About

Offering Memorandum is an independent, informational project focused on explaining, discussing and analyzing financial concepts, structures and market dynamics from the perspective of those closest to execution and least invested in mythology. The site is not a registered investment adviser and does not provide investment advice.

Values

Liberty

Offering Memorandum values intellectual liberty.

That means freedom from prescribed narratives, institutional loyalty tests, and the expectation that intelligent people should outsource their judgment to brands, firms, or consensus.

No position here is held because it is fashionable or rewarded. Arguments are advanced because they are defensible.

Equality

Equality, in this context, means equal respect for intelligence.

Credentials matter only insofar as they sharpen analysis. Titles, pedigree, and proximity to power do not confer correctness.

Ideas stand on their structure. Anyone willing to engage seriously is treated as a peer.

Autonomy

Autonomy is the animating principle.

Offering Memorandum assumes readers who want to think for themselves, manage their own risk, and understand systems well enough to choose how and whether to participate in them.

Overeducated and underpaid

It’s a market reality. 

The phrase comes from Trader Joe’s founder Joe Coulombe, who built the brand to serve highly educated Caltech and JPL professionals in Pasadena whose tastes and intelligence exceeded their salaries. 

Today, many finance, legal, and other white-collar professionals face the same mismatch: significant investment in education and skill, but diminishing returns from traditional career paths. 

Offering Memorandum is built for people the system underprices.