> Probably the big thing I regretted was spending about a year and a lot of cash on a startup which partly donated to temples. Made me realize that wealth really comes from Allah.

Could you elaborate what your regret was in this case? I'm confused and don't quite understand what you mean by this.

There's a long story behind this.

One of the fundamentals of Islam is to worship Allah alone, and only ask help from Allah alone. The second part is extremely difficult - it's easy to just assume that wealth comes from clever financial planning, hard work, or that knowledge comes from a mentor. But this is egoistic. Especially when you've gone moderately rich off a crazy gamble, you're more likely to dismiss God's role in answering prayers.

The story was that someone proposed a startup with some sinful attributes. Think of it as sort of like working for Playboy - you can justify to yourself that you're just taking a supporting role, more interested in the tech, the culture, the articles, could do some good with the money, etc, etc. But the core purpose is still sinful.

The plan seemed foolproof. There were contingencies. If the plan failed, I'd still make $X. If it failed really hard, I could bring the code I wrote back to another startup I was a director of.

But everything went wrong. The team was horribly incompetent, and couldn't dedicate any time. My backup plans fell apart. People who I trusted backed out. The whole thing was depressing, and I found it hard to get any work done, despite my best efforts and ability.

I went in thinking that I had the resources and experience to no longer need to rely on God (or luck), and was proven wrong.