win in reality and the market is the scoreboard
A lot of the finance industry is built for networkers and brownnosers.
I’m not even mad at that.
If your edge is access, proximity, and social calibration, then the “game” makes perfect sense: attend the dinners, say the right things, signal the right affiliations, collect the right endorsements. In that world, performance is often secondary to permission.
That’s not an insult. It’s just the structure.
Why I’m not mad
Because my objection isn’t personal.
It’s structural.
I don’t want a ‘mid’ to be my superior.
Not because I resent hierarchy—but because hierarchy in this industry often rewards the wrong dimension. It rewards social obedience, risk-free positioning, and the ability to stay in good standing. It rewards the person who can manage perception more than the person who can produce consequence.
And once you’ve seen that, you can’t unsee it:
That layer forms that specializes in interpretation and relationships—and then pretends it’s the same thing as capability.
It’s not.
Performing is for people without consequence
Here’s the simplest version:
If you have real, consequential capability, you shouldn’t have to perform.
Performance is what you do when you need approval.
Capability is what you do when you don’t.
And I’m not interested in living inside an economy where the most competent person is expected to audition for someone less competent—just because that person sits between the talent and the capital.
That’s the part that breaks the spell.
The quiet inversion
This is why I built my work the way I did:
No gatekeepers.
No dependence on a network’s permission.
No need to “be liked” by the right people.
Just the tape, the timestamp, the consequence.
In markets, you can’t talk your way into a fill.
You can’t network your way into a reversal.
You can’t brownnose your way out of a bad entry.
The market doesn’t care who you know.
It only cares what you can do.
That’s the only hierarchy I respect.
The point isn’t to be anti-social
To be clear: I’m not anti-networking.
Networking is useful.
Relationships matter.
Social intelligence is real.
But none of those things should outrank consequence.
If the industry wants to be a social club, fine.
If it wants to be a credential machine, fine.
I’m just not building my life around a system where a middleman can outrank capability.
Because I’m not trying to win a popularity contest.
I’m trying to win reality.
And in markets, reality has a scoreboard.