We have a real treat today—someone perfect for this program. Our guest is Aaron Anderson. He’s the author of two investment books, but much more importantly to me he is a fellow member of the Investment Policy Committee here at Fisher Investments, a longtime colleague of mine, and one of the sharpest investment minds I’ve known. We talk about his outlook for markets, books, and the importance of communication in investing. Aaron doesn’t just write well, he’s an accomplished speaker, and great at...
Jun 23, 2021•39 min
Today we have Eisner award-winning comics artist, author, and educator, Nick Sousanis in to talk about his book, Unflattening. How to explain this strange book? Well, written and drawn entirely as a comic book, Unflattening is an experiment in visual thinking using graphic art to illustrate the ways we construct knowledge. Weaving together diverse ways of seeing drawn from science, philosophy, art, literature, and mythology, the book uses the collage-like capacity of comics to show that percepti...
Jun 08, 2021•30 min
Today we have award-winning scientist, author, educator, and film producer Sean B. Carroll with us to talk about the role of chance in biological life with his newest book, A Series of Fortunate Events: Chance and the Making of the Planet, Life, and You. Randomness and chance of course play a role in just about everything, and especially investments. But there’s wide debate about just how much of life and market results are defined by randomness and how much of those are truly within our control...
May 25, 2021•30 min
Hello everyone today is May 12th 20-21 and welcome to another edition of the Well-Read Investor, the podcast that profits your mind and your money. I’m your host Mike Hanson. Today we’re talking history—a period of history most, even universities, gloss over: The period in the West commencing after the fall of the Roman Empire and leading up, more or less, to the Renaissance: The Dark Ages. Or should I say Light Ages? We’ve got historian Seb Falk to tell us why the Dark Ages is a misnomer, and i...
May 12, 2021•32 min
This week we have Arnold Kling on the show to discuss his book The Three Languages of Politics: Talking Across the Political Divides. Now in its third edition, it’s a short little guide to navigating ideology and tribalism in today’s politics. Politics is of tremendous importance to investors—it defines the rules by which we operate, individual and company alike. So we must pay attention to politics as it has meaningful impacts to entire economic systems let alone individual industries. But when...
Apr 13, 2021•22 min
This week we’re discussing Leave Me Alone and I’ll Make You Rich: How the Bourgeois Deal Enriched the World, with authors and professors Deirdre McCloskey and Art Carden. Since we started the podcast now more than a year ago, we’ve had esteemed guests from a variety of fields, but having Diedre McCloskey on is special. In my humble opinion, she’s one of the best living economic historians, and a tremendous writer whose led a fascinating life. The book we’re discussing today is an accessible, hig...
Mar 30, 2021•30 min
We spoke with comedy writing legend Gene Perret about how comedy works, and a lifetime spent writing jokes for the likes of Bob Hope, Carrol Burnet and Phyllus Diller, to name just a few. But he spent a significant portion of his career writing books and teaching about comedy as well. He’s on today to speak about his book, The New Comedy Writing Step by Step. Which is still considered by many to be a standard textbook for comedy writing. He’s earned three Emmy Awards for his work on The Carol Bu...
Mar 16, 2021•24 min
We’ve got a really fun and interesting guest this week in Tyler Maroney, a former investigative journalist who today runs his own highly successful private investigation firm. His recent book is The Modern Detective: How Corporate Intelligence is Reshaping the World, about the role private investigators play in global commerce, government accountability, and legal disputes. A Fulbright scholar, Tyler has produced films for Frontline, was a reporter for Fortune, and has written for The Wall Stree...
Mar 02, 2021•26 min
We have a truly special guest for you today in Randall Wallace. He’s the Oscar nominated author of the screenplay for the film Braveheart, but you’ll also know him from huge blockbuster films like We Were Soldiers, Pearl Harbor, and Secretariat, to name a few. We’re talking today about his book, “Living the Braveheart Life: Finding the Courage to Follow Your Heart”. This is about building the kind of character that I hope for everyone I work with, that I hope for my children and family, and what...
Feb 13, 2021•27 min
Today Mike speaks with Professor Aswath Damodaran about his book, Narrative and Numbers: The Value of Stories in Business. Aswath is a professor of finance at the Stern School of Business at New York University and his career-spanning work on valuation, portfolio management and corporate finance cut across numerous books and popular lectures online, and his research has appeared in many prestigious academic journals including the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis and the Journal of ...
Feb 02, 2021•31 min
Today our guest is Professor William Goetzmann, here to talk about his book Money Changes Everything: How Finance Made Civilization Possible. Will is the Edwin J. Beinecke Professor of Finance and Management Studies and Faculty Director of the International Center for Finance at the Yale School of Management. I think of him as sort of an economic archeologist and polymath whose past work includes stock market predictability, alternative investing, factor investing, behavioral finance and the art...
Jan 19, 2021•31 min
This very special episode finishes out the Well Read Investor’s first year! We’ll be back in January with a new year and stacks of new books to discuss. I just want to say thank you to everyone involved in making the show what it is. This went from literally zero just 12 months ago to a show we’re all quite proud of today. Specifically, our amazing producer Hayley Thornton and our media guru Catie Becker, who both have an uncanny ability to make me seem professional. And just as big a thank you ...
Dec 02, 2020•21 min
Today we have Dr. Paul Morland to discuss his book, The Human Tide: How Population Shaped the Modern World. Paul is associate research fellow at Birkbeck College, at the University of London, a business consultant, and a renowned authority on demography. The Human Tide is available widely on amazon and other online venues. Demographics are a timely topic right now given the global pandemic still gripping the world. Demographic trends unfold at what you’d call a “glacial” rate—very slowly, over g...
Nov 17, 2020•26 min
We are delighted to have Gregory Zuckerman, a long-time journalist for the Wall Street Journal on the show to discuss his book: The Man Who Solved the Market, the often-dramatic story of how Jim Simons and a group of unlikely mathematicians applied their skillsets to become some of the most successful investors of all time. Simons is a “quant”, which means his strategies use purely data to invest—they don’t read the news, or even look at company earnings much, they just do what their formulas te...
Nov 03, 2020•21 min
Poker World Champion Annie Duke on How to Decide by Fisher Investments
Oct 20, 2020•32 min
Today we have Diana Henriques on the program to discuss her book, A First-Class Catastrophe: The Road to Black Monday, the Worst Day in Wall Street History.Diana is a financial journalist with really too many major awards to mention, spanning a decades long career covering some of the most impactful stories of the era—including Enron and Long-Term Capital Management. She’s the author of several books, but most will recognize her mega bestseller, The Wizard of Lies: Bernie Madoff and the Death of...
Oct 06, 2020•32 min
Today we speak with Douglas McCormick, co-founder and managing partner of private equity firm HCI Equity Partners and the author of Family Inc.: Using Business Principles to Maximize Your Family’s Wealth. Doug’s had a tremendous career in finance and investing, and you’d be interested to know he’s a Westpoint graduate and served as Captain in the Army’s 25th infantry. He uses his expertise to empower others with financial literacy skills with an emphasis on the veteran community. And that’s why ...
Sep 22, 2020•23 min
Today we have Laurence B. Siegel on the program to discuss his book, Fewer, Richer, Greener: Prospects for Humanity in an age of abundance. Mr. Siegel, Larry, is a graduate of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, author of more than 200 articles and monographs on investing and related topics, and has won many awards including the Graham and Dodd Award for excellence in research and financial writing. He was the director of research for the investment division of the Ford Foundatio...
Sep 09, 2020•22 min
Today Mike speaks with Amity Shlaes about her most recent bestseller, Great Society: A New History. The title reflects the era of American politics where President Lyndon Baynes Johnson pursued a set of social policies designed to help the underprivileged called “the Great Society” - a time in so many ways applicable to now, and they talk about the ways today is similar and different. Amity has four New York Times bestsellers including The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression, an...
Aug 25, 2020•22 min
In Episode 5 we are thrilled to have Pulitzer Prize winning Historian Professor John Lewis Gaddis to discuss his most recent book, On Grand Strategy, and much else over his prolific career. John Gaddis is the Robert A. Lovett Professor of Military and Naval History at Yale University, where he teaches courses on the Cold War, grand strategy, biography, and historical methods with particular interest in the classics – like Tolstoy’s War and Peace, which he has his Freshman class read every semest...
Aug 11, 2020•23 min
In Episode 4 Host, Michael Hanson speaks with noted economist and professor Dr. W. Brian Arthur on the show, discussing his book Complexity and the Economy. With a list of accomplishments too long to list—the 1990 Schumpeter Prize in Economics among them—Dr. Arthur’s wide-ranging career spans numerous books and publications, over a decade teaching at Stanford, and currently he’s an External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute and a Visiting Researcher at the System Sciences Lab, at the Palo Alto...
Jul 28, 2020•23 min
In Episode 3 we continue our mini-theme on Artificial Intelligence with award-winning economist and professor Joshua Gans, speaking about his book Prediction Machines: the simple economics of Artificial Intelligence, co-written with professors, Ajay Agrawal and Avi Goldfarb. This is an expansive career that features several books, numerous publications and awards. Aside from all the books and accolades, we think you'll find professor Ganz, not only a great mind, but a gregarious one as well. Thi...
Jul 14, 2020•23 min
Mike's guest for Episode 2 is Professor Melanie Mitchell, speaking about all things Artificial Intelligence. Melanie is the Davis Professor of Complexity at the Santa Fe Institute and Professor of Computer Science at Portland State University. Mike focuses on her latest book, Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans. They talk about separating artificial intelligence hype from reality, how AI is used in investing today, and even get into the nature of general intelligence and the use...
Jun 25, 2020•22 min
