Lorenzo is a 26 year old man working as a mid-level trader at Goldman Sachs in the Sales and Trading division. He’s got a winning smile and is viewed within the company as a rising star with a promising future. He dates models and socialites, his coke dealer gives him a solid discount, and he’s got a primo lease on a Manhattan penthouse that, believe it or not, comes with a covered parking spot for his Porsche. And Lorenzo really believes in what he does; he’s a man of principles, and he knows the potential that targeted investments have to bring economic growth to poor neighborhoods and countries. Once he makes it to the top, he can use the immense power Goldman Sachs wields for good, instead of for profit. But he’s not sure he’s got the stamina to make it that far, not sure he can withstand the turbulent corruption and amoral greed that pulses into the financial sector and beats back out into the American economy.

Lorenzo grew up very poor in the Brownsville neighborhood in Brooklyn, and although he was quite bright he was also wise enough not to show it, and he managed to keep on the right side of the local ‘bangers. He quietly maintained excellent grades without drawing attention to himself, and over time used his smarts to further endear himself to some local crack dealers by helping them optimize their business model. He used this connection to set up a supply chain to some people living in the same project as him, but he was scrupulous and only set up guys who had kids to feed. He didn’t like crack any more than anyone else, but sometimes a man’s gotta feed his family. Lorenzo took a small cut, of course, to help his mom get by, since she was struggling to raise him and his brother and sister without a dad in the picture. It was only right. But he began to accumulate some wealth, and at the age of 14 he bought his first stocks.

It wasn’t long before Lorenzo discovered his affinity for the market, for understanding the ebb and flow of buying and selling, and he was quietly making a cool thousand a week by trading smart. He barely paid attention to high school anymore, though he still maintained a 3.5, preferring to focus on building his portfolio. When he graduated, he went to college at NYU to study banking. Due to some unfortunate arson in 1994, there was no record of Lorenzo’s mother or of his birth in any easily accessible files, so he paid in cash and told the school that his parents were dead, and he was using the life insurance payout to cover tuition. In time a recruiter from Goldman Sachs named Oliver Westfield noticed a successful anonymous broker and dug deep enough to find Lorenzo. Oliver recognized Lorenzo’s talent and set him up with an entry level job as soon as he graduated.

Lorenzo’s driving goal, on the surface, is to eliminate poverty through judicious application of capitalism. But it goes deeper than that, because Lorenzo, though principled, has always valued control above all else, and will never be satisfied with simply directing the flow of other people’s money. His endgame is to eliminate paper currency and transition to purely digital transactions, entirely controlled by him behind the scenes.