Investing That Brings Joy with Robin John

What if your investments could do more than grow your wealth? What if they could also fight injustice, uplift your neighbor, and even bring joy to the world? 

Joy probably isn’t the first word that comes to mind when you think about investing, but maybe it should be. Robin John joins us today to share how investing can be more than financial—it can be deeply spiritual.

Robin John is the CEO at Eventide Asset Management, LLC. Views expressed in this podcast are intended for information purposes and do not constitute investment advice. Eventide does not provide tax, accounting, or legal advice. Eventide's values-based approach to investing may not produce desired results and could result in underperformance compared with other investments. There is no guarantee that any investment will achieve its objectives, generate positive returns, or avoid losses.

A Life-Changing Encounter in India

Robin was just 23 years old when his employer sent him to Pune, India, to support an outsourcing initiative. Although born in India, he had moved to the U.S. at the age of eight and was returning for the first time as a young professional.

While staying in a guesthouse, he noticed two young men—Amal and Kamal—who took care of him daily, preparing meals and ironing his clothes. One evening, Robin asked where they slept and was shocked to learn they were sleeping on the hard floor of a hot, cramped pantry.

“I had a beautiful air-conditioned room with extra space,” Robin recalled. “But they had no bed, no pillow, no blanket. And I looked just like them.”

When he raised his concerns, he was told the guesthouse workers were not his company’s responsibility. That response, though typical in business, left Robin deeply unsettled. It pushed him into prayer, fasting, and a season of searching. He began to ask: “Is business just about profit? Or could it be something more?”

From Disillusionment to a Renewed Mind

Through time in Romans 12—“Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind”—Robin experienced a major shift in perspective. He began to see that work, business, and investing could all be expressions of love for neighbor and tools for redemptive impact.

That shift eventually led him, alongside his friend Dr. Finny Kuruvilla, to launch Eventide Asset Management—an investment firm with a bold mission: to invest in companies that make the world rejoice.

What Makes a Company Worth Investing In?

Eventide’s approach centers on one key question: Is this company doing good?

They look for companies whose products are truly good and whose practices serve others well—employees, customers, supply chains, communities, even the environment. Investing is a form of ownership, and when we invest, we are rooting for that company’s success.

But Eventide doesn’t just embrace the good—it also avoids the harmful. In the book, Robin likens harmful companies to dragons that lurk outside the village in ancient stories, threatening human flourishing.

Companies profiting from gambling, addiction, or exploitation—like sports betting platforms—may look appealing on a spreadsheet, but Robin challenges us to consider their deeper impact. As Christian investors, we must ask: What are we promoting in the world? Are we fighting the dragons, or feeding them?

Cultivating Goodness, Like a Garden

From the very beginning in Genesis 1, we see that we are called to cultivate, to build, to bring about flourishing.