Why More Founders Need a Personal Wealth Strategy

When I launched my first business in my twenties, I thought success meant sales, scale, and building a brand with cut-through. And to some extent, it did.

But it took me a little longer to realise that real success — the kind that sustains you beyond your startup — also means financial independence. Not just revenue. Not just growth. But wealth.

We don’t talk about this enough. Founders are often so focused on cash flow, growth targets and reinvesting in the business that they neglect their own financial future.

And for women in particular, that can be a costly blind spot — especially in a climate like this.

Right now, the cost of living is at record highs. Inflation is steadily eroding savings. And Australian women are still retiring with, on average, 25% less superannuation than men. Financial literacy is no longer a nice-to-have — it’s a survival skill.

And founders, of all people, should be thinking about how they’re building wealth personally — not just professionally.

When I started my first business, I was a young solo mum navigating life without a blueprint — financially or otherwise. I didn’t grow up talking about money. I didn’t have a financial adviser on speed dial.

But I taught myself. I bought property. I built multiple income streams. I started investing. And I did it all while bootstrapping.

What I learned is this: you don’t need to be a finance expert to build wealth. But you do need to get intentional about it. Because if your personal finances aren’t growing with your business, you’re more exposed than you think.

Here are three things I’ve learned that I now believe every founder should factor into their strategy:

Wealth is the long game, and revenue isn’t enough

There’s a big difference between making money and building wealth. Your business might generate strong revenue, but if you’re not pulling money out, protecting it, and putting it to work, you’re still operating from a place of risk. I learned to treat my personal finances like a second business — with goals, structure, and long-term thinking. That shift was a turning point.

Diversification applies to life, not just portfolios

As founders, we know the risk of relying on a single product or market. The same logic applies to your personal income. One revenue stream — even a thriving one — is still one point of failure. I started looking for ways to build parallel income early: investing in markets, creating digital assets, and adding secondary product lines. That strategy gave me freedom, not just extra income.

Financial literacy makes you a better founder

The more confident I became with money — understanding debt, interest, returns, tax — the sharper my decision-making got. It wasn’t about becoming an expert.

It was about building fluency. Knowing my numbers gave me leverage — in negotiations, in team conversations, and in moments of pressure. It made me more resilient and more resourceful.

We often hear about “closing the gap” in funding, leadership, and opportunity. But there’s another gap we rarely acknowledge: the financial confidence gap.

And it starts with founders — especially women — being willing to prioritise their own wealth as part of their growth story.

You don’t need to have it all figured out. But you do need to start. Because the goal isn’t just to build a successful business — it’s to build a life that gives you freedom, security, and options long after the business has scaled.

Rebecca Klodinsky is the founder of IIXIIST and co-founder of The Prestwick Place, two multi-million dollar brands built without investors or retail stores. Known for her sharp digital strategy and sustainable, direct-to-consumer approach, she continues to rewrite the rules of modern luxury

There has rarely, if ever, been so much tech talent available in the job market. Yet many tech companies say good help is hard to find.

What gives?

U.S. colleges more than doubled the number of computer-science degrees awarded from 2013 to 2022, according to federal data. Then came round after round of layoffs at Google, Meta, Amazon, and others.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts businesses will employ 6% fewer computer programmers in 2034 than they did last year.

All of this should, in theory, mean there is an ample supply of eager, capable engineers ready for hire.

But in their feverish pursuit of artificial-intelligence supremacy, employers say there aren’t enough people with the most in-demand skills. The few perceived as AI savants can command multimillion-dollar pay packages. On a second tier of AI savvy, workers can rake in close to $1 million a year .

Landing a job is tough for most everyone else.

Frustrated job seekers contend businesses could expand the AI talent pipeline with a little imagination. The argument is companies should accept that relatively few people have AI-specific experience because the technology is so new. They ought to focus on identifying candidates with transferable skills and let those people learn on the job.

Often, though, companies seem to hold out for dream candidates with deep backgrounds in machine learning. Many AI-related roles go unfilled for weeks or months—or get taken off job boards only to be reposted soon after.

Playing a different game

It is difficult to define what makes an AI all-star, but I’m sorry to report that it’s probably not whatever you’re doing.

Maybe you’re learning how to work more efficiently with the aid of ChatGPT and its robotic brethren. Perhaps you’re taking one of those innumerable AI certificate courses.

You might as well be playing pickup basketball at your local YMCA in hopes of being signed by the Los Angeles Lakers. The AI minds that companies truly covet are almost as rare as professional athletes.

“We’re talking about hundreds of people in the world, at the most,” says Cristóbal Valenzuela, chief executive of Runway, which makes AI image and video tools.

He describes it like this: Picture an AI model as a machine with 1,000 dials. The goal is to train the machine to detect patterns and predict outcomes. To do this, you have to feed it reams of data and know which dials to adjust—and by how much.

The universe of people with the right touch is confined to those with uncanny intuition, genius-level smarts or the foresight (possibly luck) to go into AI many years ago, before it was all the rage.

As a venture-backed startup with about 120 employees, Runway doesn’t necessarily vie with Silicon Valley giants for the AI job market’s version of LeBron James. But when I spoke with Valenzuela recently, his company was advertising base salaries of up to $440,000 for an engineering manager and $490,000 for a director of machine learning.

A job listing like one of these might attract 2,000 applicants in a week, Valenzuela says, and there is a decent chance he won’t pick any of them. A lot of people who claim to be AI literate merely produce “workslop”—generic, low-quality material. He spends a lot of time reading academic journals and browsing GitHub portfolios, and recruiting people whose work impresses him.

In addition to an uncommon skill set, companies trying to win in the hypercompetitive AI arena are scouting for commitment bordering on fanaticism .

Daniel Park is seeking three new members for his nine-person startup. He says he will wait a year or longer if that’s what it takes to fill roles with advertised base salaries of up to $500,000.

He’s looking for “prodigies” willing to work seven days a week. Much of the team lives together in a six-bedroom house in San Francisco.

If this sounds like a lonely existence, Park’s team members may be able to solve their own problem. His company, Pickle, aims to develop personalised AI companions akin to Tony Stark’s Jarvis in “Iron Man.”

Overlooked

James Strawn wasn’t an AI early adopter, and the father of two teenagers doesn’t want to sacrifice his personal life for a job. He is beginning to wonder whether there is still a place for people like him in the tech sector.

He was laid off over the summer after 25 years at Adobe , where he was a senior software quality-assurance engineer. Strawn, 55, started as a contractor and recalls his hiring as a leap of faith by the company.

He had been an artist and graphic designer. The managers who interviewed him figured he could use that background to help make Illustrator and other Adobe software more user-friendly.

Looking for work now, he doesn’t see the same willingness by companies to take a chance on someone whose résumé isn’t a perfect match to the job description. He’s had one interview since his layoff.

“I always thought my years of experience at a high-profile company would at least be enough to get me interviews where I could explain how I could contribute,” says Strawn, who is taking foundational AI courses. “It’s just not like that.”

The trouble for people starting out in AI—whether recent grads or job switchers like Strawn—is that companies see them as a dime a dozen.

“There’s this AI arms race, and the fact of the matter is entry-level people aren’t going to help you win it,” says Matt Massucci, CEO of the tech recruiting firm Hirewell. “There’s this concept of the 10x engineer—the one engineer who can do the work of 10. That’s what companies are really leaning into and paying for.”

He adds that companies can automate some low-level engineering tasks, which frees up more money to throw at high-end talent.

It’s a dynamic that creates a few handsomely paid haves and a lot more have-nots.