My classmate from high school landed at SpaceX in 2015. Recently I tried to reach out—just a quick congrats, maybe catch up. Nothing. His Facebook gone. Instagram deleted. LinkedIn scrubbed clean.
I found out later he was likely sitting on $100M+ in equity. That explains the vanishing act.
There's something almost physical about the pressure that kind of wealth brings. You become a target for every scam artist, every long-lost cousin, every journalist writing a profile. Your digital presence stops being harmless and starts being a liability. The sensible move is to disappear.
But I wonder if it's more than just safety. When your life transforms that completely, maybe you need to shed the old version of yourself too. The person who sat next to you in AP History doesn't really exist anymore. And every time someone from that era recognizes you, you're forced back into a role that no longer fits.
The internet remembers everything. So when you finally have the means to opt out, maybe you take it.
Has anyone else watched someone go dark after hitting it big? I keep thinking about what it must feel like to become unrecognizable to your own past.
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