On Father’s Day my millionaire son walked into my freezing apartment, saw the tinned soup on the table, and asked how I was managing on the eight thousand a month his wife sends me. I told him nobody sends me anything.

He was already trying to build a software company at the time.

In January of 2017, his company was one week away from missing payroll.

Eleven employees.

Eleven families.

He had enough money to keep the business alive for perhaps another few days.

He called me one night.

I could tell he had been rehearsing what he wanted to say.

“Dad, I need to ask you something.”

“All right.”

“It’s probably going to sound ridiculous.”

“It probably will.”

He laughed.

It was the first laugh I’d heard from him in several days.

Then he told me.

He needed forty thousand dollars.

Not to buy a car.

Not to take a holiday.

Not to pay himself.

To make payroll.

I had forty thousand dollars.

So I transferred it on a Thursday.

I didn’t tell him where it came from.

He didn’t ask.

He built the company.

That is the important part.

I did not.

I didn’t give him business advice.

I didn’t sit in meetings.

I didn’t introduce him to investors.

I didn’t understand the software he was building.

I gave him forty thousand dollars once.

He turned it into a multimillion-dollar company in about four years.

Anybody who tells you I built that company with him is wrong.