Sister Called Me ‘The Selfish One’ – I’m Her Anonymous $95M Investor

Beyond the Noise

I didn’t attend any family events for the next month. My phone rang constantly—Mom, Dad, Sarah, various relatives. I let it all go to voicemail.

The messages were predictable at first. They started with bigger accusations: how could I destroy Sarah’s company? How could I be so vindictive? Was I really going to let my pride hurt 43 innocent employees?

But as the weeks passed, the tone shifted. I received a voicemail from Mom, crying. “We were wrong about you. I see that now. Please call me back.”

A text from Dad said: “I’ve been thinking about all the times we dismissed you. I’m ashamed. Can we talk?”

There was an email from Sarah, long and rambling, switching between apology and anger and back again. I didn’t respond to any of them.

What I did do was make some calls. Three of Sarah’s top engineers—the ones I’d helped hire through the VC firm—reached out to me directly. They’d seen the writing on the wall and were looking for their next opportunity.

I hired all three for a new venture I was launching, doubling their Nex Tech salaries. I also contacted seven other Nex Tech employees who I knew were genuinely talented and offered them positions before the company’s collapse left them scrambling. Five accepted.

For the employees who didn’t join my new company, I set up an anonymous severance fund of 2.3 million, distributed according to tenure and need. They’d never know it came from me.

Sarah, I later learned through a mutual connection, spent the 30 days desperately trying to find replacement funding. She pitched to every VC firm in Silicon Valley. She called in every favor she had.

She even tried to go to the press with a story about being betrayed by family, but her lawyers advised against it when they realized how badly it would reflect on her business judgment. In the end, Nex Tech Solutions declared bankruptcy on day 29.

The tech press covered it as a cautionary tale about over-reliance on single investors. Sarah’s name appeared in several articles, though never favorably.

Two months after the bankruptcy filing, I received an unexpected visitor at my new office. My assistant buzzed me. “There’s a Sarah Chin here to see you. She doesn’t have an appointment, but she says she’s your sister.”

I considered turning her away, but curiosity won out. “Send her in.”

Sarah looked different. The designer clothes were gone, replaced by jeans and a simple blouse. Her hair was pulled back in a practical ponytail, and she’d lost weight, but not in a healthy way.

She sat down across from my desk without being invited. For a long moment, we just looked at each other. “I’m not here to apologize,” she said finally.

I raised an eyebrow. “Okay.”

“I mean, I should apologize. I know that,” she continued. “But I don’t think you’d believe me, and honestly, I’m not sure I know how to apologize for something this big.”

She laughed bitterly. “How do you say sorry for years of treating someone like they’re worthless when you’ve just discovered they’ve been keeping you afloat the whole time?”

“You could start with ‘I’m sorry,'” I suggested. “I’m sorry.”

The words came out flat and rehearsed. She shook her head. “See? It sounds fake even when I mean it.”

“Why are you here, Sarah?”

She pulled out a folder and slid it across my desk. “This is a list of everyone who worked at Nex Tech: their contact information, their specializations, their situations. Seven are still unemployed. Twelve took positions at companies where they’re overqualified and underpaid. Three are considering leaving the industry entirely.”

I opened the folder but didn’t look at it. “And?”

“And I know you hired some of them,” she said. “I know you probably helped others in ways I don’t know about, because that’s apparently what you do—help people secretly while they treat you like garbage.”

Her voice cracked. “I’m not here to ask you for money or to save me. I’m here to ask you to help them. The people who lost their jobs because of my failures—not because of you. This wasn’t your fault, it was mine. But you have the resources to help them, and I don’t.”

I studied her face, looking for manipulation or a hidden agenda. I saw only exhaustion and something that might have been genuine remorse.

“What are you doing now?” I asked.

“Contract coding work, freelance projects. I moved back in with Mom and Dad.” She smiled without humor. “Turns out I’m not actually good at business. I’m good at coding and decent at vision, but terrible at management and even worse at seeing people clearly. Including you.”

“You were always a good engineer,” I said quietly. “Even when we were kids, you could see systems, understand how things connected. You just got distracted by trying to be impressive instead of being effective.”

“Yeah, well, I learned that lesson the expensive way.” She stood up. “I don’t expect forgiveness. I don’t expect a relationship. I just wanted you to have that information in case you wanted to help people who deserved better than they got.”

She was at the door when I spoke. “Sarah.”

She turned back. “I’ve already hired or helped 21 of your former employees. The remaining ones either found positions on their own or declined my offers. Everyone landed safely.”

Her eyes widened. “When?”

“I started the day I sent the withdrawal notice,” I told her. “I knew what was coming.”

A tear rolled down her cheek. “Of course you did. Because you actually think about consequences. About people.”

She wiped her face roughly. “I spent four years being the CEO who took credit for your work, and you spent four years making sure nobody got hurt by my eventual failure.”

“The employees weren’t at fault,” I said. “They didn’t deserve to suffer because of family drama.”