‘Sudden wealth syndrome 2.0’: Therapists say AI’s new multimillionaires feel guilty, isolated and cut off from everyone else

The AI boom has minted a new class of very rich people, and some therapists say the emotional fallout looks a lot like the dot-com era — only sharper. Deedy Das of Menlo Ventures estimated in May that about 10,000 people, including employees at Anthropic, OpenAI, xAI, Nvidia and Meta plus founders, have built fortunes above $20 million in the past five years. His point wasn’t that they’re miserable. It was that many of them also feel a “profound lack of purpose.”

Joan DiFuria and Stephen Goldbart have seen this movie before. They founded the Money, Meaning & Choices Institute in the 1990s to help people cope with the first internet windfall, and now they say AI has brought back “sudden wealth syndrome.” DiFuria called it “sudden wealth syndrome 2.0,” arguing that this wave is stranger because the money comes from technology many people view as destructive, including some of the people making it.

And there’s no shortage of expensive places to process those feelings. TIGER 21 requires at least $20 million in investable assets or qualifying net worth just to join. Paracelsus Recovery in Zurich charges about £100,000, or roughly $131,000, a week for a residential stay that includes a private chef, a driver and a live-in therapist. One consultancy that helps wealthy families find doctors and mental health care charges retainers starting at $30,000 for 50 hours.

The awkward part is social, not just psychological. DiFuria pointed to the anxiety around AI itself, noting that Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has warned the technology could wipe out half of entry-level white-collar jobs. That makes it harder to talk to friends, she said, when the source of your fortune is also something people fear.

The scale of the money explains why the problem keeps showing up. Fortune reported in August 2025 that there were 498 AI unicorns worth a combined $2.7 trillion, while Forbes counted at least 86 AI billionaires worth $2.9 trillion on its 2026 list, including 45 newcomers. Goldbart said many of these people end up in their own subculture, then retreat further into compounds, islands and other private enclaves. His read on it was blunt: society is sliding toward a bigger split between the haves and the have-nots, and the rich are moving farther out of reach.