'I've never felt more isolated': The man who sold Minecraft to Microsoft for $2.5 billion reveals the empty side of success

By Julie Bort 14 hours ago

• (Sklathill / Flickr) Markus Persson.

It's the dream of many a startup founder: Make something people love and wind up wildly rich, selling the company for billions.

But after you do that, what comes next? It could be a sense of hopeless isolation. 

So says Minecraft founder Markus Persson (aka "Notch") in a strangely revealing series of tweets.

Microsoft bought Minecraft for $2.5 billion almost a year ago, and the founder did not join Microsoft after the sale.

Persson certainly looked like he was having a blast, living the big life. He bought a $70 million mansion, complete with a massive wall of candy, and has been hosting wild parties ever since.

But he's really bored and deeply lonely, he revealed in a series of tweets.

"The problem with getting everything is you run out of reasons to keep trying, and human interaction becomes impossible due to imbalance," he tweeted.

"Hanging out in ibiza with a bunch of friends and partying with famous people, able to do whatever I want, and I've never felt more isolated."

Here's the whole tweet string: