07-15-26 MEDM AM

July 15, 2026

Jake Kassan was just 27 years old when he sold MVMT Watches for $100 million.

He was a college dropout. Built it from nothing. Five years later, opened his Chase app the morning after closing and the digits in his account were as long as a freaking phone number.

You know what happened next?

Nothing. That was the problem.

No deal to close. No fire to put out. No team to lead. Just money sitting there and a guy who had no clue what to do with himself.

A few years later he's alone in a hotel room in Australia having a full blown panic attack. He said it himself. "I finally climbed to the top of my mountain. But I didn't find what I was looking for."

Without purpose, people self-destruct. The money just makes it quieter for a while.

Bezos and Musk keep building. Simple minds keep asking how much money do they need and don't understand this whole thing is a game.

Because they get it. The calls, the pressure, the problems, the wins. That was the whole thing. The money was just how you kept score.

Take the game away and the scoreboard means nothing.

I built the Deal Maker Alliance for exactly this reason. It's the room I go to stay surrounded by people who are still in the game. People who've built something real and aren't done yet.

People who understand that the journey is the whole point.

If you want to keep growing and living with purpose, you need to get around people who get that.


Mark Evans DM