RELIVING THE FIRE WITHIN –
June 11, 2022 – The 43-year-old entrepreneur opens up about how his personal life fell apart shortly before Walmart’s $310 million acquisition of Bonobos in 2017 came together. He shares some of the lowest points, including his stay in a psychiatric ward in Bellevue Hospital in New York City and assault charges from a severe manic episode when he struck his then girlfriend and her mother. The charges were later dismissed as Dunn sought treatment and repaired the relationship with his girlfriend, Manuela, who he later married.
Dunn joined Walmart after telling the retailer about the episodes and his efforts to get better with therapy and medication. He oversaw Walmart’s growing collection of brands that started online and contributed to the company’s push into the digital world.
Dunn left Walmart in 2020 and has founded a social media start-up, Pumpkin Pie. Its app, which has been described as a “Tinder for friendship,” is set to launch later this year.
Q. You could have devoted the book to advice about entrepreneurship, or Bonobos’ acquisition by Walmart. Why did you decide to write a book about your mental health struggles?
A. It was a great conversation with my editor, before he was officially my editor. He put it in a candid way, which was in a turndown email: “If Andy wants to write a chest thumping, self-congratulatory memoir about entrepreneurial success, I’m not interested. But if he wants to do an unvarnished story about mental illness, told through the lens of an entrepreneur, then that could be a really exciting project.”
And I was like, yes, that’s what I want to do. That’s the person I want to work with.
