I didn't learn much in business school.

For me, it was a way to move from being an engineer to an investor. And as such, it was super valuable. As an education, not so much. It did lead to MBA Mondays, which was a ton of fun to write. But I digress.

There are a few occasions in business school that were "aha moments" for me. One was in a class called "Speculative Markets." The professor explained that speculating and hedging were two sides of a trade. And that there would not be hedging without speculating.

I had never considered that. It made me think.

Speculating has a dirty quality to it. One thinks of Adam Sandler in Uncut Gems or George Soros making billions betting against the British Pound. How can speculation be good?

Hedging is different. A farmer in Iowa needs to hedge the risk of a bad winter so she can keep the family farm she inherited from her parents. How can hedging be bad?

And yet you need one to exist for the other to exist. That's powerful. At least it was for me at the young age of twenty-four.

I thought of all of this when I read Murtaza's thoughtful musings on writer coins this morning. In it, he writes:

Part of the difficulty is philosophical: journalism is a public good, not a speculative asset.

There it is. The dirty word. Reading that makes me feel bad.

And yet, what if he had written this?

Journalism is a public good and we should invest in it.

Reading that would make me feel good.

Investment needs speculation.

If you make an investment and you can't sell it, no matter what the price, then you are way less likely to make it.

If you make an investment and there is a highly liquid market that allows you to exit the investment any time you want in a nanosecond, then you are way more likely to make that investment.

If journalism needs investment, then, sadly, it also needs speculation.

That is how it is.

As icky as it feels at times.

I didn't learn much in business school.

For me, it was a way to move from being an engineer to an investor. And as such, it was super valuable. As an education, not so much. It did lead to MBA Mondays, which was a ton of fun to write. But I digress.

There are a few occasions in business school that were "aha moments" for me. One was in a class called "Speculative Markets." The professor explained that speculating and hedging were two sides of a trade. And that there would not be hedging without speculating.

I had never considered that. It made me think.

Speculating has a dirty quality to it. One thinks of Adam Sandler in Uncut Gems or George Soros making billions betting against the British Pound. How can speculation be good?

Hedging is different. A farmer in Iowa needs to hedge the risk of a bad winter so she can keep the family farm she inherited from her parents. How can hedging be bad?

And yet you need one to exist for the other to exist. That's powerful. At least it was for me at the young age of twenty-four.

I thought of all of this when I read Murtaza's thoughtful musings on writer coins this morning. In it, he writes:

Part of the difficulty is philosophical: journalism is a public good, not a speculative asset.

There it is. The dirty word. Reading that makes me feel bad.

And yet, what if he had written this?

Journalism is a public good and we should invest in it.

Reading that would make me feel good.

Investment needs speculation.

If you make an investment and you can't sell it, no matter what the price, then you are way less likely to make it.

If you make an investment and there is a highly liquid market that allows you to exit the investment any time you want in a nanosecond, then you are way more likely to make that investment.

If journalism needs investment, then, sadly, it also needs speculation.

That is how it is.

As icky as it feels at times.