There's a fundamental truth at the heart of that many people miss, but it's the key to long-term success. Warren Buffett put it best when he explained that what owners can earn, in total, is limited to what their businesses earn in total. Think about it: over time, the combined gains of a company's shareholders can't magically exceed the actual business gains of the company itself.
Before you dive into complex strategies or even simple concepts like index funds, it’s crucial to understand the game you’re playing. , really? At its core, it's about owning a piece of a business. To make sense of the noise surrounding , let's borrow a simple story, a version of a parable once told by Warren Buffett.
It might sound strange, but you're never too young to start thinking about retirement. The power of compounding is so effective that if you start in your twenties, you can build a significant nest egg with surprisingly little effort by the time you’re in your sixties. All it takes is a basic grasp of retirement plans and the decision to start now. The sooner you begin, the less you'll have to put away, all thanks to compounding and a long time horizon. You can’t count on Social Security to be your only source of income, but thankfully, there are plenty of other options out there.
My day job is all about taking risks. As a venture capitalist at my firm, Social Leverage, my partners and I invest in seed-stage software companies, with my personal focus being on financial technology. You might recognize some of our early investments, like Robinhood, eToro, and Ycharts. This background, along with co-founding StockTwits, probably makes it clear why I favor individual stocks over index funds when it comes to .
After spending my career in behavioral finance, I’ve learned that how I invest my own money is either incredibly straightforward or deeply complex, depending on how you look at it. But my entire approach starts with a single idea: money is always a servant, never a master. For anyone wondering , I believe the first step is to ask a more fundamental question: why are you even saving in the first place?
Before I became the Founder and CIO of Capital Innovations, before my work was featured in , and long before I wrote , I was the youngest of five kids growing up south of Pittsburgh. My worldview wasn't shaped in a classroom; it was forged at the family dinner table.
I’m a dividend income investor—personally and professionally. It’s a simple philosophy: what I buy for my clients, I buy for myself. My approach to is built entirely around this principle. Now, I’ll admit I have a rogue position in Facebook that I picked up back in 2012 and maybe a few shares of Twitter from 2015 after hearing a compelling case from Bill Miller. But that’s where my dalliance with growth stocks ends.
After two decades in wealth management, with a background that spans from Georgetown Law to co-inventing the tech behind Priceline.com, I’ve learned that the most profound insights often come in small packages. We tend to think serious wisdom requires a dense, systematic narrative. But I’ve found that the ideas that stick with me most—the ones I still remember 20 years later—are often short, sharp, and to the point, much like the aphorisms of old thinkers or, in today’s world, a well-crafted tweet.
A few years ago at a conference, a speaker asked the audience, “What is your first memory of money?” I drew a blank. The question is important because our earliest experiences with money form deep-seated beliefs, or “money scripts,” that guide our financial lives without us even realizing it.