That was what I believed, anyway, and not without reason: My first day included an orientation with the rest of the investment associate (post-college) and analyst (post-MBA) class who were hired to do equity research. There were maybe thirty of us: half associates, half analysts; a few women. During one of the sessions, a senior portfolio manager gave us a pep talk about our collective purpose. He retrieved a letter from his pocket and began reading it aloud; it was from someone who’d invested in his fund, thanking him for his good performance over the years that had enabled the letter writer’s children to go to college. To make possible the education of future generations—what could be more meaningful than this?