A Declaration for Capitalism

Part I

A bit of conventional wisdom echoed between traditionalists is “don’t do a job for the money.” This dictates that you shouldn’t chase a career for a paycheck that’s a means to short, material boosts of happiness facilitated by addictive consumerism. The advice implies you should only be pursuing a career for the intellectual stimulation, where the cash is merely a side effect.

The advice is misguiding. The goal of a job should be wealth creation, either for yourself or for your organization. I don’t think the “beware: money!” advice is bad in itself, but it’s taken too literally. The idealist philosophy gets in the way of building a profitable business, which is often a painful endeavor. Convincing yourself money doesn’t matter is the easiest way to justify a failure.

Part II

George Soros cringes when he’s called a hedge fund manager, financier, speculator, trader, banker, entrepreneur and probably even an investor. Soros, above all, is a philosopher who applies his world views to capitalistic endeavors.¹

This illustrates my bigger point: Soros prefers the title of a philosopher because he enjoys the implications of philosophizing more so than money managing. For example, take his view of credit default swaps, referred to as “buy[ing] insurance on someone else’s life and then hav[ing] a license to kill them.” If you talk to any trader on Wall Street, they call it a hedge, not a death certificate like Soros.

Soros does what he does–his craft–for wealth creation. His profit and loss statement is the major measure of success. He is, after all, a top-tier investor. However, he uses his interest in philosophy to make investing sound and feel, specifically to him, like a glorified hobby.

Part III

If you really would do a job for free, the job is either completely worthless or someone smarter than you is absorbing the value creation. Every time I hear someone say, specifically an eager young person, that “they aren’t doing it for the money,” I hear someone being foolishly naive about business and avoiding the ultimate judgment of a potential failure. Money is the market’s way of signaling value. If you aren’t making any, or slated to make any, you’re doing it wrong.²

I’d be willing to bet the most popular jobs are those most difficult to measure, simply because they make hiding behind failure easy. I blame the marketers, simply because they are the easiest target. They’ve convinced a whole class of aspiring creatives that you can base a career on building relationships, community evangelizing and blogging. These descriptions may sound productive in text, but they are skills people say they are good at because there is not an easy way to measure financial results. They aren’t quantifiable, measurable or testable. These skills are valuable if you can determine their ROI (and the talented, versatile marketers can), but if you can’t measure, you’re just overhead.³

Part IV

The more I dive into my career, craft, path, journey or whatever you want to call it, the more I realize that I’m absolutely doing it for the money. I love what I’m doing, no doubt, but I inevitably know that the measure of success will be judged by how much wealth I create for my organization and its stakeholders. Going into business without the intent to make money is like crossing a busy highway without looking both ways.

Do it all for the money. Not necessarily to spend it–but to make it and measure it. Long-term wealth creation proves economic tangibility. To pursue anything else besides money will put you out of business.

1. Like Soros, Charlie Munger was keen on “philosophizing,” rather than just “investing,” even though he did the latter. Many entrepreneurs, especially Marc Andreessen, live by his almanac. [↩]
2. An interview strategy relevant to this point would be to proclaim you will make an organization more money than they are slated to pay you. From the employer’s stand point, this is obviously their the goal. [↩]
3. Stock traders are a good example of the ultimately measurable career, although the majority of the ones I know hate their job. It’s possible that too close of an association between P&L and the job can be mentally counter-productive. [↩]

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