On stage before the algorithm generation, Joseph Plazo—founder of the AI-led fund Plazo Sullivan Roche—delivered a speech that broke the rhythm of the room.

Inside a packed auditorium at the Asian Institute of Management, he pressed pause on the future everyone’s racing toward.

“If you hand your portfolio to a machine,” he said, “make sure it knows what you stand for.”

???? **The Man Who Built the Machine—and Still Questions It**

He isn’t a luddite dressed in pinstripes. His systems reportedly post a near-flawless trade history in volatile markets. Institutions from Zurich to Singapore use his tech to move millions.

And that’s why his words matter.

“Speed is not a virtue when it lacks vision.”

He shared a chilling moment: one of his bots suggested shorting gold in March 2020—right before the Fed’s emergency intervention.

“We stopped it. It read the chart. But not the crisis.”

???? **Friction Isn’t a Flaw. It’s a Filter.**

Top managers are whispering what Plazo said out loud: we’re getting fast, but dumber.

“You don’t just need models. You need margins—for thought.”

He introduced his framework: **Conviction Calculus**.

Three questions. Every trade. Every time:

- Does this align with our values—or just our targets?
- What does experience say—not just code?
- Will we blame the bot or accept the blame?

???? **Fast Money, Slow Morals: A Crisis in the Making**

Asia’s markets are surging—but oversight is stuck in 2015.

Plazo put it plainly:

“You can deploy an algorithm in seconds. Values take decades.”

In 2024, two hedge funds in Hong Kong collapsed after bots misread macro trends.

“The next crash won’t be a scream. It’ll be silent, executed in microseconds.”

???? **The Future Isn’t Faster Bots—It’s Smarter Context**

Plazo isn’t giving up on AI.

His firm is building what he calls **narrative-integrated systems**—machines that weigh data *and* intent. That read not just the chart, but the climate.

“It’s not enough to replicate alpha. We need systems that can say no.”

At a private dinner that evening, top VCs scribbled notes on napkins. One called Plazo’s talk:

“How we put the ‘human’ back in hedge fund.”

???? **What check here Can’t Be Measured May Matter Most**

Plazo ended with a sentence that should be engraved on every trading desk:

“Emotion won’t destroy the next bull run. Blind faith in automation will.”

It wasn’t a pitch. It was a principle.

And in a world of noise, that stillness? That’s what leadership sounds like.