Business is other people's money.

Host: The office was a cathedral of glass and chrome, its walls reflecting the grey skyline outside. The hum of machines, the glow of screens, the faint scent of burnt espresso — all of it merged into a quiet symphony of control and ambition. From forty stories up, the city looked like a board game: cars like chess pieces, people like moving currency.

The clock on the wall ticked in sharp, perfect rhythm — the only honest sound in a room full of polished lies.

At the end of a long mahogany table, Jack sat with his jacket off, tie loosened, sleeves rolled up. His grey eyes scanned the spreadsheet on the glowing monitor before him, but his mind was elsewhere — in the silence between the numbers.

Across from him, Jeeny leaned back in her chair, legs crossed, a quiet smirk on her lips. Her dark eyes shimmered with the confidence of someone who had long ago learned how to navigate empires built on trust funds and fragile egos.

The rain outside traced thin lines down the windows like ledger marks in the sky.

Jeeny: “Delphine de Girardin once said, ‘Business is other people’s money.’”

Host: Her voice was smooth, deliberate — the kind of voice that could close deals or end them.

Jack: (half-smiling) “And here I was thinking it was about innovation, leadership, and integrity.”

Jeeny: “Those are just the accessories. The truth is, every business — no matter how noble it sounds — starts with one thing: someone else’s wallet.”

Jack: “You make it sound parasitic.”

Jeeny: “It’s symbiotic, if you’re polite. Predatory, if you’re honest.”

Host: A thin column of cigarette smoke curled upward from the ashtray between them, blurring the reflections of their faces in the glass.

Jack: “So you’re saying the world runs on borrowed risk?”

Jeeny: “And borrowed morality. Nobody gets rich off their own virtue, Jack. They get rich off other people’s belief in it.”

Jack: (leaning forward) “You sound like you hate the game.”

Jeeny: “I don’t hate it. I just don’t romanticize it.”

Host: The thunder outside rolled low, distant, like an afterthought of conscience.

Jeeny: “Look at us. We buy companies we don’t believe in, using money we don’t own, to sell dreams no one needs. And we call it value creation.”

Jack: “And yet, here we are, building our lives around it.”

Jeeny: “Because we confuse survival with success.”

Jack: (quietly) “You think it’s wrong?”

Jeeny: “No. I think it’s brilliant. Terrifying, but brilliant. We’ve turned trust into currency — and we spend it until there’s nothing left but noise.”

Host: He stared at her — the way she said it, the way her words cut without bleeding.

Jack: “You really believe all business is manipulation?”

Jeeny: “Not manipulation. Performance. You sell certainty to people afraid of uncertainty. That’s not evil — it’s economics.”

Jack: (smirking) “You could run an investment bank with that philosophy.”

Jeeny: “Please. I’d rather run a circus. At least the animals know they’re being watched.”

Host: A faint smile tugged at his lips — not amusement, but recognition.

Jack: “You ever think about what that means for the rest of us? If business really is other people’s money, then what’s our integrity worth?”

Jeeny: “Whatever someone’s willing to pay for it.”

Jack: “You make morality sound like a market commodity.”

Jeeny: “It is. Look around you — ethics has shareholders now.”

Host: Her words hung in the air, heavy and clean, like the sharp scent of ink on a fresh contract.

Jack stood, walked toward the window, and stared out at the city below. The lights flickered in the rain, each one a transaction, a tiny act of faith between strangers.

Jack: “You know, when I started this firm, I thought I could build something honest. Real. I wanted to prove that you could win without stealing — that profit didn’t have to mean exploitation.”

Jeeny: (softly) “And now?”

Jack: “Now I realize honesty doesn’t scale.”

Jeeny: “Of course it doesn’t. Transparency is expensive, and no one pays for what they can’t resell.”

Host: He turned back to her, leaning against the glass, his silhouette framed by the pulsing city behind him.

Jack: “You think Wells Fargo started as a scam? Or Lehman Brothers? Or Enron?”

Jeeny: “They all started as dreams. That’s the dangerous part — corruption rarely begins with evil. It begins with ambition that stopped asking questions.”

Jack: “So you think it’s inevitable?”

Jeeny: “I think it’s human.”

Host: The rain thickened, tapping a restless rhythm against the window — the sound of time passing through accountability.

Jeeny: “Delphine was right. Business isn’t money — it’s faith. People lending pieces of themselves to an idea, hoping it’ll come back with interest. The tragedy is, the house always wins.”

Jack: “And we’re the house.”

Jeeny: “Exactly.”

Host: She leaned forward, elbows on the table, her tone quieting.

Jeeny: “But you know what still amazes me, Jack? That even knowing this — knowing how hollow it can be — we still keep playing. We still build. We still believe.”

Jack: “Because belief is profitable.”

Jeeny: “Because belief is human. You can’t sell hope if you don’t have some left yourself.”

Host: He looked at her, and something softened in his face — the kind of expression that happens when cynicism meets its own reflection and finds a heartbeat behind it.

Jack: “Maybe that’s what keeps us decent — the part of us that still feels guilty for winning.”

Jeeny: “No. What keeps us decent is remembering who loses when we win.”

Host: The thunder returned, closer now, its echo shuddering through the walls like distant applause or judgment — no one could tell which.

Jeeny stood, gathered her folder, and paused beside him.

Jeeny: “You know, maybe business really is other people’s money. But it’s also their trust, their hope, their last gamble. And we have to decide every day whether we’re investors in that hope… or thieves of it.”

Jack: (quietly) “And which are we?”

Jeeny: (after a long pause) “Depends on the quarter.”

Host: They both laughed softly — not from humor, but from the kind of irony that’s too true to deny.

The storm outside began to ease. The city lights reflected off the glass — billions of transactions, billions of small choices, all shimmering like constellations made of compromise.

Jack turned off the monitor, plunging the office into half-darkness.

Jack: “You ever wonder if profit is just the world’s way of measuring faith misplaced?”

Jeeny: “Maybe. Or maybe it’s proof that people still believe in something — even if it’s each other’s illusions.”

Host: She walked toward the elevator, her reflection fading as the doors slid shut.

Jack stayed by the window a moment longer, watching the city pulse like a living organism — fragile, brilliant, complicit.

And as the storm passed and the silence returned, Delphine de Girardin’s words seemed to echo through the glass —

that business, stripped of romance and rhetoric,
is not invention or genius or virtue,
but a mirror of trust —

the delicate, dangerous art
of spending other people’s faith
and calling it success.