SoFi Blog

Last year, we had the opportunity to help our members in their quest to tackle debt head on. The #WhyISoFi contest brought in an overwhelming response from our community. As stories of both success and setback poured in, one thing became clear: SoFi members aren’t just accomplishing goals to get ahead, they’re doing good and making a name for themselves in the process.

It’s the beginning of a perfect modern romance: You met on an app, and after engaging in some above-average banter, you’ve been on two drink dates and out to dinner at least once. You’ve finally saved their number in your contacts under their real name (as opposed to “John/Jane Bumble”), and you’re feeling good about moving out of the “hanging out” stage toward something more serious.

And then, out of nowhere, your potential future mate drops a bomb —they’ve got debt, and lots of it. They’re carrying $100K+ in student loans. Do you walk away or stay? And if you do stay, who pays for dinner?

We’ve got debt on the brain year-round here at SoFi, but with Valentine’s Day just days away, we’ve got love on the brain too, so we surveyed 2,000 Millennials to learn more about how they think about debt in the context of their love life.

After breaking through the much-watched 20,000 level, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and other major equity indices, have retreated over the past several days. The pull back in equities, the rise in Treasury prices, and dollar sell off are all clearly related to actions of the Trump administration. Indeed, the likelihood of an economically destabilizing policy action by the administration rises as he continues to pursue policies previously thought to be campaign rhetoric. A border tax, for instance, could be incredibly destabilizing to the U.S. economy.

We have never been shy about SoFi’s ambitions to become the center of our member’s financial lives. Offering deposits, credit cards, and payment solutions is key to that ambition, and we think we can offer something better than incumbent players with the same kind of innovation we’ve brought to other areas of finance, like student loan refinancing, personal loans, and mortgages.

Today, we got a lot closer to being able to provide those products with the acquisition of Zenbanx, a Delaware-based company that offers a mobile banking account that lets people save, send and spend in multiple currencies.

If you’re a young lawyer working at a law firm, you probably envision being named partner someday. But, as you know, the road to partnership can be tough to traverse, even for the most prepared associate—and it’s only gotten more rigorous in recent years. Consider this: The number of equity partners at firms has increased by only 27% over the past 15 years, while the number of all other attorneys has increased by nearly 86%. Additionally, the demand for law firm services has been fairly stagnant for the past eight years, with the exception of a brief rise in 2011, according to the 2016 Report on the State of the Legal Market. The increasing competitiveness among firms has resulted in a thinning of the ranks for equity partners, which means a much longer timeline to being named one, if at all.

While you can’t predict whether you’ll be named partner, you still have significant ability as an associate to steer your career in the right direction. Because it’s now more difficult than ever to make partner, you’ll want to know if you are on the right track, so you can come up with a game plan to reach that goal more quickly—or decide whether you want to pursue other options.