More real life and less anxiety: AI won’t beat us

Twice a day at the gym, then head down studying for six or seven hours: Davide Serra entered Bocconi as a professional volleyball player. A short career in the A2 tournament and the celebration of his team’s promotion to A1, the top league, before seeking his place in the world driven by Mario Monti's lessons and his years of study abroad. 53 years old, he graduated in Business Administration in 1995. “I was the first in my family to have the opportunity to go to college. I had only one duty: do my best,” recalls the founder and CEO of Algebris Investment, named Bocconi Alumnus of the Year in 2024.

What advice would you give to young Davide?

First of all, to live as much as possible in the real world. I was a boy-scout member and a volleyball player, today I would be a young person who does physical workout, studies, strives to succeed while living in the real world and competing with his peers in a healthy way. Many studies say that young people spend too much time comparing each other in the virtual world and this generates anxiety and devastating mental disorders. But it’s not your numbers on the Instagram account that make the difference: Bocconi is a great launching pad for one’s professional trajectory and one of the few veritably meritocratic academic experiences you can have in Italy, because it is international, which is not a given for Italy, and is competitive in a constructive way.

Your time at the University was when your idea of ​​finance was formed. What has changed in these thirty years?

I admit that in my first three years at Bocconi I couldn't fully understand what finance was. I only understood it through in-depth studying and international exchange programs. The first year I went to Norway and met a professor who had helped the Swedish central bank fend off George Soros, who in 1994, after attacking the pound and the Bank of England, had tried the same with the Swedish krona. There I decided I wanted to study finance because I understood that it was a game: there was a subject who "attacked" and one who had to go on the defense. Up until then the subject had been very abstract for me. At the time the good thing was the connection with people: you had to understand the opponent's tactics, like players on the field. Today the game has changed, in my opinion for the worse, because 60-70% of global volumes are made by algorithms that undermine capital allocation strategies, and turn investors like me into Jedi survivors, like in Star Wars. We are resisting here with our name and we are convinced that the technology empire, which has the upper hand today, will lose over the long term.

You had a long traditional career, then in 2006 you founded Algebris. Did Bocconi foster your entrepreneurial spirit?

I'll be honest: no. In my day, as students we dreamt of joining Morgan Stanley, Goldman or McKinsey: they paid more and, as people said, they let you fly business class. The decision to become an entrepreneur came when, after having had professional success, I felt the desire to create my own corporate culture: the American one, although perfect in terms of meritocracy and professionalism, has always seemed a bit arid to me. I wanted to show that you can be a group of good guys and win. Now my greatest achievement is knowing that there are Bocconi students whose aspiration is coming to work at Algebris.

In these thirty years, finance has become increasingly central to people. Will its impact increase in the future?

Yes, because finance is the only discipline that connects generations in a very concrete way. Today we are here, for example, thanks to the savings made by mom, dad, grandparents... At the same time, we can borrow money from the future that we don't have available now, asking for a mortgage to build our idea of ​​independence. Finance is the fruit of the past, it lives in the present and connects to the future. Mario Monti explained it to me when I was in my first year at Bocconi with the concept of intergenerational taxation: government debt falling on the shoulders of future generations.

What value will artificial intelligence have in the financial industry?

As a kid I was one of the best at programming in Excel and I always used the latest technological tools available. Now I ask my people to be “supergeeks", but to date artificial intelligence hasn't done anything that we haven't already tried before. Our world is complex and we use machine learning to read data, but the union between the best technological tools and the best human brain is still decisive. With the unbalanced view of technology we have now, we create anxiety in new generations: technology is only one of the tools, you have to be calm and critical; humans must continue to evolve. This is why the education system must be at the forefront.

We need to work on education and training.

To me this is crucial. It strikes me to meet people who at 25 do not yet have the basics of financial education, a definition of what money is, how a central bank works or the difference between a BTP bond, an investment fund or a company’s stock. I believe that financial education, even minimal, is fundamental for personal awareness and greater understanding of the reality that surrounds us, and exposes us less to the risk of being manipulated by those who make false promises, especially on important issues such as economic ones.

You engage in philanthropic projects: why is it important for entrepreneurs to get involved?

My Anglo-Saxon culture and my Italian heart have made three pillars very clear to me: commitment to family, work and society, with the duty to do well. In my family I was the first who had the chance to study and this has instilled in me a great sense of responsibility. Today, I think it is right to give back part of what I have earned. I do it with two projects: with the Hakuna Matata Foundation, we help 8,000 orphaned children in Tanzania with education and healthcare projects; in Italy with Bocconi, we finance scholarships for students who have the potential to emerge but perhaps not the economic means. Thirty years ago, my scholarship was my grandmother: I like knowing that I can give the same opportunity to someone else.