How I served as CEO of Bonobos while secretly losing my mind
In 2016, on the precipice of selling Bonobos, the menswear startup I'd been building for the previous nine years, I flew into a manic spiral and was hospitalized for a week in the psych ward at Bellevue in New York. When I was discharged, I was met by NYPD officers, who took me to jail, where I was charged with felony and misdemeanor assault.— went unmedicated and untreated. It almost cost me the woman who is now my wife, the company I cofounded, and everything I cared for in the world.
In the world of sports, the mental-health conversation is beginning, thanks to Naomi Osaka, Simone Biles, Mardy Fish, and many others. In entertainment, it's understood and accepted that artists face mental-health challenges: witness Kanye West, Demi Lovato, and Britney Spears.I'm lucky to be in a position where I have a voice — I sold Bonobos in 2017, and my good fortune insulates me from the fear of financial loss, if not social stigma or personal embarrassment.
During Bonobos' first three years, from 2008 to 2011, we raised $8 million across four angel funding rounds from more than 120 investors. This was like scoring 50 points in a football game with 25 safeties. I wonder if I would have been able to pull this off were it not for those frenetic episodes of elevated mood that bipolar disorder made possible.
With additional firing of synapses at the upper bound of the mood spectrum, aided and abetted by a lack of sleep that becomes both cause and symptom, the dynamic person who days earlier just seemed"up and super energized" might come apart entirely. One day you're inspiring the team; a few sleepless days and nights later you're in a delusional, messianic, life-threatening tailspin.
In retrospect, it was obvious: Bonobos had not been the source of my depression; it had been the only thing that kept depression's severity at bay. Without the grueling schedule of being a startup's CEO, one where I had to pull myself out of a funk every Monday morning as best I could during depressive episodes, I had nothing tethering me to a routine.
For a moment, there was silence on the other end of the line, then somebody spoke."Yes, I was afraid it was something like this," said one of our elder-statesmen board members, softly. It was an important first comment, because it set a tone of understanding and acceptance.
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