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The title is a suggestion. Discourage your friends from putting their energies into creating financial products of dubious value and instead encourage them to e

by Jd 16y ago

The title is a suggestion. Discourage your friends from putting their energies into creating financial products of dubious value and instead encourage them to engage in substantive work that makes a clearly positive contribution. Yes, yes, I know you want a secure source of income. Well, try think about ethics first, if not only.

asanwal 16y ago
These generalizations about finance being unethical are misguided and misinformed. A bank/VC that gives a loan/investment to small business/startup. That's finance. Hardly unethical. Allowing people to get a car today while paying for it over time (instead of paying upfront). Hardly unethical. Yes, there are bad actors in finance as there are in every space. Don't the Zyngas and others of the world via their offers engage in "ethically questionable" tactics?
- mousa 16y ago
  A lot of the financial industry though today works so many layers above actual loans it's hard to see how they contribute and even harder to see why they make so much more money than everyone else. I'm not an expert, I'm sure there is some justification, but it's not obvious to most people and that's why, sometimes, we the laypeople wonder.
  - asanwal 16y ago
    I agree with you to some degree. There is a lot that happens well out of public (and sometimes regulatory) purview. I just think views that "finance is bad" or "startups are the best" are myopic, don't advance the discussion and ultimately fail to realize the inter-related'ness of all these different forces. Ultimately, we live in a pretty free agent society and if Wall St can pay more (no matter the reason), the rational engineer whose primary motivation is money should take that job. There is nothing wrong with that. The engineer who is motivated by money and other factors (building something valuable, being his/her own boss, etc) also has avenues a la doing a startup.
    - rbarooah 16y ago
      This would be true if the losses from the last crash hadn't been socialized. If the financial industry had actually had to bear the consequences of the risks they take in the same way that entrepreneurs do, the decisions would be rational. As it is, the finance sector is protected by the government whereas startups are not.
      - asanwal 16y ago
        When the collapse of Facebook presents systemic risk (or the illusion of system risk depending on your perspective) to the US, I'm sure it will get a "bail out" as well.
        rbarooah 16y ago
        Seriously? You're saying that it's fine for the financial industry to hold the country hostage when they fail because there's equal opportunity for other industries to do that too if they too can become large enough?
        asanwal 16y ago
        Not justifying it, but when people think the whole system could break down, crazya$$ isht happens. The rightness or wrongness of what was done is not what I was getting into. Merely commenting on your point as to why the "finance sector is protected by the government whereas startups are not".
        rbarooah 16y ago
        Right - but the finance sector wasn't chosen at random to receive a bailout because of 'craziness'. It was bailed out because it's dysfunctional. And now, people in the financial industry expect it to get bailed out when it screws up, since that's what's happened time after time. Whereas people joining startups have no such expectation. If you don't seriously expect Facebook to get bailed out it's not a particularly meaningful thing to bring up.
larsberg 16y ago
It's not even about a secure source of income. Unless you're a founder, simply low-single-digit employee number doesn't give you enough equity to beat even a low-end finance job. Simple math: if you do your business, 9-to-5 only, you'll be in the 150-200k range within 5 years of graduation. If you decide to manage and make it up a rung or two, join a financial startup, or just make "tech lead/architect" double that income. Unless you're a founder, having a five-year startup exit strategy that pays out similarly to the income you could have obtained in a straightforward manner in finance is a microsoft/google/facebook/twitter-style long shot. And, the latter two haven't even IPO'd yet to allow full vested share liquidity... All my friends consider it a fairly soulless industry. Though they joke about patent troll/NPE firms in the way most techies joke about financial firms.

by Jd 16y ago

asanwal 16y ago

These generalizations about finance being unethical are misguided and misinformed. A bank/VC that gives a loan/investment to small business/startup. That's finance. Hardly unethical. Allowing people to get a car today while paying for it over time (instead of paying upfront). Hardly unethical. Yes, there are bad actors in finance as there are in every space. Don't the Zyngas and others of the world via their offers engage in "ethically questionable" tactics?

mousa 16y ago
A lot of the financial industry though today works so many layers above actual loans it's hard to see how they contribute and even harder to see why they make so much more money than everyone else. I'm not an expert, I'm sure there is some justification, but it's not obvious to most people and that's why, sometimes, we the laypeople wonder.
- asanwal 16y ago
  I agree with you to some degree. There is a lot that happens well out of public (and sometimes regulatory) purview. I just think views that "finance is bad" or "startups are the best" are myopic, don't advance the discussion and ultimately fail to realize the inter-related'ness of all these different forces. Ultimately, we live in a pretty free agent society and if Wall St can pay more (no matter the reason), the rational engineer whose primary motivation is money should take that job. There is nothing wrong with that. The engineer who is motivated by money and other factors (building something valuable, being his/her own boss, etc) also has avenues a la doing a startup.
  - rbarooah 16y ago
    This would be true if the losses from the last crash hadn't been socialized. If the financial industry had actually had to bear the consequences of the risks they take in the same way that entrepreneurs do, the decisions would be rational. As it is, the finance sector is protected by the government whereas startups are not.
    - asanwal 16y ago
      When the collapse of Facebook presents systemic risk (or the illusion of system risk depending on your perspective) to the US, I'm sure it will get a "bail out" as well.
      - rbarooah 16y ago
        Seriously? You're saying that it's fine for the financial industry to hold the country hostage when they fail because there's equal opportunity for other industries to do that too if they too can become large enough?
        asanwal 16y ago
        Not justifying it, but when people think the whole system could break down, crazya$$ isht happens. The rightness or wrongness of what was done is not what I was getting into. Merely commenting on your point as to why the "finance sector is protected by the government whereas startups are not".
        rbarooah 16y ago
        Right - but the finance sector wasn't chosen at random to receive a bailout because of 'craziness'. It was bailed out because it's dysfunctional. And now, people in the financial industry expect it to get bailed out when it screws up, since that's what's happened time after time. Whereas people joining startups have no such expectation. If you don't seriously expect Facebook to get bailed out it's not a particularly meaningful thing to bring up.

larsberg 16y ago

It's not even about a secure source of income. Unless you're a founder, simply low-single-digit employee number doesn't give you enough equity to beat even a low-end finance job. Simple math: if you do your business, 9-to-5 only, you'll be in the 150-200k range within 5 years of graduation. If you decide to manage and make it up a rung or two, join a financial startup, or just make "tech lead/architect" double that income. Unless you're a founder, having a five-year startup exit strategy that pays out similarly to the income you could have obtained in a straightforward manner in finance is a microsoft/google/facebook/twitter-style long shot. And, the latter two haven't even IPO'd yet to allow full vested share liquidity... All my friends consider it a fairly soulless industry. Though they joke about patent troll/NPE firms in the way most techies joke about financial firms.