About

I Lost a Billion-Dollar Project Overnight. Here's What That Taught Me About Wealth.

In 2014, I was standing in Crimea, looking at blueprints for a seaport we were about to rebuild.

My partners and I had spent three years putting together a $1bn+ infrastructure deal—new airport, deep-water seaport redevelopment, roads, commercial real estate, and agricultural projects. We'd negotiated with Ukrainian government officials and some of the largest Chinese state-owned entities. We'd secured equity funding from a Chinese state-owned bank and just signed a $200m+ term sheet for the first tranche.

Then Russia annexed Crimea.

Everything we'd built—gone. Not because we made bad decisions. Not because we failed to execute. But because the world shifted in ways we couldn't control.

That experience broke something in me. And then it rebuilt something better.

The Long Road to London

I should back up.

I was born in Ukraine, when it was still part of the USSR. Grew up there, went to university studying economics, and spent seven years as a competitive boxer—won regional tournaments, competed nationally. Growing up in a post-Soviet state and fighting taught me things you can't learn in a classroom: how to stay calm when someone's trying to hurt you, how to prepare for chaos, how to get back up.

In 2004, I came to London with a few hundred dollars and a hospitality job (it was the only way to get a visa). I planned to stay a year. Met my wife. Still here.

Hospitality wasn't for me. Six months in, I took a commission-only sales job selling insurance on the streets and in shopping centres. Cold approaches, all day, travelling all across Greater London in British weather. It was brutal. It was also the best training I ever received.

From there, I moved into recruitment, then executive search. I covered emerging markets—Russia, Ukraine, London, New York—placing senior people at top investment banks and asset managers. VPs to CEOs. Built a reputation. Started thinking about my own business.

Then 2008 happened. Made redundant. Started my own firm anyway at the time when literally no one was recruiting and still made money. But the opportunity I really wanted was bigger.

Building (and Losing) Something Real

In 2011, I partnered with two guys, one of them I used to spar with at the gym, to start an investment advisory firm. They had deep connections in China. I could originate deals.

What followed was the most intense period of my life. We built relationships with Chinese state-owned enterprises and banks looking to fund infrastructure globally. I brought in a partnership with the Crimean government. Over three years, we structured a public-private partnership worth over $1bn: airport construction, seaport redevelopment, roads, and commercial projects.

We weren't just advising. We were operators. We had skin in the game - heavily invested ourselves.

And then we lost it all.

The Ukrainian revolution. The annexation. The term sheet meant nothing anymore. Years of work, significant personal investments, relationships built across continents—all of it, gone, in a matter of days.  

It took me time to recover from that. Financially, yes. But more than that, psychologically. When you pour everything into building something and external forces destroy it, you learn certain truths about wealth that most advisors never understand because they've never lived it.

What I Know Now

Here's what losing that project taught me:

Concentration builds wealth. Diversification preserves it. I was all-in on one bet. That's how you build something big. But once you've built it, the game changes completely.

Structure matters more than returns. It doesn't matter how much you make if you can't keep it. Jurisdiction, asset protection, tax efficiency—these aren't afterthoughts. They're the foundation.

Geopolitical risk is real. Most founders think about market risk, business risk, and execution risk. They don't think about the risk that the rules of the game change entirely - the Black Swan-type of events. I do now.

The only thing you truly own is what you know. Assets can be seized. Markets can crash. Governments can change. But the mental models and systems you develop, those travel with you.

What I'm Building Now

In 2016, I joined an investment and wealth management group in London. Started on one project, joined full-time, and eventually became a partner.

Today, we oversee around £2bn in client assets. We grow through acquisition, buying independent wealth management firms and making them better. We built the first platform of its kind in the UK that lets financial advisers run their entire practice online (think Shopify for financial advisers). We provide investment management to institutional and private clients.

So I'm not just someone who writes about wealth. I'm building wealth infrastructure. Every day.

And that's exactly why I started CapitalFounders.io.

Why I Created This

When I talk to friends (many of them founders) or give lectures to students, I notice that many don't actually understand how investing, personal finance, and wealth management really work.

Things that seem obvious to me are entirely new to them. How tax structures affect investment choices. Why jurisdiction matters before you sell. The second-order effects nobody mentions.

Not because they're not smart. They're brilliant. They built companies from nothing. But nobody taught them the game of wealth preservation. And most of the content out there is either too basic (save 20% of your income!) or too complex (institutional jargon designed to intimidate).

I wanted to create something different.

Capital Founders is where I share what I've learned, from building and losing a billion-dollar project (and most of my money at that time), from years of working with founders and their capital, from operating in wealth management every day. I explain how things actually work, in plain language, without the bullshit.

I don't know everything. I'm still learning. So I share that too, what I'm discovering, what I'm questioning, where I'm uncertain.

This isn't about hot takes or engagement farming. It's about building a resource that founders can actually use to make better decisions with their wealth.

Who This Is Really For

If any of this resonates, Capital Founders is probably for you:

• You've built something from nothing and have $5M–$50M in assets (or you're approaching that through an exit)
• You're operating a profitable business worth $10M+ or within a few years of a meaningful liquidity event
• You're high-agency and self-made, you take responsibility for outcomes rather than blaming circumstances
• You're sceptical of mainstream narratives and want to understand how things really work
• You don't trust advisers who've never built anything themselves
• You don't have time to become a finance expert, but you want to make informed decisions about your wealth

Capital Founders is for people who want to protect and grow their wealth with the same intentionality they used to build their businesses.

It's not for people looking for get-rich-quick schemes, hot stock tips, or magic formulas. And it's definitely not for anyone who wants to hand over control of their financial future to someone else and stop thinking about it.

What You'll Learn

Everything I publish fits into four areas. I call them the Capital Founders OS:

🧭 Life OS — The Inner Game

Mindset, decision-making frameworks, and personal operating systems. Founders succeed because of how they think. Wealth preservation requires the same intentionality. That is where we explore high-agency principles, strategic thinking, and how to design a life around optionality.

🚀 Build Mode — Creating Value

Business building, entrepreneurship through acquisition. You're a builder. You're not done building just because you have wealth. Here, we dig into how to keep creating value through new ventures, acquiring existing businesses, or properly structuring what you already have.

💰 Wealth Architect — Structuring Capital

Tax efficiency, jurisdiction planning, asset protection, estate planning. Structure determines how much of what you build you actually keep. That is the boring stuff that saves you millions.

📈 Investment Office — Deploying Capital

Portfolio construction, asset allocation, private markets, alternative investment, asymmetric returns. That is where most wealth content lives. My angle is different. I write for builders who want to understand the game and play it well, not outsource it entirely.

Let's Go

Building wealth isn't just about having more money. It's about creating freedom, options, and security, no matter what the world throws at you.

I learned that the hard way.

If you want to learn from what I've figured out (and what I'm still figuring out), subscribe below. I'll send you my best thinking every week.

I'm not building a media brand from a distance. I reply to emails. I learn from readers. This is a conversation, not a broadcast.

And if you have questions or want to connect, Get in Touch. I read everything.

— Taras