This Tech Wiz Sold His Company For $1.6 Billion – Then Gave It All Away Because He Thinks Owning Super Yachts Is ‘Obnoxious’ – AT&T (NYSE:T)

Imagine founding a tech company, selling it for $1.6 billion, and then giving all but $100 million of it to your favorite charities. It sounds far-fetched, but that’s exactly what AppNexus founder Brian O’Kelly has been doing since he sold his company in 2018. 

O’Kelly told Fortune that his philanthropy is rooted in his sense of personal responsibility and commitment to living a normal life. Tech billionaires are famous for extravagant displays of wealth, such as Amazon founder Jeff Bezos‘ multimillion-dollar wedding in Venice. So, why not O’Kelly? He told Fortune he believes that owning super yachts and mega mansions is “obnoxious.” “I don’t get why you need $200 billion, $500 billion, or even $1 billion,” he said.

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O’Kelly also added that having a self-imposed wealth cap helps to keep him centered. “We never wanted to have so much money we didn’t have to make choices. It’s meant that we can’t be completely ridiculous about our life,” said O’Kelly. “We have an amazing life, we can do almost everything we want. But we can’t quite do anything we want—we have to talk about our budget like anybody else does.”

AppNexus is a cloud-based app that allows users to create fully integrated ad campaigns across mobile and desktop devices. O’Kelly’s company platform functioned so well that AT&T T acquired it in 2018. 

O’Kelly told Fortune he wanted to limit the impact that coming into such a large amount of money would have on not just his own life, but also on his children’s. He said he had long discussions with his wife to figure out how much money they would need for themselves.

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“I don’t believe in billionaires. I think it’s just ridiculous,” O’Kelly said. “We just figured out a number that we thought was enough money—to be able to buy a house and things like that—and then we doubled it, and we gave the rest away.” He said that they decided to keep $100 million and give the rest of the money to charities and causes they believed in.

Keeping himself centered wasn’t O’Kelly’s only motivation. He was also thinking about how having such a large sum of money might affect his children. He said he didn’t want them to become spoiled and admitted to Fortune that he still struggles to strike the right balance between privilege and tough love. Despite having more than enough money to book charter flights, O’Kelly said he even has misgivings about his children flying business class. 

“I’ve flown all around the world in coach so many times, this is me spoiling myself, but I don’t want to spoil my kids,” he said. “And a lot of this comes back to me thinking about how life looks from their eyes. I want them to have a bit of that struggle that I had.” O’Kelly’s approach may be different from many of his contemporaries, but it’s not hard to see its merits.

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“There’s something about keeping connected to normalcy that is really, really important,” he told Fortune. “I don’t want a yacht and I don’t ever want to be able to be without consequences. I think that’s the biggest risk, is, how can we be accountable when we have so much money we can buy anything?” O’Kelly even has to live within his self-imposed financial constraints in his business life.

Not one to rest on his laurels, O’Kelly founded a new company called Scope3, which tracks supply-chain-related emissions data. He told Fortune he plans to give away the money from that endeavor if it has similar success to AppNexus. In the meantime, he’s just like any other founder. That means struggling with budgets and relying on VC funders for capital.

O’Kelly wouldn’t have it any other way. “Look, there’s days where I am like, ‘man, I wish I had some money,’ because my company could use an infusion of cash,” he said. “That would be great if I didn’t have to ask VCs. But you know what that is? That’s accountability.”

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