Here’s how I recall the wonderful story that sets the theme for my remarks today: At a party given by a billionaire on Shelter Island, the late Kurt Vonnegut informs his pal, the author Joseph Heller, that their host, a hedge fund manager, had made more money in a single day than Heller had earned from his wildly popular novel Catch 22 over its whole history. Heller responds,
"Yes, but I have something he will never have . . . Enough."
Enough. I was stunned by its simple eloquence, to say nothing of its relevance to some of the vital issues arising in American society today. Many of them revolve around money--yes, money--increasingly, in our "bottom line" society, the Great God of prestige, the Great Measure of the Man (and Woman). So this morning I have the temerity to ask you soon-to-be-minted MBA graduates, most of whom will enter the world of commerce, to consider with me the role of "enough" in business and entrepreneurship in our society, "enough" in the dominant role of the financial system in our economy, and "enough" in the values you will bring to the fields you choose for your careers.
Kurt Vonnegut loved to speak to college students. He believed, if I may paraphrase here, that "we should catch young people before they become CEOs, investment bankers, consultants, and money managers (and especially hedge fund managers), and do our best to poison their minds with humanity." And in my remarks this morning, I’ll try to poison your minds with a little bit of that humanity.
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Once a profession in which business was subservient, the field of money management and Wall Street has become a business in which the profession is subservient. Harvard Business School Professor Rakesh Khurana was right when he defined the conduct of a true professional with these words:
"I will create value for society, rather than extract it."
And yet money management, by definition, extracts value from the returns earned by our business enterprises. Warren Buffett’s wise partner Charlie Munger lays it on the line:
"Most money-making activity contains profoundly antisocial effects . . . As high-cost modalities become ever more popular . . . the activity exacerbates the current harmful trend in which ever more of the nation’s ethical young brain-power is attracted into lucrative money-management and its attendant modern frictions, as distinguished from work providing much more value to others."
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Three, no matter what career you choose, do your best to hold high its traditional professional values, now swiftly eroding, in which serving the client is always the highest priority. And don’t ignore the greater good of your community, your nation, and your world. After William Penn, "we pass through this world but once, so do now any good you can do, and show now any kindness you can show, for we shall not pass this way again."
Most commencement speakers like to sum up by citing some eminent philosopher to endorse his message. I’m no exception. So I now offer to you new Masters of Business Administration these words from Socrates, spoken 2500 years ago, as he challenged the citizens of Athens.
"I honor and love you: but why do you who are citizens of this great and mighty nation care so much about laying up the greatest amount of money and honor and reputation, and so little about wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul. Are you not ashamed of this? . . . I do nothing but go about persuading you all, not to take thought for your persons and your properties, but first and chiefly to care about the greatest improvement of the soul. I tell you that virtue is not given by money, but that from virtue comes money and every other good of man."
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