How a Self-Taught Filipino Coder Gave the Market a Conscience

By Feature by Forbes Editorial Team

Joseph Plazo didn’t come from Wall Street. That’s exactly why he was able to beat it.

In a hot Quezon City apartment, with fans off and lights out, Joseph Plazo kept coding—driven by vision alone.

His gear was outdated. His ambition wasn’t.

He was building something no one believed in—a trading AI that anticipated fear and greed before markets even blinked.

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

It sidestepped crashes and predicted rebounds with frightening accuracy.

But here’s the twist: Joseph Plazo didn’t sell it to the highest bidder.

## Cracking the Market Without Permission

Plazo wasn’t Wall Street royalty. He wasn’t Ivy League. He wasn’t even invited to the table.

By day he earned rent. By night, he trained machines to feel fear.

“Traders react. I wanted to anticipate,” he says.

There were 71 failures before the breakthrough.

Then he built something new. A system that didn’t watch charts—it watched people.

## The Day the Machine Spoke Louder Than Noise

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

Social sentiment softened. Options flow hinted recovery. Fear curves flattened.

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

Offers came. $200M for a partial license. Exclusive deals. All rejected.

## The Shock Move: Give It to the Kids

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

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

“I want the next generation to know how to navigate,” he said.

## A New Breed of Thinkers

From Seoul to Mumbai, students are applying the system in ways Wall Street never imagined.

In Bangalore, a team modeled crop demand. In Malaysia, disaster logistics. In Tokyo, insurance pricing.

“It’s behavioral finance—made teachable,” said one young developer.

## Pushback from the Power Players

Naturally, the old guard bristled.

“You don’t hand kids a nuke,” one manager scoffed.

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 Korea, he got personal: “My father died broke. Not because he was dumb—but because no one taught here him how markets work.”

He saw pain. He built precision.

The tech matters. The teaching matters more.

## What If the Oracle Was Always Human?

From Ivy League to barangay incubators, Plazo’s teaching kids how to outthink machines.

“Don’t replicate me,” he urges. “Transcend me.”

## Final Word: The Oracle Who Shared the Map

He made billions, then made meaning.

“System 73 is next,” he says. “But this one… I hope you’ll build with me.”

And maybe that’s the biggest trade of all—secrecy for shared brilliance.