Sharing is Caring

Have you ever played on a great team? Perhaps it was a sports team at school. Perhaps it was in an orchestra. Perhaps it was in a business organisation that was blessedly free of office politics. What made that team great? No doubt a lot of things. But most of all because it was a winning team. And the team won because people collaborated by contributing their skill for the good of the team. There might have been an outstanding player, but even star players need the support of those around them to win.

How do we win as a society? The answer is simple isn’t it? We win by creating economic growth that gives all of us the wherewithal to live decent lives, without taking away economic incentives to excel as individuals. We create economic growth through investment. And we maximise investment when we minimise the risk or uncertainty associated with it.

Anyone who has spent more than a nano-second in the financial markets will know that financial markets do not currently work to minimise the volatility needed to maximise investment. On the contrary, we have allowed enormous asymmetries of information to persist so that some people make money at the expense of others. The result is levels of unpredictability or volatility that are higher than they might otherwise be and levels of investment that are lower than they might otherwise be. And in a debt-laden world, the thing we need most is investment to help us grow our way out of the debt-trap that will otherwise dampen growth and prosperity for decades to come.

An optimal society is one in which individuals are incentivised to contribute and their contributions are additive rather than zero-sum. So, how does invstr help to create a winning team, a winning society? For a start we eliminate information asymmetry by making financial information available in real time to everyone for free. Then we create a fun and exciting environment in which people can share their financial predictions with their fellow invstrs and be recognised for their skill. We give them status and kudos through League Tables, Scorecards and individual badges that attract more followers to them. We allow them to share their expertise through a games feed and a social feed. We celebrate their success within our community. They are winners and the community also wins. We all get to see for free, in real time the collective wisdom of the community. The more people who join our community the more accurate that collective wisdom will be. It will become financial reality or the closest thing to reality we could ever expect.

And a world in which we all know everything that can be known about the future will be a world in which volatility will be lower and investment will be higher and economic prosperity will be higher. We can collaborate our way to greater economic prosperity. Sharing is caring. Play, Learn and Share on invstr.