Given what he’s been through, Drumwright told me, “I really don’t think I should be scared of embarrassment or failure.” During a zoom interview and tasting, the team explained to me that the name, for them, is a reminder that, since nothing is guaranteed, they should live every day to the fullest. The name Memento Mori, then, is a reminder to the team that they have to make the most of every day. Since then, his business achievements have been substantial, including Trace3, POPin, and InstantScale, the venture capital firm. After he graduated, he found his way to tech, and thanks to the dot-com boom, Drumwright was a millionaire by 28…before the bust brought him to bankruptcy by 29. He survived, but the course of his life, the way he saw his role in the world, was altered. Drumwright, after all, was a Division-1 swimmer in college, a 20-year-old student hitting what should have been the peak of his youth, when he was diagnosed with testicular cancer. The name, which translates from the Latin as “remember that you will die” or, alternatively, “remember you must die,” is a reminder to the three partners that success is about leaving it all on the proverbial field, and working to succeed no matter what the challenges. Memento Mori was founded in 2010 by Hayes Drumwright, Adriel Lares, and Adam Craun.
