Approach the management of your personal relationships with the same deliberation and strategic foresight that you would apply to overseeing a diverse stock portfolio. This was the central piece of guidance recently shared by Andrew “Boz” Bosworth, Meta’s Chief Technology Officer, in a thought-provoking blog post in which he explored the idea of what he calls one’s “emotional economy.”
Bosworth invites readers to adopt an imaginative yet practical lens through which to view their social connections: to picture every individual they interact with as if that person were a publicly traded security. Since joining Meta in 2006, Boz has often reflected on the parallels between human interactions and systemic frameworks, and here he extends that thinking to the management of emotional investments. In his analogy, a handful of people form the cornerstone of one’s emotional portfolio—those to whom we devote deep energy and commitment, such as parents, partners, or professional mentors and managers. Beyond this intimate circle, there exists a broader category of smaller holdings—colleagues, acquaintances, or friendly contacts with whom we engage but to whom we commit only limited emotional capital. Then there are the vast numbers of individuals in whom we have no emotional ownership at all: the strangers we encounter in passing, the faceless voices commenting online, or the occasional critics whose opinions have no enduring place in our lives.
From Bosworth’s perspective, a person’s influence on our self-perception and emotional equilibrium should correspond exactly to the emotional resources we have willingly invested in them. In simpler terms, he encourages proportional response. For example, if an indifferent passerby critiques your clothing or appearance, their opinion should hold no more personal consequence than watching an unfamiliar company’s stock lose value—a blip that bears no direct cost to your financial well-being. Yet, as Boz astutely observes, most people fail to maintain this level of emotional rationality. Instead, many of us allow unearned and unnecessary external opinions to disturb our internal balance, granting strangers or peripheral figures an amount of emotional authority they have not earned.
He cautions that this tendency represents a kind of mismanagement of one’s emotional portfolio—a squandering of psychological equity that could be better devoted elsewhere. When we let inconsequential voices sway our moods or self-worth, we engage in emotional overexposure and poor diversification. According to Bosworth, true emotional intelligence requires a mindful reassessment of where our attention, empathy, and vulnerability are allocated. He advises investing deliberately in those relationships that provide authentic reciprocity and growth, that generate measurable returns in the form of trust, respect, or mutual support—just as a savvy investor focuses on long-term value creation rather than speculative whims.
Summarizing his perspective, Bosworth writes that we should apply the same disciplined principles that guide sound financial management to our emotional lives: practice thoughtful diversification, make intentional commitments, and resist the impulse to overreact when external conditions cause temporary turbulence. Market fluctuations—whether in financial or emotional form—are inevitable, but panic rarely serves long-term stability.
On his personal blog, where he often shares insights shaped by years of leadership and technological innovation, Bosworth explained that his intention is to translate the most difficult lessons of his career into accessible wisdom for others. Many of these insights, he admits candidly, were acquired through experience—the type that demands perseverance and occasional setbacks before mastery can emerge.
When contacted for further comment, Bosworth did not provide an immediate response. Meanwhile, the corporate context around his reflection offered its own note of volatility: Meta’s quarterly earnings report, released the same week, revealed a 9% decline in the company’s stock value during after-hours trading following the earnings call. Against this backdrop, Bosworth’s metaphor of emotional investment feels particularly resonant—a reminder that whether in finance or relationships, equilibrium depends not on avoiding fluctuations but on knowing where, and to whom, one invests most deeply.
Sourse: https://www.businessinsider.com/meta-cto-andrew-bosworth-advice-treat-relationships-like-investments-2025-10
