Pleasanton Native Makes Finance Easy For Youth

Pleasanton CA

29 September, 2020

5:13 PM

Description

PLEASANTON, CA — If financial jargon makes your eyes glaze over, you're not alone. Teaching youth about finance can be like "feeding a baby broccoli," admits Rohan Gupta —Amador Valley High School graduate, University of Southern California freshman and co-founder of StreetFins, a website that translates jargon-filled financial news stories and concepts into language that young people can understand. Learning about finance may not be the most appealing thing, but financial literacy can be a path to maintaining control over your future and emotions. "A big barrier to having young students even begin to learn finance is the fact that it looks too complicated," said Gupta, 18. "People in finance want to sound smart." That's not how StreetFins rolls, Gupta said. He won't even allow college seniors to contribute because he feels they're more likely to use to jargon to try and impress would-be employers. His motto: "Finance simplified." StreetFins writers try to compare financial concepts to those that peers may be familiar with. "If the stock market right now is a sports team, then the only team it could be is, of course, the 1990s Chicago Bulls," he wrote last month. "And if this market is the 90s Chicago Bulls, then Apple is our Michael Jordan." Though Gupta first found his passion at age 11 after starting to read Warren Buffet books, StreetFins came to be years later, during Gupta's tenure at the Amador Valley High investment club, he said. He initially envisioned the concept as a smaller-scale one to serve his peers. Gupta and co-founders Sean Choi, Rajan Vazirani and Alex Patel helped grow the small site into the platform it is today. Still, StreetFins continues to be a student-run project. It's expanded to include a podcast hosted by Gupta ("Finance Simplified") and has featured well-known figures such as billionaires and Nobel Prize-winners. He runs a newsletter and writes weekly recaps featuring significant financial events. As Gupta looks toward the future, he hopes to find a job in either tech or finance — his two great loves. Maybe he'll become a venture capitalist, maybe he'll work on a startup. But for now, he's dedicated to maintaining StreetFins and educating the next generation of bright minds.