Dear self,

As you open this letter, I hope it brings back the memory of the ethics class you took senior year. I am writing to you to remind you of some of the most valuable lessons and concepts you’ve learned in this class.

The first lesson I want to bring back to you is the role of money. You might already be pursuing a lucrative career right now, eager to work harder and earn more. And admittedly, people associate their career goals closely with different levels of salaries, so you might as well be measuring your success based on promotions, increase in pay, or bonuses. However, when setting goals for your career and later points of your life, it is extremely important to consider factors other than money. Though it may sound too simple, money isn’t everything. In fact, you do not even need that much money to be happy.

I know you have always cared about money. At Penn, one of the reasons you rarely skipped a class was the mental calculation for how much tuition it’s worth. You thought that with enough money, you would be able to do anything you want, for example starting your own animation studio. It was your belief that the more you earn, the happier you would be. However, in your ethics class, you realized money is not as powerful as you had thought; it actually had lots of limitations. Many things simply cannot be purchased with money, which included some of the most important things in our lives – freedom, health, love and care.

As a first step, you should think about what matters to you besides money starting now. When choosing your first job after graduation, did you give up a work that interested you more but offered less salary? Have you ever made unethical decisions driven by profits just like what Elizabeth Holmes did? You need to be aware that when money becomes the biggest factor in decision-making in business, people at organizations sometimes choose their action not because it is the most rightful thing to do, but because doing so would generate the highest gain or involve the lowest cost. The extremely detrimental outcome of such decisions was clearly illustrated by the Ford Pinto case. Therefore, it is crucial to always know the moral limits of markets despite the lure of money.

The second lesson I want to emphasize is the five theories of moral reasoning. Specifically, I believe that the virtue theory will apply most to the business you are in. “Business must be conceived as an essential part of the good and virtuous life.” The day you learned about this theory, you realized you are a firm believer of it. Since you are a highly compassionate and empathetic individual, you know that you want to do things that will bring value to the society. For two years, you served as an active member of the Alpha Phi Omega service-based organization and participated in various kinds of service projects. Therefore, when choosing an industry or company, it is also important to make sure their values and business moral compass align with your own. Google, the company you interned at, had an unofficial motto “don’t be evil”. When it removed the line from its code of conduct in May 2018, other Googlers questioned about the decision as they cared deeply about the code of conduct aligning with their personal values just like you did.

When your find that your firm’s business conduct does not align with your personal values, you will face the decision between “exit, voice, and loyalty.” If that happens, I hope that you consider voice as your first choice. Voice your concerns to your managers and explain to them your moral reasoning. For example, if you work as a software engineer and just find a bug in the newest version of an App to be launched the next day, you should talk to the technical managers and suggest delaying the release date, since the bug will negatively influence the user experience or even cause large profit loss for your clients. If you voice would not be heard, then it’s totally fine to exit, just like Greg Smith’s decision to leave Goldman Sachs when he realized the firm no longer attempts the best thing for its clients but started to focus on profits instead.

The last message I wish to deliver is to ask constantly, “how will I measure my life?” Specifically, out of the three sub-questions, “How can I be sure to stay out of jail and live a life of integrity?” The key is to consciously avoid the “marginal cost” mistake. You need to define what you stand for and draw the line. In the past, you might have made this mistake several times, such as eating a bag of chip during a diet. Although those were minor issues, the “just this once” line of thought will eventually sucker you in and lead you down the wrong path, with much more severe consequences and no turning back. It is surprising how many people have been sentenced to jail for committing insider trading. Similar to you, they were highly-intellectual people with elite educational background, yet their failure to resist temptation had led to the cascade of consequences which they eventually bore.

As I conclude this letter, I hope the three lessons discussed here will remain with you in the long haul. I chose them because they were the most relatable and would have the greatest impact on your career and your life as a whole. Your business will span the majority part of your life, so I hope you will always keep your moral compass calibrated so it will guide you the right way. In the end, my biggest wish for you is to be happy, so that you will always be able to get a good night of sleep for the rest of your life.