Billionaire investors. If we think of them, it’s with a mixture of awe and suspicion. Clearly, they possess a kind of genius—the proverbial Midas Touch. But are the skills they possess transferable? And do they have anything to teach us besides making money.
In Richer, Wiser, Happier, William Green draws on interviews that he’s conducted over twenty-five years with many of the world’s greatest investors. As he discovered, their talents extend well beyond the financial realm. The most successful investors are mavericks and iconoclasts who question conventional wisdom and profit vastly from their ability to think more rationally, rigorously, and objectively. They are master game players who consciously maximize their odds of long-term success in markets and life, while also minimizing any risk of catastrophe. They draw powerful insights from many different fields, are remarkably intuitive about trends, practice fanatical discipline, and have developed a high tolerance for pain. As Green explains, the best investors can teach us not only how to become rich, but how to improve the way we think, reach decisions, assess risk, avoid costly errors, build resilience, and turn uncertainty to our advantage.
Green ushers us into the lives of more than forty super-investors, visiting them in their offices, homes, and even their places of worship—all to share what they have to teach us. From Sir John Templeton to Charlie Munger, Jack Bogle to Ed Thorp, Will Danoff to Mohnish Pabrai, Joel Greenblatt to Howard Marks, Green explains how they think and why they win.
William Green has written for many publications in the US and Europe, including Time, Fortune, Forbes, Fast Company, The New Yorker, The Spectator (London), and The Economist. He edited the Asian edition of Time while living in Hong Kong, then moved to London to edit the European, Middle Eastern, and African editions of Time. As an editor and coauthor, he has collaborated on several books, including Guy Spier’s much-praised memoir, The Education of a Value Investor. Born and raised in London, Green studied English literature at Oxford University and received a master’s degree in journalism at Columbia University. He lives in New York with his wife and their two children. His new book is Richer, Wiser, Happier: How the World’s Greatest Investors Win in Markets and Life.
Shermer and Green discuss:
- SEC Report on the financial literacy of Americans,
- why money matters,
- the origin of money,
- how to make money,
- how to make money work for you,
- how the stock market works,
- how stocks and bonds compare to real estate and other investments,
- individual stocks vs. indexed funds and mutual funds,
- why you should not try to “beat the market”,
- millionaires next door: what are their secrets and what are their lives like?
- Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway
- Charlie Munger
- Howard Marks
- John Templeton and 6 guiding principles of a “nontribal investor”
- Peter Lynch and Fidelity
- Jack Bogle and Vanguard
- Ed Thorp
- Bill Miller and the survivor bias
- Laws of Investing
- 5 Rules for Resilience
- how many millionaires earn their wealth vs. inherit it,
- the survivor bias: business books only analyze the winners (Gates, Jobs, Bezos) and ignore the vast majority of failed business ventures,
- the power of compound interest,
- Can we count on Social Security to cover our needs in retirement?
- hedge-fund managers and investment advisors: where are the customers’ yachts?
- the relationship between risk and reward,
- the relationship between saving and spending, or time discounting: value the future enough to invest in it now but don’t plan for the greatest 90th birthday party ever in case you can’t make it,
- What’s wrong with free market capitalism?
- money, happiness, meaningfulness, and
- the role of luck and contingency in how lives turn out.
This episode was released on December 21, 2024.
