AI Made 10,000 Millionaires in Five Years. The Therapists Treating Them Have a Name for Their Problem.
(SeaPRwire) –
By: Lucas Caldwell
The Bay Area invented a mental illness. In the 1990s, therapists coined “sudden wealth syndrome” for dot-com flushes. Now it’s back, and it’s uglier than before. Joan DiFuria and Stephen Goldbart founded their institute back then to treat internet-era get-rich-quick cases. They say AI money hits different. People aren’t just rich. They’re rich from building something many people want to destroy. That guilt and isolation combo has no prior in financial history. Deedy Das, a Menlo Ventures partner, spotted the pattern early.
Das estimates roughly 10,000 people across Anthropic, OpenAI, xAI, Nvidia, and Meta employees plus founders have built wealth above $20 million in the past five years. Many of those who “made it,” he says, feel a profound lack of purpose. CB Insights counted 498 AI unicorns by August 2025 with a combined value of $2.7 trillion. The Wall Street Journal reported more than 600 current and former OpenAI employees sold a collective $6.6 billion in shares in an October 2025 tender offer. Forbes listed at least 86 AI billionaires worth $2.9 trillion combined on its 2026 list, with 45 newcomers.
The care infrastructure has adapted to serve this new breed of rich. TIGER 21 requires at least $20 million in investable assets or qualifying net worth to join its monthly peer sessions. Paracelsus Recovery in Zurich offers a private chef, a driver, and a live-in therapist for about £100,000 a week. One health care consultancy charges retainers starting at $30,000 for 50 hours of mental health care access. Goldbart said he pushes clients toward “operational values” and concrete goals like volunteering or donating. But the most cut-off people rarely call. Self-selection rules.
What makes this wave different from dot-com times is the guilt factor. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has warned AI could eliminate half of all entry-level white-collar jobs. DiFuria points out the uncomfortable truth. If you’re already feeling anxious about your wealth and the whole world is saying what you’re doing is going to kill me or take my job, how do you speak to your friends? That line captures the entire social predicament. These people are rich from building something their friends depend on for employment. The isolation isn’t accidental. It’s structural.
Goldbart called the trend a “major social problem.” Society is drifting toward a great imbalance between haves and have-nots. Zuckerberg’s Kauai compound includes a 5,000-square-foot underground shelter. Bezos has spent about $237 million on three properties on Indian Creek, nicknamed “Billionaire Bunker,” with its own police department. DiFuria says people are raising children who have barely ever left the house. “They don’t know what a poor person looks like,” she said. Meanwhile, a billionaire family she counseled told her “we found our people.”
The AI gold rush isn’t creating new wealth; it’s building the most fortified wall in Silicon Valley history, and its architects are the first ones locked inside it.
Author bio: Lucas Caldwell, a tech opinion leader with millions of followers on X/Twitter, writing sharp takes on Silicon Valley’s power dynamics and the human cost of AI-driven capital concentration.