Ankur Nagpal's Net Worth is $100+ Million. His Goal? Own a Cricket Team.

We spoke to Ankur Nagpal in this week's episode of Moneywise.

Imagine walking away from $10 million without blinking. That's exactly what Ankur did after selling his company for $250 million at just 31. From the beaches of Brazil to the streets of former Yugoslavia, he lived the fantasy life many dream about—only to discover that the 'dream' wasn't fulfilling.

Ankur is a serial entrepreneur who grew up in a middle-class family in Oman, made millions building Facebook apps by age 21, and later sold his company Teachable for over $250 million when he was just 31.

What makes a 33-year-old with over $100 million return to the grind after two years of unlimited luxury? And why does he believe that $10 million—not $1 million or $100 million—is the magic 'enough' number for happiness?"

Like all Moneywise episodes, Ankur breaks down his net worth, income, portfolio, and monthly expenses and then I, your humble host, pick it all apart.

We also went deep on: what it means to have "enough" money, how Ankur walked away from $10 million in unvested equity for his freedom, and his dream of one day owning a cricket team.

Below you'll find my summary of the episode along with the entire transcript.

And by the way...this podcast, the concept of it came from Hampton, a community I founded where CEOs and business owners come together in small groups of 8 to help each other grow. Hampton members range from people with newish startups doing $3M in revenue all the way up to publicly traded companies with hundreds of millions in revenue and thousands of employees. Because of Hampton, I get to see these private conversations about business, money, success, and life. I figured some of these private conversations should be public, which is why I started this podcast. If you're a CEO, founder, or business owner, check this out. New Moneywise episodes come out weekly.

• YouTube
• Spotify
• Apple Podcasts
• Amazon Music

 

Now, below are the notes and the full transcript.

The Numbers

• Net Worth: Over $100 million ("north of nine figures")
• Monthly Expenses: $10,000-$15,000
• Property Taxes: Only $4,000/year on his multi-million dollar Brooklyn townhouse
• Portfolio Breakdown: 50% index funds tracking the S&P 500, 50% venture investments
• First Exit: Made approximately $2 million by age 21-22 from Facebook apps
• Major Exit: Sold Teachable for approximately $250 million, receiving about $40 million directly
• Current Ventures: Founded Oko (now called Carry), a fintech startup that raised $5 million
• Venture Funds: Raised close to $80 million across two venture funds
• Salary Before Exit: Paid himself exactly $150,000/year at Teachable
• Current Salary: $0 (not paying himself at his new startup)
• "Threshold Number": Believes $10 million is the amount where more money doesn't increase happiness

From Middle Class to Millions: Ankur's Journey

Ankur Nagpal grew up in a middle-class family in Oman where money was never tight, but they weren't rich either. His parents saved for years to send him to college in America, which created a sense of guilt and anxiety around money early on. This changed when he started making money building Facebook apps in college.

"When I started making $20, $30 a day, which I did at 18 years old, building Facebook apps. It was the best feeling in the world because it was liberating, because for the first time in my entire life, I had my own money, and with that, that meant less guilt."

By age 21, Ankur had achieved his goal of making $1 million, and his business eventually netted about $2 million before it stopped generating revenue. Rather than splurging, he bought an apartment in San Francisco and saved most of it, which gave him the freedom to pursue entrepreneurship without financial pressure.

This financial cushion proved invaluable during the two years he spent working on failed business ideas before starting Teachable, which he eventually sold for around $250 million after running it for seven years.

Life After a $250 Million Exit

After selling Teachable, Ankur received about $40 million directly to his bank account, with more coming in stock. His first major purchases weren't extravagant—he bought a house in Brooklyn (paid in cash), purchased a used car, and helped his family financially.

"Of all the things I did, that was that probably made me feel the best is I was able to, you know, give some money to my family. I was able to get my parents a place and to be honest, like, that's probably the shit that felt the best."

For the next two years, Ankur lived what many would consider a dream life—traveling the world as a wealthy bachelor. He visited surf camps in Brazil, drove through former Yugoslavia, and generally lived a nomadic lifestyle. But despite flying first class and living luxuriously, he found himself missing the sensation of building.

"I'm like, chilling on the beach, and I'm like, dude, I'm 32 years old, 33 years old. I'm too young to be doing this shit. I miss the sensation of, like, building stuff."

This realization led him back to entrepreneurship. He returned to New York and founded Oko (now called Carry), a fintech startup, demonstrating that for people like Ankur, happiness comes from purpose and contribution rather than passive luxury.

The Freedom Money Provides

One of the most significant benefits of wealth for Ankur has been the freedom it provides. After selling Teachable, he walked away from over $10 million in unvested equity because he valued his freedom more than additional wealth.

"I had over $10 million worth of equity that would vest tied to my employment, but I didn't want to do that. So being able to walk away from that was something where it's like a clear impact of like, if I had $0, there's no way I would walk away from a $10 million employment contract."

This freedom extends to his current startup, where he's able to control his cap table rather than having "random third parties decide what you can or can't do." It also means he can spend more time with his parents, visiting them 4-5 times a year and providing them with a place to stay when they visit New York.

For Ankur, the true value of wealth isn't in accumulating more money but in removing financial stress entirely. As he puts it: "To me, the whole point of this whole game is like, if you're stressing about money in any way, shape or form, the pursuit of more, not having enough or whatever, like that's kind of missing the point. The fact that I don't have to think about it is what's most valuable."

How Much is "Enough"?

The central question of this episode was: At what point does more money stop contributing to happiness? For Ankur, despite his $100+ million net worth, he believes that threshold is around $10 million, particularly for someone living in New York City.

"If I were to guess, the number is probably 10 million bucks, maybe a little bit more. I know some people who, especially when they become parents living in New York City, they're making half a million plus a year. They still don't feel like safe or like they have enough to live a comfortable life. So New York, I do think the threshold is high."

In contrast, Michael, a lawyer friend of the host who makes $10+ million annually, believes his threshold was around $500,000 per year. At that income level, he felt there was nothing he wanted that he couldn't afford.

Host Sam Parr offers his own calculation: "It's 25 million. The way I came to that number was I asked a bunch of wealthy people how much money they spent per month, and on average is around $80,000 a month. Then I looked up, what's a safe amount of money to withdraw from your liquid nut, which is around 3%. And so you need around $25 million to be able to withdraw roughly $1 million per year safely."

Despite having far surpassed his "threshold number," Ankur still has ambitions. He wants his new company to become a "$1 billion or $10 billion company," not because he needs more money, but because "that is sort of the scoreboard and the game we play." And if his wealth continues to grow, he has one dream purchase in mind: buying a cricket team, which could cost upwards of $1 billion for teams in India.

Other Key Quotes

"Money does not make a material difference to like your general state of happiness or well-being. Not doing my job, sleeping better, being in better physical shape, meaningfully move my baseline. Having more money in your bank account does not meaningfully move your baseline sense of well-being."

"I think money makes you more of who you are, and it sometimes takes you back to the shit you found cool when you were young."

"My own monologue to myself is like, dude, you've been so fucking lucky and fortunate and like, life has been so good and you've been just blessed in so many different ways. It'd be real shitty of you to complain about stuff."

"Being generous with my family is something that has brought me joy with money, so that in that sense, money brought me a lot of happiness." (Michael, lawyer making $10M+/year)

Links You Might Like

• Teachable - The platform Ankur built and sold for $250M
• Carry - Ankur's current fintech startup (formerly Oko)

Full Transcript

[00:01:41] Ankur Nagpal: I think it was somewhere around 40 ish million dollars.

[00:01:52] Sam Parr: Is there such thing as having enough money? Enough to make you happy. To feel secure. Is 2 million. Enough. How about 200 million? Or is the internal scream of I need more money impossible to shut up regardless of what you have. Security time providing for your loved ones. Money can buy all of those things and that will make you happier. So I'm not interested in debating if money can make life better. I just want to know when is enough enough? What is that threshold for when more money stops contributing to general overall happiness? We're going to call this our threshold number.

[00:02:24] Ankur Nagpal: To me, the whole point of this whole game is like if you're stressing about money in any way, shape or form, the pursuit of more, not having enough or whatever. Like that's kind of missing the point. The fact that I don't have to think about it is what's most valuable.

[00:02:37] Sam Parr: Ankur Nagpal is a friend of mine who, in his early 30s, is worth north of $100 million. He grew up in a middle class family, made a few million dollars by the time he was 23, and then sold his second company, teachable, for over $250 million when he was just 31. So he's been through all the stages of wealth, making him a great person. To answer our question. In this episode, he gets candid with us sharing his exact net worth, his portfolio, how much money he spends each month, where he spends that money, how money has contributed to his happiness, and what he thinks his threshold number is. Hey everyone, I'm Sam PA, welcome to Money Wise, the podcast where we dive into the personal finance and lifestyle changes for those with a high net worth or those of you on your way, the podcast world is practically tripping over itself, which shows teaching you how to make a buck. And that's great. I love and listen to a ton of them, but none on really how to handle the life changes that new wealth brings. The reason I know this is I'm co-founder of Hampton, a community of CEOs, founders, entrepreneurs, people who run businesses ranging from $2 million a year all the way up to $200 million a year. And in this community, I'm able to see what type of conversations young, high net worth people are having in private that community. And those conversations is what inspired this podcast and money wise. We explore these problems and help you enrich your life beyond the numbers.

[00:03:48] Sam Parr: We speak to people who have been through the same things, meaning they've made a lot of money and in some cases they're going to lose a lot of money. And the best part? We're radically transparent about the numbers while we do it. We're going to talk about how much money they've made, how much they've spent, everything, things that you're typically really embarrassed to ask in money wise. We explore these problems and help enrich your life, because there's nothing else out there that helps this community of people. We speak to people who have been through the same things and were radically transparent about the numbers while we do it. Now, to be fair, I think there is a range for our threshold number. There is this 2010 study that people were citing for years, saying that money stops impacting your happiness around $75,000 a year, which is around 106 grand in $2,023. And guess what? I think it's nonsense. $100,000 is not the threshold number for most everyone in America. Since then, numerous studies have contradicted this and concluded that there was no plateau in happiness when it comes to income. But my point is that money's impact on happiness depends on each individual's general outlook and feelings on life. But if you have your act together, more money will equal more happiness, which means there is a threshold number where one begins feeling like they have enough. Anchors answer to our question of how much is enough needs to be understood through the perspective of his upbringing.

[00:05:05] Ankur Nagpal: Grew up in, I would say, a middle class family. Money was never tight, but we were also never rich, and it was always very clear from my parents that they were saving their entire life for me to study in America. And again, I grew up in Oman, in the Middle East. Like people earned a lot less there. It would take a lot of my parents, like years of hard work to send me to college here. So it always had this, like sense of almost guilt that my parents were working really, really hard to provide a better life for me. So as a result, when I first moved to America, like my first semester in college, I was like, super frugal. I didn't want to spend money on anything because it felt like just being here was such an expensive thing, and I had almost this anxiety attached to money. But in college, when I started making $20, $30 a day, which I did at 18 years old, building Facebook apps. It was the best feeling in the world because it was liberating, because for the first time in my entire life, I had my own money, and with that, that meant less guilt. And eventually, when I scaled my college business to, like, I don't know, 20, $30,000 in revenue, just being able to pay for my own college gave me all the freedom, because then I didn't have to go to class. Like I was very stressed and I would actually, I only went to class because I felt guilty about how much my parents were paying for it, but having my own money completely changed that.

[00:06:19] Sam Parr: And how much money did you make around the age 21, 22, 23 when you were running that?

[00:06:24] Ankur Nagpal: My goal was to make $1 million before 21, which, crazily enough, I just about managed to hit a few days before my 21st birthday, and the overall business had probably netted about 2 million bucks before it kind of died and stopped making any money. So by 2122, I'd made a couple million bucks.

[00:06:41] Sam Parr: Were you spending any of it?

[00:06:42] Ankur Nagpal: I was pretty boring about a lot of it. So I ended up buying a really nice apartment in San Francisco. I bought a place in the Millennium Tower, but other than that, I was not really doing frivolous, dumb things with it. I never had fun with it. In a lot of ways, I think it's just my upbringing, like the way I was raised. So I think I was quite responsible with it.

[00:06:59] Sam Parr: Was that a meaningful threshold to cross 1 million or 2 million at the age of early 20s?

[00:07:05] Ankur Nagpal: The biggest thing it gave me was, frankly, like the freedom to just say no to a lot of shit, like a great example is like getting a job, right? Like I wasn't doing anything for two years but trying to build failing businesses. And had I not had that money, that's not a luxury I would have been able to have. There was a good two year period where no idea I was working on actually was going anywhere, and my mom tried to convince me to get a job, but my dad was like, I worked for his salary my entire life. I always wanted to be a founder. I wanted to start a company I couldn't. So I want you as my children to go crazy. Like take the risk that I never could and go start a company if you want to. Don't get a job.

[00:07:43] Sam Parr: All right, here's the bad news. Unfortunately, I don't think $2 million will be most people, at least in America. I don't think it's going to be most people's threshold number, especially in today's economy. $2 million is nice, but it's not really the point where you're going to feel secure for the rest of your life, at least definitely not if you're young. For anchor, it gave him the confidence and security to move on to something bigger and better. And that bigger and better was his second company called teachable.

[00:08:06] Ankur Nagpal: I had most of the money that I made. A lot of it was not even invested. Like, I knew nothing about money. So I kept a lot of it. Chillin in a bank account, which was insanely stupid when you think about, you know, the insane bull market we had at the time. I didn't know shit about it, but I had the money. Whatever. I had close to a couple million dollars slowly dwindling every month because I had no income for about two years when I started teachable and when I started teachable, I didn't pay myself for the first six months, and the money kind of just stayed there. But while building that company, I just didn't think about money. I mean, I paid myself what I needed to live mostly, and I didn't really spend much time or effort thinking about it until I sold the company.

[00:08:43] Sam Parr: And what was the motivation for starting teachable? What was the insight?

[00:08:47] Ankur Nagpal: To be honest, I was looking to build a business. I'd been trying lots of different ideas. I was doing a little bit of teaching both in person and online. Teaching was a way to make a little bit of money on the side, and we soon realized, like selling courses on Udemy or on other platforms, you were not able to build a business since you were only keeping a small percentage of it. So I ended up building the first version of teachable as a side project for myself or my buddy Conrad. A few months in saw that this is kind of cool. Other people like it too, and then raised money and built a company out of it. But it was no intentional, like Grand Vision. It was more trying little different businesses and seeing what's working.

[00:09:23] Sam Parr: And you probably, if I had to guess, were just making a normal salary like $150,000 a year.

[00:09:28] Ankur Nagpal: I'll tell you how much I was making. I was making exactly $150,000 a year, because I kept increasing my salary from 70 K up to 150 K beyond 150 K. It seemed dumb, like the taxes got super high and it didn't really make sense when to pay yourself much more. So I was making exactly 150 K until I sold the company.

[00:09:45] Sam Parr: Was your liquid nut still dwindling at this point or going up?

[00:09:49] Ankur Nagpal: It was close enough that the overall numbers weren't moving. I wasn't making money. I wasn't going down. It was fine. I was able to live the life I wanted in New York. It was nothing crazy. I remember when we sold the company, I was in a 400 square foot apartment. But, I mean, that's also New York City. I always knew, look, when the time came, the company was doing well and I would make money from it. And honestly, it worked out.

[00:10:10] Sam Parr: How many years did you run it before you sold it?

[00:10:12] Ankur Nagpal: Almost seven years.

[00:10:14] Sam Parr: Do you remember the revenue numbers for each year before you sold it, or the revenue growth trajectory?

[00:10:20] Ankur Nagpal: We negotiated the deal when we were at a $20 million run rate, and by the time the deal closed, we were at a $25 million run rate. So about ten times our revenue at the time. We were doubling year over year. But in the early years, it was kind of, you know, roughly 5X4X3X2X. And that's when we sold.

[00:10:39] Sam Parr: All right. So when anchor sold teachable, that couple million dollars that he was living off of suddenly became pocket change. He ended up selling teachable for around $250 million. And get this it was only 32 years old. How much money was wired to you?

[00:10:51] Ankur Nagpal: I think it was somewhere around 40 ish. Million dollars.

[00:10:55] Sam Parr: $40 million directly into his bank. And you know what? That was only about half of it. The other half was paid in stock. Which means this is an insane amount of money to get overnight.

[00:11:05] Ankur Nagpal: The first thing I did was, as soon as we could, I was like, look, I want to buy a place for myself. So I started looking at houses and I bought a house in Brooklyn that was sort of my big expensive purchase or whatever. I had to buy a car. I still bought a second hand car. I could have easily bought the new car, but it just felt dumb. Like I got a car that was like nine months old and like $15,000 cheaper. And I was like, it feels dumb to buy a new car. Of all the things I did, that was that probably made me feel the best is I was able to, you know, give some money to my family. I was able to get my parents a place and to be honest, like, that's probably the shit that felt the best in terms of like, what makes you feel good about yourself? Yeah, that was probably the most rewarding part of it. It was also really cool because one of the realizations I had is I know a lot of other people who feel this way, but I have a lot of immigrant guilt because, you know, my parents worked hard to send me here. They're getting older. They're back home while I'm living a life over here. So one of the things I realized I wanted to prioritize was spending much more time with them. So I bought a house that was big enough that when they come to visit me in New York, there's enough space, which practically means when they come to visit me for, you know, six weeks, eight weeks, like quite a long time since they're retired. But that's the kind of shit in which money has made a material difference to my life. It's like freedom being able to, like, be like, yeah, I'm going to go see my parents 4 or 5 times a year because I'm not going to be held back or things like that, I think are the biggest thing. Money has given me, which is the ability to kind of do what I want.

[00:12:37] Sam Parr: All right. Talking to one person, that was not enough for this podcast. So I also had to bring in a friend of mine who owns a law firm. His name is Michael, and he pays himself around $10 million a year and has over $20 million in liquid assets. And by the way, when I say $10 million, I don't mean that's what his company's revenue is. That's literally what he pays himself. He had similar sentiments to anchor about how providing for family brings him happiness.

[00:12:57] Michael: Being generous with my family is something that has brought me joy with money, so that in that sense, money brought me a lot of happiness. It makes me happy to set my kids up. I have a brother and sister who are 23 year old twins, and so I'm going to help them buy a house. My brother's going to law school. I'm going to pay for him to go to law school. So in terms of money bringing you happiness, it can like, you know, buying your family health, buying your family freedom. Those are things that really do give you happiness with money. You're not buying things, but you're doing nice things for other people.

[00:13:30] Sam Parr: Again, the idea we're exploring in this episode isn't exactly how much money will make you happy, but at what point happiness stops growing. Yes, knowing your family is set and having the ability to provide for them definitely will make you a bit happier. But can you be more happy than that? And how can money contribute to that? Well, for one, it can increase the power you have of your own life. Ankara already talked about this. He talked about how when he was in his early 20s, he had a few million dollars and that allowed him to start his second company. But what a lot of people don't know is Ankara actually did this another time. After selling teachable, he walked away from a much larger sum.

[00:14:01] Ankur Nagpal: So one of the big things that meaningfully changed the quality of my life and money helped is tied to my employment at the company I sold to. I had over $10 million worth of equity that would vest tied to my employment, but I didn't want to do that. So being able to walk away from that was something where it's like a clear impact of like, if I had $0, there's no way I would walk away from a $10 million employment contract. But now where I'm like, I already have enough, where it's like my freedom and time, that's important. I was able to walk away and give back a bunch of unvested equity being like, you know what? I'm good. My freedom is worth more. So that's a great example of like how it actually did make a big difference.

[00:14:41] Sam Parr: And you spent like two years living a bachelor, young, wealthy guy life.

[00:14:47] Ankur Nagpal: For two years, I was just traveling the world and kind of living a pretty, yes, half nomadic life because I had my place over here, but I was everywhere, like, you know, surf camp in Brazil to, like, driving through former Yugoslavia for a couple of months, just all over, you know, having a good time.

[00:15:03] Sam Parr: What was your burn while you were doing that? 20 grand a month?

[00:15:06] Ankur Nagpal: Yeah, it wasn't even that much, I would guess. Like maybe the single most expensive month. 20 grand, if I were to guess, probably 15 grand. Like, all my flights were always first class. That's one thing. Like any long flight, I will, like get a lie flat bed. So my core burn. Granted, my house is paid off in cash. I have no monthly house payment. My burn was like, yeah, I would say 10 to 15 grand a month.

[00:15:29] Sam Parr: You know what's funny though, is that you went crazy. Not crazy, but you lived, uh, almost a fantasy life for many people for two years. And you went back to work, though?

[00:15:38] Ankur Nagpal: Yeah, I think we're just wired this way. Where I just had this sense I'm, like, chilling on the beach, and I'm like, dude, I'm 32 years old, 33 years old. I'm too young to be doing this shit. I miss the sensation of, like, building stuff. I don't think I want to grind and work super hard in my 40s and 50s. Maybe I will, maybe I'll change. But my 30s have definitely felt like that's what I want to be doing. I want to be grinding. I want to be building. It's not even about the money. It's just like it feels like that's my sport in a way. And I want to play my sport and be the best I can at the sport I play versus kind of just chilling.

[00:16:16] Sam Parr: Look, if we were going to go out there and survey a bunch of people and we asked them, what would you do if you made a bunch of money? Of course, everyone's gonna say, I'd quit my job and go travel. I think you'd say that, too. I mean, everyone's going to say that, but if you're listening to this podcast, I think you lean more on the ambitious side and quitting your job and traveling, that's going to bring a bring the happiness for a little while. But in my opinion, that's not going to make you overall happy. And that's exactly what happened to anchor, just sitting around in stagnant luxury that did not move his needle. My buddy Michael has similar thoughts.

[00:16:45] Michael: My attitude towards money has always been the same. I've always really focused on what makes me happy, not what people expect to make you happy, which is buying stuff or spending money.

[00:16:58] Sam Parr: And that's not to say that he doesn't make some purely fun purchases.

[00:17:02] Michael: So I ended up buying a Porsche, but I didn't buy it because the superficial brand of Porsche. I bought it because I rented a Porsche for the day, and my wife and I had a blast, and it was the experience that we enjoyed. I've always focused on those experiences. That's kind of like what's always been important.

[00:17:19] Sam Parr: By the way, did the Porsche live up to the hype? Did you enjoy it?

[00:17:22] Michael: Oh yeah.

[00:17:25] Sam Parr: The takeaway here, I think, from Anker's story, is what he learned in the process of trying to have a relaxing life. He recognized that he needs to fill his time with something that he's passionate about. In this case, it's contributing. It's making businesses, it's building big things. That's a passion where money is very, very useful. So Ankur stopped traveling and returned to New York and founded a company called Oko, which is now called carry, and it's a fintech startup. Are you paying yourself at Oko?

[00:17:50] Ankur Nagpal: Nope.

[00:17:51] Sam Parr: And how much does that raise?

[00:17:52] Ankur Nagpal: We raised $5 million. $2.5 million is from my own fund. $2.5 million from 200 other investors. But again, as a second time founder, I'm like, I kind of like to control my entire cap table, which we do right now, versus, you know, having other random third parties decide what you can or can't do. And again, that's a benefit you have with money.

[00:18:12] Sam Parr: What's your expenses now per month? You think now that you're living in New York City. You have a nice home. You just basically have property taxes and entertainment. I would imagine you don't have too much. What's that look like, dude?

[00:18:22] Ankur Nagpal: Guess how much my property taxes are. For what it's worth, my. To give you context. Home is worth, you know, a few million dollars. But property tax in New York are weird. Guess how much I pay in property taxes?

[00:18:31] Sam Parr: Well, I would guess like 60,000 a year.

[00:18:34] Ankur Nagpal: Four grand a year. This is an old townhouse, $4,000 a year. So property taxes are virtually zero. My cost of living like. As in, like owning this house are very, very low. My monthly expenses, again, like they're between, you know, based on the monthly close to 15 grand on a higher month, ten grand on a lower month in that sort of range. And I'm doing all I want. Really?

[00:18:57] Sam Parr: Are you budgeting?

[00:18:58] Ankur Nagpal: No, I don't care. But that's the benefit is I don't have to think about it. I don't care about it. I like log on once in a while and kind of see how I'm doing. And that's sort of where I'm at. To me, the whole point of this whole game is like, if you're stressing about money in any way, shape or form, the pursuit of more, not having enough or whatever, like that's kind of missing the point. The fact that I don't have to think about it is what's most valuable.

[00:19:22] Sam Parr: Can you reveal what your net worth is now and what that portfolio breakdown is?

[00:19:26] Ankur Nagpal: It's hard to know sort of the value of public, private, whatever. But I would say if I include all my assets, including like equity in the company where I've not realized it and stuff, it would be north of nine figures in terms of how that sort of breaks down of my liquid assets, I take about half of it and it just indexes the market just like roughly tracks the S&P, a little bit of small cap so forth, index funds, low fees. And that's what I think everyone should be doing with the majority of their money. The other half and you may say half is a big percentage. I think it's also based on the raw amount isn't assets that I feel like I have a competitive advantage. So for me, a lot of it turns out to be my own venture funds. I've started two venture funds, and totally between the two of them raised close to 80 million bucks. As well as investing in a bunch of startups, friends, funds, friends, projects, all of that. So that's roughly how it breaks down. I have a little bit of crypto just in the off chance the Bitcoin assholes are right about how the world's going to go.

[00:20:20] Sam Parr: Are you ever afraid of missing out on certain things because you're in the position that you're in versus, quote, being normal.

[00:20:28] Ankur Nagpal: I do worry a little about being trapped in a bubble, right? Because a lot of what we live in is a bubble. And one of the ways I try to sort of force reset a little is super grateful for America. I could not have done what I've done pretty much anywhere else. Like super grateful for this country, but I still try a bunch to, like, get out of this country, travel the world, spend time in other places just to sort of force reset a little bit and just realize how big the world is in terms of missing out on things. Not really. Like in general. I just feel so fortunate about people have asked me, they're like, oh, do you regret selling the company? When you did, your revenue doubled right after. You could have made more money this way or more money that way. I just feel like we're kind of so lucky to be in this position that of course, we worked hard. Of course, we did a lot of things right, but life kind of worked out and it would be sort of a dick move to be upset about, like one small facet of it when like 99% has worked out so well. My own monologue to myself is like, dude, you've been so fucking lucky and fortunate and like, life has been so good and you've been just blessed in so many different ways. It'd be real shitty of you to complain about stuff.

[00:21:40] Sam Parr: All right, so let's get some firm answers. What amount of money stops contributing to general overall happiness? Because there will always be more to acquire. The number we've been looking for, we've been calling it the threshold number, and that's the number that you don't have to keep chasing it down. You can live happily and not worry anymore. Obviously we've been exploring it mostly through Anchor Story. Because of that, we need to consider a few more things before we hear his response. Anchor is in his 30s. He understands his passions, his motivators. He's got a strong foundation for his well-being. And he lives in New York, which is incredibly expensive except for property tax, which honestly shocked me. But anyway, here it is.

[00:22:13] Ankur Nagpal: If I were to guess, the number is probably 10 million bucks, maybe a little bit more. I know some people who, especially when they become parents living in New York City, they're making half a million plus a year. They still don't feel like safe or like they have enough to live a comfortable life. So New York, I do think the threshold is high. I would say maybe $10 million is sort of the like I'm good. Potentially even a little bit more. But for me, it was definitely like after the exit, way past that before the exit. Definitely not there.

[00:22:39] Sam Parr: But you only spend like 15,000 a month and you own your own home. Yep. You're good. You're good for many lifetimes unless you start ratcheting up those expenses.

[00:22:48] Ankur Nagpal: I'm good man. Again, as I said, the only thing that will sort of change is the number I go to the grave with, frankly. And I'm still out here building a company I want my company to be, you know, 1 billion or $10 billion company, because that is sort of the scoreboard and the game we play. But it's not about the money making a meaningful difference to my life anymore. I think that threshold has been passed.

[00:23:12] Sam Parr: All right. Now let's hear from my friend Michael. Remember, he's a lawyer friend of mine who's bringing in north of $10 million a year. And after the pod, he actually told me that next year it's going to be closer to 15.

[00:23:20] Michael: I think, 500 K a year. I was able to buy everything I wanted and I didn't feel like there was nothing I couldn't do that I couldn't afford. Like, it's.

[00:23:30] Sam Parr: A lot of money in California.

[00:23:32] Michael: No, not in.

[00:23:32] Sam Parr: K, that's 250,000 a year, or maybe 300,000 or something like.

[00:23:36] Michael: That. So, like I settled a case for a million, as I say yesterday, right? Zero dopamine hit literally zero. But I'll settle like a 15 K case where the adjuster is just like an asshole and like, we'll litigate the case and grind him to death and they'll pay. And it's just like the sense of winning that gives me that dopamine hit. But right now, in terms of monetary recovery, there's no amount of money I could think of that would give me a dopamine hit. Like a feeling excited, like I got more money.

[00:24:06] Sam Parr: So Walker says it's a liquid net worth of around $10 million. And Michael, he says he's good at around $500,000 a year. But I'm not going to cop out here and say, oh, it's complicated or it's different for everyone else because frankly, I'm not satisfied with that. And I don't think you are either. Here's my answer. It's 25 million. The way I came to that number was I asked a bunch of wealthy people how much money they spent per month, and on average is around $80,000 a month. Then I looked up, what's a safe amount of money to withdraw from your liquid nut, which is around 3%. And so you need around $25 million to be able to withdraw roughly $1 million per year safely. And that's how I came to my number. And guess what? I still think it's true. I believe that money is a tool that can bring happiness to us, but that doesn't mean just because we have money, we're going to be happy. We still have to have our act together. There's a reason why there's a lot of rich, unhappy people. You still need to go to therapy. I go to therapy. A lot of my rich friends go to therapy. You have to have some general idea as to what you value in life, what motivates you, and how you can use money to get more of that. And anchor even told us that, that he knew that getting into this and getting wealthy, that he knew that's what's going to happen. But learning it firsthand was still eye opening.

[00:25:10] Ankur Nagpal: So I've read enough that I was not surprised. But the whole idea, right? If the hedonic treadmill money does not make a material difference to like your general state of happiness or well-being. So I was well prepared in that. I'd kind of heard that. But yeah, like your day to day reality one year after selling your company, you may have less of other stresses, but the baseline is you are who you are and you're going to experience, you know what you do. Like, for instance, for me not doing my job, sleeping better, being in better physical shape, meaningfully move my baseline. Having more money in your bank account does not meaningfully move your baseline sense of well-being.

[00:25:46] Sam Parr: All right, we're not quite done yet. Even though both Michael and Ankur have surpassed their thresholds, I still think more money can bring bits of joy and excitement. Listen to what Ankur is looking forward to when growing his net worth.

[00:25:57] Ankur Nagpal: So this sounds really dumb, but I think I truly believe money makes you more of who you are, and it sometimes takes you back to the shit you found cool when you were young and I grew up like cricket was sport like I played internationally like it was my one true love. I absolutely would, like, buy a sports team. I think that is like the coolest, most fun thing you could do with money because it is the intersection of a lot of things I'm interested in. So I would say that would be like my one silly thing that wealthy, especially dudes do. That to me seems like it'd be so much fun.

[00:26:30] Sam Parr: How much would that cost?

[00:26:31] Ankur Nagpal: Dude, it depends. The teams in India are so expensive. It's like one of the most watched leagues in the world. It's like at least $1 billion. It's crazy. But there's a US cricket league that's getting started. Maybe get involved there. But my goal is of course I want to run the business there, but I want to be like part of the draft. I want to be like involved with choosing the lineup. Like I want to be involved. So yeah.

[00:26:50] Sam Parr: Like Mark Cuban of cricket.

[00:26:51] Ankur Nagpal: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. That seems like it'd be dope.

[00:27:02] Sam Parr: All right, that's pretty much it. Now, I'm sure a lot of you have been thinking, what is my threshold number? And guess what? I'm curious. So I want you to tell me you can find me on Twitter. My name is the Sampah. All one word. You can find me on Twitter and tweet at me and tell me what is your number? We basically distilled overall life happiness down to a few metrics for the sake of shaking out a firm answer. And of course, it's not that simple. So I just want to go ahead and say that right there. In this episode, we answered the question of the threshold number, which is at what point will more money not increase happiness, but along with general well-being strategies that apply to everyone? We didn't really discuss how Anker manages all the new potential problems that come with having a lot of money, particularly when you're really young. Problems with dating, friendships, new anxieties, pressures, and the list goes on. Managing all of these things are crucial, and without doing so, more money will not be able to have a meaningful contribution to your overall happiness. And the reason we didn't get into that in this episode is basically it'd become a really, really long audiobook instead of a podcast. The Hampton community, which I mentioned at the top of the show, is constantly talking about all these challenges. We want to get to all those topics and explore them in depth on money wise, in the same way that we did on this episode. But I'm gonna be honest with you, the show is a ton of work, and guess what? It costs a lot of money.

[00:28:11] Sam Parr: So if you want to hear more of these episodes, episodes where we dive deep into the personal finances of high net worth people, where we dive deep into the problems that they have, and to the different research of what it says about their problems. Tweet at me. I'm at the sampah and you have to let me know. Otherwise, we're not going to make any more of these podcasts. We've got a lot of ideas on how we can make this great, but I'm only going to do this if you actually love it. And if you want to hang out with a bunch of people like this, people who have a high net worth, who are running companies, and you're the CEO, founder, owner of a different company, you got to check out Hampton. It's my company. I'm in there. A bunch of people who we talk about in this podcast are there. You can check it out, join Hampton. And by the way, I've got to give a quick shout out to Lower Street. It's the podcast agency that helped me turn this into reality. This podcast started as an idea that actually really intimidated me. I thought it was going to be a ton of work, and it was, but I used Lower Street and they did all of the work and it made my life so much easier. And they're actually a member of Hampton, and that's how I met them. So I'm giving a plug for Hampton and Lower Street. You can check them out. Lower Street. This has been money wise.