A couple of hours ago a good friend of mine posted a Guardian article on Facebook titled How a Corporate Cult Captures and Destroys our Best Graduates. As a wanna-be financier, I felt compelled to address this because these days left-leaning newspapers seem to be hating on the financial industry persuading some of the brighest students to join its ranks. It’s time to stop, so below is a transcription of my response on Facebook.

Wo, wo, wo, since when is being a consultant, ad exec, or financier a bad thing? Why has finance become the social punching bag, a symbol of a life tragically wasted in the pointless pursuit of wealth? Do we all need to become lawyers and doctors? We either have too many of those (laywers) already that the job market is oversaturated, or it’s simply not for everyone (doctors). Should we all become teachers then? Idk, the Guardian as well as most publications always post stories about how horribly treated and uncompensated teachers so why would the vast majority of people that have many options in front of them go for that? Should we all become heads of non-profits then? Lol government regulation makes that very difficult, just like it makes starting a business of any kind difficult, and it’s not really a great way to financially sustain your family one day. Then clearly we all need to become artists……yea, good luck with that. My point is that the reason why a huge chunk of top students from all countries and colleges go into finance is because it’s a constantly stimulating field (something smart people love and can find in very few professions), it’s financially rewarding (that’s why a ton of low-income students at top schools do it: to break the cycle of poverty), and it gives you some power to change the world (making a lot of money gives you the resources to fund great entrepreneurial endeavors and make great charitable causes happen). Why wouldn’t most people that are not talented in the arts or science go into finance? Especially under the pressure of student loans??

Financiers enable people to retire by managing their 401ks, they make our economy better by promoting the efficient allocation of scare resources, they minimize and prepare us for the risks of our unpredictable world, and they are the drivers behind economic progress by funding all top ideas (since you know, there is no single great tech company built without a financier behind it). Do they make more money than most people that do more directly observable socially useful work? Yea, so? Teachers and doctors don’t do it to make money, they do it because they are truly inspired to help others through their talents. The issue is that they are not paid as much as they should, not that financiers are paid too much. Even then however, most financiers don’t really make enough in a effort-adjusted way, since they do indeed work crazy hours to just make a few millions eventually. They could have made almost the same amount of money just being great at something else as opposed to ok or mediocre in finance. Great financiers build great empires because they are simply the best at what they do, just like all the people on Forbes’ 500 list have amassed fortunes not just by being good but by being some of the best in the world. You can look at great financiers with disdain because they don’t “save people’s lives every day”…I just wonder why we never criticize chess players, who literally spend their entire lives to compete over the title of best chess player when chess is just a game, or athletes, since similarly they don’t save lives either and make a ton of money by dedicating their lives at outcompeting others.

Most of those graduates won’t survive the stakes of the financial industry. They might do it for a decade or so, but then they will drop everything and go to Silicon Valley, start a non-profit, or pursue the arts. That’s ok, because the financial industry only needs the top people that enjoy the competitive aspect of the game and use their intelligence to do something very few people are intellectually capable of being the best at. It’s also ok because those who drop out have made enough money and connections at that point to finance their own startup, to fund their non-profit to change people’s lives, and to sustain the costs of an artistic endeavor that enriches society intellectually but not the artist practically. Maybe that was their plan all along…