As one of the "wealth managers" who you apparently should avoid like the plague, I'll just put my $.02 here for what it's worth.
There is undeniably a lot of crap in the financial services space. I live in it and I could not agree more. I have to face this down every time someone asks what I do for a living. But this isn't really relevant to whether or not OP should hire an advisor. It just makes the job of finding a good one more difficult. But they exist.
The HN community is mostly made up of DIY types, so there's lots of advice to that effect popping up here. But, much like the infamous Dropbox announcement comment, some people don't want to "get an FTP account, mount it locally with curlftpfs, and then use SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem", as "trivial" as that might be. Some people just want a little green check mark telling them that their files are synced. I'm 100% pro-DIY for the person who has the capacity mentally and emotionally. (Sidenote: the significance of the emotional capacity peace is severely underestimated by almost everyone). And I will happily tell a prospective client that they don't need me and wouldn't be happy with me if I can see that's who they are.
Finally, most people think my job is making money for people. It's not. I'd argue that one of the most significant pieces of info OP shared was:
> I am freaking out.
That's my job. Talking people down and helping them avoid all the bad advice their getting from family, friends, and internet strangers (there's a lot of GOOD advice here, for the record).
Congrats on your success, OP. Best of luck. $8M is a good thing. Don't freak out.
Just to add to this, having gone through a similar situation I went it alone and kind of wish I hadn't. I simply didn't care to learn and stay updated about markets, currency fluctuations etc. So there were some simple opportunities I didn't do (even boring things like sticking cash in a 6 month CD to earn 1% instead of 0).
I do think the advice to "do nothing for a while" is the best advice though. Give it a few months, anyway. If and when you DO want to consider a wealth manager guy, find a guy who doesn't take a percentage and works for a flat fee. Still, they might get kickbacks from certain investments so don't just jump into anything if it doesn't make clear sense to you (being skeptical is free, being closed off can cost you). I know a few high-up investment banker types and the interesting thing is most people with wealth aren't trying to find the next Apple stock but simply want to not lose their money. Most people with a lot of money invest with this mindset, so your feelings are pretty normal.
At a certain amount of money you start to realize there's no such thing as a safe place to stash it all. Keeping it in cash has risks (inflation!), FDIC only insures to a small amount and the stock market tends to move all at once because everything is tied together. So don't stress yourself out too much about it and don't try to get too cute because "you have a feeling the market is gonna..."
Change your life as little as possible is probably the best advice for not spending too much too fast with the risk of forming lifestyle changes that grows out of control over 10+ years. But I DO recommend spending money on things that make your day-to-day life easier or happier. That could be anything from buying 30 pairs of the same socks and throwing away your old ones so you don't have to find matching socks all the time to moving closer to work (if you still work) so you have less of a commute, or anything in between. I found it really helpful for a while to ask myself "is this something I wouldn't previously buy but it will improve my happiness every day?" If the answer was yes, I mostly made that change and it helped me continue to apply money to things of value without hamstringing myself needlessly.
Comparing opening a Vanguard account and dumping a few mil into Admiral class index fund shares with the complexities of FUSE is a clever, albeit entirely inaccurate, attempt at analogy.
There is undeniably a lot of crap in the financial services space. I live in it and I could not agree more. I have to face this down every time someone asks what I do for a living. But this isn't really relevant to whether or not OP should hire an advisor. It just makes the job of finding a good one more difficult. But they exist.
The HN community is mostly made up of DIY types, so there's lots of advice to that effect popping up here. But, much like the infamous Dropbox announcement comment, some people don't want to "get an FTP account, mount it locally with curlftpfs, and then use SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem", as "trivial" as that might be. Some people just want a little green check mark telling them that their files are synced. I'm 100% pro-DIY for the person who has the capacity mentally and emotionally. (Sidenote: the significance of the emotional capacity peace is severely underestimated by almost everyone). And I will happily tell a prospective client that they don't need me and wouldn't be happy with me if I can see that's who they are.
Finally, most people think my job is making money for people. It's not. I'd argue that one of the most significant pieces of info OP shared was:
> I am freaking out.
That's my job. Talking people down and helping them avoid all the bad advice their getting from family, friends, and internet strangers (there's a lot of GOOD advice here, for the record).
Congrats on your success, OP. Best of luck. $8M is a good thing. Don't freak out.