Aquamarine Fund founder and value investor Guy Spier, founder is questioning the value of and the number of financiers in the work force today, including himself.
"I think that I might have served the world a lot better if I had gone and done engineering because I would have ended up maybe making something," Spier says, "And instead all I do is manipulate claims of society."
He asks "Do we need as many people in finance as we have and would the world be better served if we could make half of the minds that are in finance and have them go build bridges and do things in the real world?. Quite possibly. But that's not how the world works."
"It is what it is.”
Spiers believes that in the aftermath of the financial crisis, financial services have gained a bad reputation and it was now up to those coming into the sector to do something bringing real value to their profession.
“I will tell you, there are many people who participate in the financial markets today who have no freaking interest in what they're doing to serve the public good. They're just greedy Gordon Gekkos, I guess. And I'd like to believe that we can take the world to a place where there's less of that,” says Spiers.