MySpace Founder's Photography Pivot

A story about how Tom Anderson (MySpace founder) demonstrated an unusual ability to walk away from success multiple times in his life.

"Tom sells MySpace for $580 million and he peaces out. He has this quote where he says 'before the acquisition I could do whatever I wanted, it was pretty fun.' But after the sale he says 'now it takes all this time to get anybody to agree on things because there's like a budget review and a process for everything, it's a pain.' So he's out.

Instead of doing what almost every other business guy does - like trying to cure cancer or take rockets to Mars - Tom decides to travel the world and take pictures. He becomes a world-famous photographer with beautiful pictures from his travels. His Instagram gets almost 700,000 followers.

But then something interesting happens. I was on air chat the other night and somebody shared a story about meeting Tom. They asked him why he stopped posting pictures. Tom told them 'Oh dude, I was traveling in Thailand and I keep all my camera stuff in my locker. My locker got jacked and somebody stole all my cameras.'

Instead of buying new cameras, which he could easily afford, he just moved on to the next adventure. The last anyone heard, someone bumped into him in Hawaii and said he's just swimming, taking pictures, hanging out, and having a great time, not bothered by anything."