Meet man, who sold his startup for nearly Rs 85,662,500,000, now has no income, looking for...

It's unimaginable that a person who till recently owned millions of dollars is now struggling to get a job, with very little money. Loom’s founder Vinay Hiremath sold his startup in 2023 to Atlassian for nearly USD 1 billion (Rs 85,662,500,000). He earned from it USD 50 to 70 million (Rs 4,278,125,000 to 5,996,375,000). Surprisingly, the founder does not have any income and is forced to take up internships. Sharing his journey in an episode of a recent podcast, the 33-year-old revealed how he turned millionaire from being a “broke stoner” and how he now uses his time and money.  

Who is Vinay Hiremath? 

Vinay Hiremath is the India-origin co-founder of Loom. In an earlier blog post, he has written that he has “no idea” what to do with his life. “I am rich and have no idea what to do with my life," is the title of his blog post. 

Vinay Hiremath’s journey of becoming a founder  

He studied at the University of Illinois for two years after which he dropped and landed an internship of four months at Facebook as a software engineer. His role in the startup Backplane was his first biggest as he joined there as an engineer in August 2012. Here he learned how to “hack”, as he says. Here he also met Shahed Khan, with whom he developed Loom, a video messaging company. 

After spending a little over a year there, in September 2013, Vinay Hiremath joined another startup called Upthere, where he enhanced his technical skills and knowledge before finally co-founding Loom with Shahed Khan and Joe Thomas in 2015. He was the head of engineering at his startup for over four years before getting promoted to chief technology officer in April 2020. 

Vinay Hiremath made money and then lost 

The host of Moneywise podcast, Sam Parr, said that Hiremath rejected the USD 60 million (Rs 5,139,750,000) retention bonus in his startup, which would have become fully available in over four years, and has no qualms about it. Vinay Hiremath did not reveal the exact amount that he received after selling Loom but stated that the amount is roughly between USD 30 (Rs 2,569,875,000) to USD 100 million (Rs 8,566,250,000). So, Parr concluded himself that the amount would be roughly between $50 to $70 million. However, he revealed at least this much that he has enough money for his future kids.  

The co-founder of Loom sold his biz for ~$1B, made $50-70M personally, then walked away from an extra $60M

He has “no income right now” and is “looking for internships”...@vhmth has a wild post-exit story. we talked about it on Moneywise:

-Turned down $60M in retention… pic.twitter.com/uTdS5blabz

— Sam Parr (@thesamparr) March 25, 2025

“Well, I left 60 on the table. I have no income. Right now, I'm looking for internships,” said the Indian-origin Illinois-born founder. His statement earlier this year made him viral, in which he said that he had made a lot more money than he knows what to do with. “After selling my company, I find myself in the totally un-relatable position of never having to work again,” he wrote. 

What is Vinay Hiremath doing now? 

Parr in his podcast said that Hiremath is “studying physics 5-8 hours daily, hanging in Discord groups with 18-year-olds who think he's their peer… looking to intern as a mechanical engineer.” His vision is to get an internship at a robotics company. 

“I've been like doing a bunch of physics. I am potentially, hopefully – knock on wood – interviewing at a few different startups here, like couple robotics companies to basically intern as a mechanical engineer,” Hiremath said on the podcast. “And then I want to intern as an electrical engineer. I really don't know what I'm going to do with this,” he added.