Rear-View Mirror

As a finance intern in the financial center of the world, I got the exhilarating experience of sitting atop a giant structure of want and worry.  Ensconced in a $400 ergonomic chair, I got the ever-prestigious luxury of staring at a brilliantly-lit screen where nameless fortunes were made and lost every day. It was my job to talk about them, and tell companies how they could get a piece of the massive wealth pie that’s been baking in the American oven for the past 250 years. While by no means was I a failure by any conventional measure, I felt as if I had failed part of myself.  Music and creativity had always been central to my life growing up. I would spend hours at the piano writing songs to never be released, years in the garage drumming to perfect the art for art’s sake. But this was always somehow at odds with where society wanted me to go. I was a high achiever in school, had an insatiable appetite for learning, and was an all-around people-pleaser – all things that wou...

Optimization is a weird concept, and one I’ve been thinking about a lot recently. In your typical math class, you solve problems to optimize for a certain variable, or in a broader lens, try and find the most efficient ways to get problems solved.  In your typical academic year, you try to gear your schedule up to optimize for two of three outcomes – academic success, a vibrant social life, and sleep. In your typical lifespan, it’s a bit more hazy. Some optimize for money, some optimize for power, others for family, and still others for spiritual fulfillment. While general, this doesn’t even begin to cover the wide array of things people end up wanting to prioritize in their lives post-graduation. However – optimization by its nature requires prioritization of one outcome at the expense of one or many others. This is the idea that’s been living rent-free in my head these past few weeks.  It isn’t too deep when you put it in the context of a classroom environment – sure, you pr...

A Stake in Our System One of the most important points Chuck Collins makes in Born on Third Base comes when he shows the ways in which those with wealth and privilege can escape the inconveniences and struggles that plague ordinary citizens. An anecdote he tells about himself and his daughter at the community pool makes this clear. One Saturday morning, he and his daughter went to the community pool after adult swim in the morning, showered in the half-clean, half-swampy locker rooms, and stepped out onto the pool deck only to be told that the pool was closed for the rest of the day.  The rest of a Saturday in the middle of summer. A lifeguard on his way out told them this was because there were no other lifeguards available to be on duty the rest of the day. After seeing not only his daughter, but other parents and their childrens’ dismay at this, Collins became upset. He considered renewing his country club membership to ensure his daughter was able to go swimming when she wanted...

TO: Clark Hansen, CEO, AMDP FROM: Taylor Vu, R&D Analyst, AMDP DATE: October 21st, 2022 SUBJECT: Investment Proposal – Ben & Jerry’s I am writing to bring Ben & Jerry’s, a subsidiary of Unilever, to your attention as a promising opportunity for ESG investment. I believe it fits within AMDP’s funding standards for the following reasons: History of environmentally conscious practices Strong performance in third-party ESG ratings Independent governance structure Response to ESG criticism For structure, I will first lay out key definitions I used in my analysis to ensure we start on the same page, then provide some metrics to demonstrate its financial performance, and later dive into each reason and my conclusion. ESG Primer Triple Bottom Line: firms should commit to measuring their social and environmental impact—in addition to their financial performance—rather than only focusing on profit. It can be broken down into “three Ps”: profit, people, and the planet (HBS) Corporate ...

Born on Third Base: A One Percenter Makes the Case for Tackling Inequality, Bringing Wealth Home, and Committing to the Common Good by Chuck Collins I’ve really enjoyed this book so far.  I initially chose Born on Third Base because while I have always recognized that economic inequality exists, I haven’t really ever believed it was inherently a bad thing. My grandparents immigrated as refugees from the Vietnam War with nothing, and through their hard work – and their hard work alone , I had always believed – they built a middle class lifestyle that they were proud of.  After getting halfway through Collins’ piece, my mind still isn’t changed that the frugality and unrelenting work ethic of my grandparents was instrumental in the building the wealth they enjoy today. However, I’m now starting to realize the structures around them that enabled that correlation to exist in the first place.  They existed for them, they existed for my parents, though to a lesser extent, and ...

Is it possible to write something about nothing? Day in and day out, we’re smothered with noise. Whether it’s noise coming from external sources like cars, buses, bustling crowds, and construction, or internal sources like our headphones, our thoughts, and our memories, there’s always something to listen to.  It becomes so much sometimes that I’ve come to view silence as cathartic. There’s a reason why people like escaping to the middle of forests, far sides of remote beaches, and less-traveled mountaintops. Of course, the natural beauty of it all is the main reason. But I feel the reason these places feel like escapes is the silence they offer.  All you have to contend with in your escape is the chirping of birds and insects in the forest, the wooshing of waves on the sand, or the low hum of wind on the mountaintop.  No one’s aggressively asking you to excuse them, no one’s peddling half-hearted sorries in exchange for bumps in your side in the stairwell, no one’s voice ...