--- title: '"I Made $6 Million at Age 26—and Lost It by 28"' description: 'Dave Asprey, bestselling author of The Bulletproof Diet, confesses his greatest #financialfail: Not walking away from a losing investment' authors: - name: Farnoosh Torabi url: https://money.com/author/farnoosh-torabi/ at_money_since: 2014 articles: 10 covers: - Lifestyle - Career Advice - Housing - Personal Finance social: - https://x.com/FARNOOSH former_staff: true published: '2015-01-23T15:37:27.000Z' modified: '2024-04-16T05:08:54.000Z' section: Lifestyle tags: - '#financialfail' - company stock - Dave Asprey - Financial Planning - Investing - SoMoney - The Bulletproof Diet word_count: 488 canonical: https://money.com/dave-asprey-bulletproof-diet-money/ type: Article source: structured-blocks --- > **Disclosure:** We research all brands listed and may earn a fee from our partners. Research and financial considerations may influence how brands are displayed. Not all brands are included. [Learn more](https://money.com/page/disclaimer/). ![Dave Asprey](https://img.money.com/2015/01/150122_ff_mademoneylostit2.jpg?crop=0px%2C563px%2C1872px%2C1053px&quality=85) Not only is Dave Asprey the author of the recent *New York Times* bestselling book *The Bulletproof Diet,* he's also a Silicon Valley investor and tech entrepreneur. His biggest financial fail, he admits, was being too greedy in his 20s and failing to get professional help with investment decisions. “I made $6 million when I was 26," he says, "And I lost it when I was 28.” Here’s how it happened, as told to me on my new podcast, [*So Money:*](http://podcast.farnoosh.tv/2015/01/dave-asprey/) > My career accelerated quite a lot at that time. I was the youngest guy at Exodus Communications, a $36 billion company. > > I was in charge of due diligence for our mergers and acquisitions department. So, when we wanted to buy a company, I was the guy who'd go in and say, 'Is this technology going to work for us? Yes or no?' > > I attended board meetings. And because of that, I knew all of the upcoming acquisitions. So, I was blacked out \[of trading stock he had received as part of his compensation\]; it was illegal. > > When those stocks started to teeter, what I should have done was quit my job, sell all of my shares and retire. Instead, I said, 'I can't do that. I might lose an additional $4 million in uninvested equity or something.' > > So I stayed at the company. And the stock dropped from $60 a share to $5 a share. > > In retrospect, I should have thought, 'I have enough money. I can do whatever I want. I should just walk away today.' I could have done that. But for six months, I didn't walk away. > > Every day, I was worth less and less in the bank account. And that was a grinding down, horrible feeling. > > And there's another thing. I don't think I've ever talked about this: I was with some online broker—going back 15 years. It was a very cutting edge broker that let me do options and all this stuff. > > Based on the reports it seemed like I had a couple hundred thousand grand in the account, at least enough to take care of my basic expenses. But there was a margin on that account that I didn't even know about because I wasn't managing the stuff tightly. I was too stubborn and fearful to hire someone to help me manage it. The margin ended up consuming most of the account before I even noticed. > > Today, the advice translates to: Hire a professional to pay attention to the stuff that you're not paying attention to." *Every day, Money contributing editor Farnoosh Torabi interviews entrepreneurs, authors and financial luminaries about their money philosophies, successes, failures and habits for her podcast, [So Money](http://www.somoneypodcast.com/)—which is a "New and Noteworthy" podcast on iTunes.* **More by Farnoosh Torabi:** - How Much Should You Spend on an Engagement Ring? - 3 Ways Couples Can Dig Out of Debt After the Holidays - Should You Pay Off Your Spouse’s Debts? ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://money.com/dave-asprey-bulletproof-diet-money/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://money.com" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Lifestyle", "item": "https://money.com/lifestyle/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Health and Wellness", "item": "https://money.com/health-and-wellness/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "\"I Made $6 Million at Age 26—and Lost It by 28\"" } ] }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://money.com/#website", "url": "https://money.com", "name": "Money", "publisher": { "@id": "https://money.com/#organization" } }, { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://money.com/dave-asprey-bulletproof-diet-money/#webpage", "url": "https://money.com/dave-asprey-bulletproof-diet-money/", "name": "\"I Made $6 Million at Age 26—and Lost It by 28\"", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://money.com/#website" }, "datePublished": "2015-01-23T15:37:27.000Z", "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://money.com/dave-asprey-bulletproof-diet-money/" }, "inLanguage": "en-US", "breadcrumb": { "@id": "https://money.com/dave-asprey-bulletproof-diet-money/#breadcrumb" }, "dateModified": "2024-04-16T05:08:54.000Z" }, { "@type": "Article", "headline": "\"I Made $6 Million at Age 26—and Lost It by 28\"", "articleSection": "Lifestyle", "image": [ { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://img.money.com/2015/01/150122_ff_mademoneylostit2.jpg?crop=0px%2C563px%2C1872px%2C1053px&quality=85", "width": 1012, "height": 569, "caption": "150122_FF_MadeMoneyLostIt2" } ], "author": [ { "@type": "Person", "name": "Farnoosh Torabi", "url": "https://money.com/author/farnoosh-torabi/", "@id": "https://money.com/author/farnoosh-torabi/#author", "image": "https://img.money.com/2014/05/140530_bio_author_torabi.jpg?quality=85&w=190&h=190&crop=1", "email": "farnoosh@farnoosh.tv", "sameAs": [ "https://x.com/FARNOOSH" ] } ], "publisher": "https://money.com/#organization", "datePublished": "2015-01-23T15:37:27.000Z", "description": "Dave Asprey, bestselling author of The Bulletproof Diet, confesses his greatest #financialfail: Not walking away from a losing investment", "abstract": "Dave Asprey, bestselling author of The Bulletproof Diet, confesses his greatest #financialfail: Not walking away from a losing investment", "@id": "https://money.com/dave-asprey-bulletproof-diet-money/", "inLanguage": "en-US", "dateModified": "2024-04-16T05:08:54.000Z", "wordCount": 488, "keywords": [ "#financialfail", "company stock", "Dave Asprey", "Financial Planning", "Investing", "SoMoney", "The Bulletproof Diet" ], "about": [ { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Lifestyle", "sameAs": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifestyle" ] }, { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Health", "sameAs": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health" ] } ] } ] } ```