Financial History Issue 132 (Winter 2020) | Page 15

Words of Wisdom
Excerpts from the Remarks
Delivered at the 2020 Museum Gala
At the 2020 Museum of American Finance Gala on February 24, the Museum honored Dan Schulman with the Schwab Award for
Financial Innovation, James P. Gorman with the Whitehead Award for Distinguished Public Service and Financial Leadership,
and Peter A. Cohen with the Lifetime Achievement Award. Prior to the award ceremony, Bill Donaldson was honored for his years
of service as a founding member and co-chair of the Museum’s Advisory Council, as he moved to emeritus status of that group.
Excerpts from the remarks delivered that evening are published below in the order in which they were presented.
DAN SCHULMAN
President & CEO, PayPal
To the Museum of American Finance,
thank you very much for this honor
tonight. To my fellow honorees, it is an
honor to be here with you as well. I think
it’s an interesting time to be accepting this
award from a museum because museums’
charge really is to chronical history. And if
you think about the history of companies,
and you think about the history of finance
and you think about the history of capital-
ism, I think we are at a turning point in all
of those things.
If you look at the state of our country
today, it’s clear that capitalism needs an
upgrade. Now, don’t get me wrong, I
am a big capitalist. I believe in capital-
ism. But like everything else, it needs
to be improved because right now. The
system is not working. There are 185 mil-
lion Americans who basically suffer from
financial distress. That means every single
day, they worry about how they’re going
to make ends meet. They worry if they
should pay their healthcare benefits for
their kids or put food on the table.
Two-thirds of Americans have prob-
lems making ends meet at the end of
the month. And this is the first genera-
tion ever that, when you poll them, does
not believe that they will be better off
than their parents. The bedrock of the
American Dream is that if you work hard
enough, you’ll get ahead. The dreams that
we have for our kids, they’ll fulfill them,
and they’ll move ahead and have a better
life than we did.
And, so, I believe right now that this
is seeping into our politics, obviously.
Four years ago, you had quite a number
of people vote, I think, against the system.
Not necessarily for an individual, but
against the system. Because they did not
believe that democracy was working for
them or the current system was working
for them. And, now, here we are four years
later, and it looks likely at this point that
you’re going to have on the left a candi-
date that’s anti-establishment as well. And
why? Because people don’t believe that the
system is working for them.
My favorite quote about democracy is
that democracy needs to be more than two
wolves and one sheep voting on what to
have for dinner. What it basically means
is that for democracy to flourish, you
need to rise above your own self-interest.
But how can you rise about your own
self-interest when you are struggling to
make ends meet every single day? When
you worry about the future of your kids
and you really are struggling to have your
dreams kept alive.
Now I think about this all the time. And
I think that we, in this room—who either
run businesses, are the CEOs of businesses
or are parts of businesses—we have an
obligation to stand up and stand for more
than just making money.
Many of you in this room are share-
holders of PayPal, and I know you are
happy shareholders of PayPal, but here’s
what I believe. I believe it is essential that
CEOs and companies be servants to mul-
tiple stakeholders, whether they be our
employees, our customers, our environ-
ment or whether it be the communities
that we serve. We have to look at all of
these stakeholders (obviously, including
our shareholders), and treat them in a dif-
ferent way than just maximizing our profit
over the short-term.
I really believe we’re entering an era
that I call reverse Friedman-ism, where
we’re not just maximizing profits, but
we are maximizing both the purpose of
a company and profits at the same time.
And I know there are probably a lot of
you in this room who think that profit
and purpose are at odds with each other.
And I fundamentally disagree with that
assertion.
I think if you want to be a great, endur-
ing company over the long run, you have
to have an inspiring, noble mission as
a company. You need to have a diverse
workforce, and your employees need to
feel financially secure and have a degree of
financial health.
My view from a PayPal perspective and
from my perspective is that we need to put
our employees first. My view is that if you
treat your employees with a mission that
www.MoAF.org  |  Winter 2020  |  FINANCIAL HISTORY  13