A founder left his comfortable Intel job in San Francisco because money wasn't enough. He spent a decade building Stack Commerce into a nine-figure business, then sold a majority stake to TPG. The real drive was always about building something, not the payoff.
For most of the most successful people, like, money is a byproduct, but it's not really the reason. I'm sitting in some cubicle in San Francisco working for Intel, and I'm 23, and they're offering me raises, and I'm getting more and more comfortable financially. But like, they're like, literally would wake up sick to my stomach being like, what the fuck? This is not me. Something's not right. I would— I could remember being 24, 25, just like, something's not right. Like, I don't— I didn't even know what it was. I always knew I wanted to start something. I think I had that fire or drive in me from an early age. For the next decade, I really spent a decade preparing to launch the startup that would ultimately work called Stack Commerce. Scaled the company to 9 figures, ran that company for a decade, and then sold a majority stake to a big private equity fund called TPG. It's funny, I think this is the first reaction, though, that a lot of people would probably have to that, which is like, wow, that, that like takes balls. Yeah, but I don't think it's that. I think it's something else. I think it's like you couldn't go do that thing.
