Unless he is escaping from something else more sinister that nobody is aware, to me, this guy is the typical example of what happens when you don't have a life outside of your work. No matter how much you love your work, you need to relax and unwind and just leave it and get out for a while.
Judging from this picture, this guy hasn't relaxed for years maybe never relaxed for his whole life. The guy is wound up so tight that any tiny little thing would've made him snap. I don't believe it's because he is egotistic or narcissistic. He won two investment management awards and he left the funds that he won the awards with so he's not in it for the prize. He's got the prize and he didn't care. He is just too driven, strives too much for excellence and defines too much of himself by his work and accomplishments. Some people are like that. They want to be the best of the best, top above the top and they just want to be known and remembered for what they accomplished. They want to leave a legacy behind. There is nothing wrong with that. Everybody likes to do that, leaves something behind for people to remember with. The problem is he had put his whole essence and reason of existence entirely on his accomplishments and nothing else. This reminds me of a scene in the Avengers movie where Captain America says to Iron Man, "you are just a man in a suit of armor. Take that way, what are you?" Iron Man replied without even thinking "a genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist". I bet you this guy only has ONE title "a fund manager". And I was not wrong.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_de_Vaulx. That's not enough. You have to have multiple titles behind your name, not as quite impressive as Iron Man but multiple titles. You cannot have your life defined by just ONE thing because when that ONE thing that you have banked your whole life on is not to your expectation and you feel you are not able to work further or have more time to reach your expectation, then you won't be able to cope. Clearly the mass exodus of investors and the funds along with them to the point of the complete closure of the fund that he's worked his whole life for was the indication of failure to him. He's 59, about to reach senior years and he feels he is not able to work any further to reach what he wanted to reach, whatever that may be. He sees that fund as himself, created by him, growing with him and now dead. What was that saying? The captain goes down with the ship. Well the fund manager goes down with his fund. I won't be surprised that this saying crossed his mind during one of his final thoughts.
Personally I think it was a bit cruel for IVA to have closed his fund like that. The fund still had almost $1 billion assets in there. There are people who still wanted to stay with him. Why close the fund? There are hedge funds that have lot smaller amount of assets in there and they still exist fine. Why destroy someone's work that they have worked their whole life for? So hypocritical of the fund company to write that it's with a heavy heart to announce the death of him. I bet you they are not sorry at all that he is gone. I hope they are happy. Anyway at least one article here referred to him as a legendary value fund manager and a renowned value investor. I hope he can take comfort in that. People will not forget what he did.
https://www.barrons.com/articles/legendary-value-manager-charles-de-vaulx-found-dead-51619564407
Now go, get away from the computer and do something else!! Clean your house, play with your kids, go read a book, do some craft, do some woodworking, build something
.
Remember always, you are NOT just a trader!! Do what you enjoy and not because you want to be the best.
