Essay · By Stephen Pasquini · October 6, 2026
Stoicism has gone mainstream, from founders and fitness influencers to podcasts like Ryan Holiday’s recent conversation on Hasan Minhaj Doesn’t Know (“Why Are Tech Bros Obsessed with Stoicism?”). It’s a great question. And the funny thing is, the most famous Stoic of all would understand the tech crowd better than almost anyone. He was a multimillionaire who worked for the most powerful man on Earth. He would also have some notes.
The original rich Stoic
Seneca was one of the richest people in Rome, with a fortune the historians put at 300 million sesterces (roughly $2 billion to $10 billion in today’s money, depending on whether you measure by the price of bread or by wages). He advised the emperor Nero, ran a big chunk of the empire, invested in vineyards and lent money at interest. He also wrote some of the most beautiful pages ever written about needing very little. (I wrote up the whole wild story, contradictions included, on the Who Was Seneca? page, and what happened to his fortune in What Happened to Seneca’s Billions?)
So when people ask why ambitious, high-performing, often wealthy people are drawn to Stoicism, the honest answer is: they always have been. Stoicism was the philosophy of Roman senators and an emperor long before it was the philosophy of startup founders.
Why it clicks for ambitious people
It works like an operating system. Stoicism starts from one clean idea: some things are up to you, and most things are not. Focus on the first, stop wasting energy on the second. For anyone drowning in inputs, that’s a relief.
It rewards practice. The Stoics loved deliberate discomfort. Seneca recommends setting aside a few days to live on the plainest food and roughest clothes, just to prove to yourself you can (Letter 18). He even bragged about his New Year’s cold plunges. Cold exposure and fasting were Stoic long before they were biohacks.
It was built for high-pressure jobs. Marcus Aurelius ran an empire. Seneca served emperors who exiled him, nearly executed him and finally ordered his death. This is a philosophy written by people under enormous pressure, for people under enormous pressure.
It quotes well. Let’s be honest. A two-thousand-year-old line looks great on a slide.
What gets lost along the way
Here’s where it gets interesting. Read the actual letters and you find a Seneca who would push back on a lot of what passes for Stoicism online. Some critics call the internet version “Broicism”: stoic as in emotionless, disciplined as in grinding, successful as in rich. Seneca had a different view on each.
1. Stoicism isn’t about not feeling. When Lucilius lost a dear friend, Seneca didn’t tell him to toughen up. He told him tears were natural, and that in time the memory of a lost friend should become a source of gratitude rather than pain (Letter 63).
“Fortune has taken away, but Fortune has given.”
— Seneca, Letter 63
2. It isn’t about winning. The Stoics believed a good character is the only real good. Money, status and exits are “indifferent”: fine to have, dangerous to need. Seneca, of all people, warned that for many people getting rich wasn’t the end of their troubles, only a change of troubles (Letter 17).
“It isn’t the person who has too little who is poor, but the person who craves more.”
— Seneca, Letter 2
3. It isn’t a solo sport. The letters are, literally, one long friendship. Seneca argues that even a wise person who needs nothing still wants friends, for the joy of the friendship itself, and his formula for being loved is disarmingly simple (Letter 9).
“I will tell you a love-potion mixed without drugs, herbs, or any witch’s spell: if you would be loved, love.”
— Seneca, Letter 9
4. It isn’t about being above other people. In Letter 47, Seneca tells Lucilius to treat enslaved people as human beings, to eat with them, talk with them and earn their respect rather than their fear. For a Roman aristocrat, that was radical. The Stoics went further still: we are all citizens of one world, responsible for each other.
“Everything you see, the divine and the human alike, is one. We are the parts of one great body.”
— Seneca, Letter 95
5. It isn’t about productivity. It’s about time. Seneca’s very first letter isn’t a hack for getting more done. It’s a warning that time is the one thing truly ours, and we throw it away on things that don’t matter (Letter 1).
“Nothing, Lucilius, is truly ours — except time.”
— Seneca, Letter 1
Seneca’s own confession
Here is what I love most about Seneca, and why I think he’s the right Stoic for this moment. He never pretended to have it figured out. His critics called him a hypocrite, a rich man preaching simplicity, and he didn’t entirely disagree. In the letters he describes himself as a patient in the same hospital as his reader, sharing the remedies that were working for him, not a doctor handing down orders.
That’s the version of Stoicism worth taking from all this hype. Not a way to feel nothing or win more, but a lifelong practice of becoming a little wiser, kinder and steadier, one day at a time, with good friends beside you and a healthy suspicion of anything you can’t take with you.
Five letters to start with
If the Stoicism wave has you curious, skip the quote accounts and read the source. Each of these takes about ten minutes:
- Letter 1: On Saving Time. Where it all begins: your time is the only thing you truly own.
- Letter 2: On Discursiveness in Reading. A cure for information overload, written 2,000 years before the feed.
- Letter 9: On Philosophy and Friendship. Why even the wise need friends.
- Letter 17: On Philosophy and Riches. The rich Stoic on why money won’t save you.
- Letter 47: On Master and Slave. Seneca’s case for treating everyone as fully human.
Or read by what you’re facing, from burnout and worry to money and ambition.
Go deeper
The Penguin selection of Seneca’s letters. The real thing, in one paperback.
James Romm on Seneca’s years as Nero’s rich, conflicted advisor. Reads like a thriller.
Ryan Holiday’s one-page-a-day Stoic reader. An easy daily habit.
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