uh, pretty sure 10-20 million is in fact "do whatever you want for the rest of your life" money. Certainly do anything normal that you want. perhaps you can't buy a jet. damn.
10million * 3% dividend stocks = 300k per year just having it sit there. Maybe not entirely risk free, but not too risky either.
Exactly. I could never bring myself to use billions on super luxury stuff anyway and would wind up donating most of that money to a good cause (I wonder if the Gates foundation accepts donations?).
Lets say you want to get into automotive racing. Assuming you want to race in professional series such as ALMS or similar you could easily burn 5M a year.
20M is plenty to live a very well off life, but its not "do anything you want for the rest of your life" money. Look at how many professional athletes/musicians manage to blow many multiples of that amount.
I included the caveat of "normal". Obviously that amount of money is "spendable." 300k a year though will service a very nice lifestyle though. You can live an upper class lifestyle most places in the world without doing anything.
Also, perhaps I'm naive, but I expect tech startup founders to be better with their money than professional athletes. Yes, you could be an idiot, but that doesn't mean 10 mil isn't FU money. It is if you have even a little bit of a brain. You can spend nearly any amount of money, but that's not really the point. You can put your 3 billion all on red and dammit if it didn't come up black. Doesn't make it not FU money. (No casino in the world will take that bet, but you know what I mean).