One day in 1987 he realized that he wasn't interested in programming anymore. Yesterday it was still a challenge. Today it wasn't. Nor did he care about business or marketing or even the people he worked with. They had all changed, the job had changed, the company had changed. It wasn't any fun and if he just sold his stock he'd never have to work another day in his life. When you win the lottery, do you go back to sweeping the supermarket aisles? That's all his job had become to him.

He cashed out all but about ten percent of his stock and there he was at age twenty-six with twelve and a half million dollars. Fifty software and hardware companies offered him ludicrously high salaries that no one could ever really earn, and he turned them all down. So there he was with a rented houseboat, no career, and, to put it candidly, no life. It was as if he had been running a long, long race and finally realized that there was nobody else in it with him, he had crossed the finish line years ago and didn't notice it because not a soul was there to cheer for him and clap him on the back and say, "Good run, Quen! Good run!"

Or, come to think of it, maybe they were there, only Quentin himself didn't care what they thought of him and so he sloughed off their praise and their friendship because he was still waiting for the one voice he'd never hear again.

What do you do with 12.5 million bucks? Quentin put most of it into safe stocks and bonds, a nest egg which he never touched except to move from one safe investment to another. In his worst year, the recession of '91, he still made a million in interest, dividends, and capital gains. He paid off his parents' house and bought them a nice car and then couldn't think of anything else to do with his money. Even renting a very nice apartment, he still needed only about fifty thou a year to live on, which included a car of his own (nothing outrageous, just a Nissan Maxima).