On New Year’s Day 2020, Adam Tendler was handed a manila envelope as he sat in his Jeep in a Denny’s parking lot in Vermont. Acting as courier was his stepmother and inside the envelope, he discovered cash — a decent amount of it. “Now what?” Tendler recalled wondering in a recent phone interview. “It was more than I ever held in my hands.” The money was, in fact, an inheritance from his recently deceased father and Tendler was uncertain about what he should do with it.