Purpose · proposed 1 month ago
What’s the purpose of being a finance person!?
People who stay fulfilled in finance long-term don’t stop caring about returns. They stop needing returns to answer questions returns were never built to answer. Teaching, building, and mentoring have a different reward structure — they compound narratively, not just numerically. A student you trained two years ago who’s now trading competently is tangible evidence. A system you built is still running. A firm you’re constructing gets more solid over time, independent of any single month’s swings. These give you a second scoreboard — one immune to drawdowns. There’s an identity angle too. If your self-worth is “I am someone whose value is this month’s return,” every red month is a threat to who you are. If your identity is “I am someone building an institute, training people, compounding a body of knowledge,” a red month is just a data point — not a verdict.
Proposed by Akshat Jain
Surfaced by AYVA's assistant
Considerations to engage — not conclusions.
The assistant reads every idea through the nine-question Challenge Protocol and offers openings for debate. It never decides — each point is yours to answer, extend, or reject below.
Has this existed before?
Echoes classic 'meaning beyond metrics' arguments (Frankl, craftsmanship ethics, teacher/mentor traditions) reapplied to finance; not novel structurally, mainly domain-specific framing.
Where could it fail?
Could become rationalization for chronic underperformance, letting people hide behind 'teaching/building' narrative to avoid accountability for poor returns.
Who could exploit it?
Fund managers or coaches could use 'second scoreboard' rhetoric to justify fees or retain trust despite bad performance, exploiting investors' trust in narrative over numbers.
What unintended consequences?
Might create two-tier status where 'builders/mentors' feel superior to pure traders, causing internal friction or devaluing raw performance skill needed for capital allocation.
Does it work across cultures?
Mentorship-as-meaning resonates broadly, but in cultures where finance status is purely numeric (e.g., bonus-driven trading floors), this reframing may be dismissed as soft or unserious.
Does it survive generations?
Institutions and mentees can outlast individual careers, giving durability; but if underlying firm/system collapses, the 'second scoreboard' evidence disappears too.
Does it work in scarcity?
In scarcity (job loss, capital crunch), teaching/building may lack resources or audience, making the alternative scoreboard harder to sustain than in abundant times.
Does it work in abundance?
In abundance, returns are easy, so meaning-seeking via mentoring may feel like added luxury rather than necessary buffer against drawdowns.
Does it work when machines do most productive labour?
If AI generates returns and trains models directly, human mentoring/teaching value could shrink further, undermining the proposed 'second scoreboard' as automation absorbs both roles.
Openings you might build on
Anchoring identity in compounding contributions (students, systems, institutions) can buffer psychological volatility, similar to how craftsmen or educators sustain motivation despite inconsistent external validation.
Redefining success away from returns risks enabling complacency; markets ultimately judge capital allocation by numbers, and narrative comfort shouldn't substitute for rigorous performance accountability.
Many professions (academia, medicine, coaching) already separate 'impact metrics' from short-term outcomes; finance adopting similar dual-scoreboard thinking mirrors established career-longevity strategies elsewhere.
If widely adopted, evaluation cultures in finance might shift toward valuing mentorship equally with alpha generation, potentially diluting incentive structures that reward pure performance and risk-taking discipline.
How this idea is being tested
No one has challenged this idea yet. A strong idea earns its weight by surviving scrutiny — open it below.
Add your contribution
Question it, test it, or build on it.
Choose the kind of contribution. Every angle counts — the point is not to win, but to help the idea survive its own scrutiny.
Eight ways to contribute — each a distinct kind of move (Constitution, Article 21):
- Question Something that must be answered before we can judge this.
- Lived experience What you have seen or lived that bears on it.
- Evidence Data, a source, or a documented case.
- Related idea A different idea this connects to or points toward.
- Counterargument A reasoned case against it, or a risk it overlooks.
- Correction A factual error to put right.
- Proposal A concrete way to act on it or test it.
- Project Real work already underway that relates.
Sign in or create an account to support it, oppose it, or make it stronger.