and thought it was his next big move. However, by the end of those two weeks, he felt disappointed and unsure. He realised that deep down, he wanted to be like Elon Musk, but when he thought about it, the idea made him feel “awkward and ashamed”.
“After deciding to not start a robotics company, I found myself rudderless. No sense of direction. I travelled to many beautiful places with my loving and supportive (ex) girlfriend. This 6-month stretch could be several essays on its own, but the outcome of this period is that nothing seemed right. We started getting into regular arguments and I knew it wasn’t on her. It was me. I was starting to come to terms with all the mounting insecurities I had stuffed down over the past several years. I didn’t feel like I could work on them with her. So I broke things off after almost 2 years of unconditional love. It was extremely painful, but it was the right call. I needed to fully face myself,” the entrepreneur explained.
After his breakup, Vinay decided to deal with his emotions by climbing a 6800-meter peak in the Himalayas, even though he had no experience or training in mountaineering. At first, it felt like the perfect idea, but as he went further into the trek, the altitude sickness, cold and illness started to hit him. Despite the hardships, he finished the trek and understood that challenging himself to do hard things is really important to him.
When Vinay Hiremath returned home, one of his friends jokingly suggested that he should work with Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy at the DOGE to help America avoid a financial collapse. Taking it seriously, he reached out to a few contacts and got involved. After several calls, he was quickly added to various groups and started working. Vinay then recruited brilliant people and worked on projects he couldn’t discuss, all while seeing how disorganized the government was. Despite the excitement, he realised that for him the most important thing was dealing with his insecurities. After four intense weeks, he decided to book a one-way ticket to Hawaii to focus on his personal journey.
Now, the former Loom co-founder has settled in Hawaii, where he’s diving into the study of physics to build a solid foundation of knowledge. His goal is to eventually launch a company that creates tangible products. However, he’s come to realise that the true motivation behind this pursuit is his genuine enjoyment of the subject. If it doesn’t lead to anything monumental, he says he won’t regret it. For the first time in a long while, he’s being honest with himself, embracing his journey with kindness and a sense of contentment.
