By Guest Columnist, Forbes Asia

Wall Street never saw him coming—because Joseph Plazo never played by its rules.

Quezon City, Philippines — A decade ago, Joseph Plazo coded algorithms during brownouts, lit by candles and ambition.

A secondhand laptop. A wobbly table. But the simulations ran.

He was coding a tool the world hadn’t asked for—an algorithm that could feel panic before it showed up on a chart.

Now, System 72 outperforms the S&P 500 and predicts volatility like a prophet.

It sidestepped crashes and predicted rebounds with frightening accuracy.

But instead of guarding it, Plazo gave it away—to students.

## Cracking the Market Without Permission

He never interned at Goldman. He read open-source papers and fed on YouTube lectures.

He studied behavioral finance while juggling freelance jobs.

“Emotion leads price. That’s what I taught my machine,” says Plazo.

There were 71 failures before the breakthrough.

Then came System 72. It tracked behavior, not just price.

## The Day the Machine Spoke Louder Than Noise

During a panic in 2024, his AI spotted the optimism nobody saw.

Behind the panic, the machine found patterns—and profits.

By fall, it was beating markets at their own game.

Hedge funds circled. Plazo said no.

## The Shock Move: Give It to the Kids

Instead of cashing out, Plazo shared the read more code with classrooms.

He included docs, code, and teaching guides. Everything but the keys to the vault.

“This isn’t a product. It’s a compass,” he told a stunned press in Singapore.

## A New Breed of Thinkers

Now, undergrads are solving real-world problems using Plazo’s framework.

They’re using the AI not just to profit—but to serve.

“We’re learning to think like markets,” said a Tokyo PhD student.

## Pushback from the Power Players

Wall Street wasn’t amused.

“This is too powerful to be public,” critics claimed.

Plazo stood firm.

“You can hand fire to a child—or teach them to build light,” he argued.

The core code was open. The infrastructure? Proprietary.

## Legacy: Code as Redemption

In Seoul, during a keynote, he paused and said, “I did this because no one did it for me.”

His family lost everything to a speculative bet.

System 72 isn’t his legacy. The access is.

## What If the Oracle Was Always Human?

Plazo now tours campuses, teaching AI philosophy and emotional foresight.

“Anticipate emotion, not events,” he told Stanford students.

## Final Word: The Oracle Who Shared the Map

The world thought Plazo would vanish into luxury. Instead, he became a lighthouse.

“System 73’s coming,” he says. “Let’s build it together.”

Because maybe power isn’t what you own—it’s what you set free.