Jeff Berning Ham, a $2B investor and founder of Peak Capital Partners, describes reaching the summit of success only to find "nothing up there but a cold howling wind." He warns that AI will eliminate jobs faster than humans can find new meaning, and recalls an MBA exercise that forced him to confront what he actually wanted beyond achievement.
What in the hell was I thinking? I had become a human doing. I had become addicted to doing. Running a multi-billion-dollar private equity firm with two partners. Launching a venture fund, investing $100 million in venture capital. When you're climbing that mountain, the more you do, the better. The more climbing, the better. There's always something more you can do. Climbing my little mountain of success. Did it work? There's nothing up there but a cold howling wind.
Jeff Berning Ham, founder of Peak Capital Partners, early investor in billion-dollar companies, builder of multi-billion-dollar assets, and board member of 20-plus firms. He's taught entrepreneurship as a professor, traveled to more than 60 countries, ran for governor, and now shares his journey as the author of the last book written by a human.
When AI can do so much of what we're used to do better than us, when there is— I think that there will be significant job loss. The question is, where do How do humans derive meaning if they no longer have to work? My first semester of MBA school, and he said, I want you all to close your eyes and to think of the thing that is most highly motivating you now. I'm a big dreamer, so I was kind of like, okay, cool, I'm going to settle in here and see what I think about. But what happened scared me, like kind of scared me straight, scared me to death.
Money doesn't buy happiness, but not having money buys a lot of unhappiness.
Amen. Yeah.
But if money didn't make you happy, what does wealth mean to you now? I would say two things. Number one,
