u/Cold_Pizz

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

This is the first time I’ve shared this story here or anywhere, for that matter. I’ve kept it to myself for a very long time, but it’s always been on my mind. its time I think to forget it. Hope you read this a*hole.

I'm 38. Ten years ago my closest friend, call him "Alex", completely fell apart. Business folded, buried in debt, in a really bad place mentally, the kind where you don't want to leave the guy alone. So I did the friend thing. He stayed with me about eight months, no rent, I covered part of his therapy, and I lent him money in bits that added up to over 9k. Figured I'd never see most of it and was ok with that. He pulled himself back together eventually and I was proud of him for it.

Last year I finally launched the thing I'd wanted to build forever. Tiny startup, custom AI tools for small businesses. Handful of clients, nothing crazy but it was mine. "Alex" was pumped for me and asked if he could come on. Felt like a no brainer. Gave him repo access, the client database, all my private research. Didn't think twice. It's "Alex".

Then maybe two months ago things got weird. Models doing stuff I never built in. A couple clients mentioned offhand that their version felt "smoother", one guy's word and in a spot or two it was doing things mine wasn't. I assumed it was a bug on my end and lost a whole weekend chasing it.

Turns out "Alex" had been running a shadow copy of the entire project. Still piecing together how much. Far as I can tell he had monitoring sitting on my servers pulling my changes basically as I made them and he'd been quietly standing up his own company off it. The part I still can't get my head around, some of the weird client stuff traces back to faked video calls. Doctored footage of me supposedly badmouthing clients so they'd start seeing me as flaky and drift to him. I don't fully understand what he used and don't really want to.

And it wasn't recent. Going through his files there were notes going back years. Me as an "opportunity", how useful it was watching how I work up close. While he was in my spare room. That's the bit that keeps me up.

I confronted him. Wasn't some movie scene, no monologue, he just shrugged and said something like I always needed to be the good guy and he used it. Bored about it almost.

So now clients are leaving, investors are asking why my product and the guy who built it with me are suddenly somewhere else, and I get to explain that he's someone I dragged out of a hole ten years ago with skills I helped him learn.

Idk what I want from posting this. Needed to say it to people who aren't in my life I guess. Anyone been burned by someone this close who planned it this cold? How do you even deal with realizing you were being studied the whole time you thought you were helping someone.
Could you give me some advice? Is it really possible to learn to trust people after something like this? Because now I see an ulterior motive in everyone and everything.

Quick note for the US crowd before the numbers: I'm in the EU, so there's no 401k, no Roth, no IRA, not even a UK ISA. No tax sheltered retirement wrapper at all. It's all just a plain taxable brokerage at IBKR. Makes the math cleaner but also scarier, since nothing is locked away, it's one account I could nuke any day I lose my mind.

My numbers (I'm single):

• Net worth: ~€305k
• VWCE (FTSE All-World, accumulating): €230k
• AGGH (global bonds): €40k
• P2P (Maclear): ~€10k
• Cash buffer: €25k, about a year of expenses
• No property, I rent a 1 bed at ~€750/mo

Income and spending:

• Job: ~€55k net, remote office thing
• Total spend: ~€2,200/mo, call it €26k/year and that's not me being frugal

Plan:

I checked out mentally months ago but I don't actually want to fully stop. I'd be happy dropping to 2-3 days a week of freelance, covering the €26k myself, and just turning off contributions. Let VWCE ride for 30 years and not touch it.

Math:

If I let the €230k VWCE compound at ~5% real for 30 years, that alone is around €1M in today's money by 65, more once the bonds and the rest do their bit. 4% of that is ~€40k+/year, well above what I spend now. So on paper I crossed Coast a while ago and I keep refusing to believe it.

What's actually nagging me:

1. 100% of this is in taxable accounts and the state pension here is a rounding error I'm not counting. Does having no real pension mean I should want a fatter margin before easing off?
2. VWCE is great right up until it's down 40% the year I stop adding. How much do you weight sequence risk during Coast if you're still earning enough not to sell?
3. Is €25k cash too much or too little once I drop the salary and go part time?

Mostly I want a gut check from people doing this longer than me. Am I genuinely coasting or am I missing something obvious because I've spent 10 years optimizing and can't switch the saving brain off.

Google often provides very accurate and personalized results, but it also collects information such as search history, device and browser data, and other usage data depending on your settings.

DuckDuckGo states that it does not track individual search queries or create a personalized search profile, so it seems like the better option from a privacy standpoint. At the same time, Google can sometimes seem more useful for local searches shopping maps, and very specific queries.