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The point of a big score is not to retire.

It is having the privileige of not having to worry about money and being able to do exactly what you want.

If I sold a company for 200 million dollars I'd give half of it to charity, keep 10 millions as my own money and then put the rest in some big hard interesting project.

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Couldn't you just do exactly what you want in the first place?

No, since the big hard project might require lots of money to do. Normally, money has strings attached (must be paid back, must give equity in a company with potential for liquidity, etc) which restricts what you can do. Do you think pg could have started YC w/o his ViaWeb $$? Or could tlb start AnyBots? Sure, you can work on stuff like that in your spare time, but huge projects usually require a bigger commitment than fits into spare time. Not having to sacrifice time or focus on earning money gives you a whole lot more to throw at a problem.

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