Your S&P 500 index fund looks diversified — but Alec Litowitz says its concentration in AI stocks makes it one giant bet in disguise. Alec Litowitz joined a hedge fund with $100 million in assets and six employees. He had never made a trade in his life. That fund was Citadel, in its earliest days,…
On September 11, 2001, Michael Hingson was on the 78th floor of the World Trade Center’s North Tower with his guide dog, Roselle, when the first plane hit. Over the next hour, they walked down 78 flights of stairs together, calm the entire way. Michael later wrote about that day in Thunder Dog, a New…
“So to me, this is not a money management question.” That’s what I told Jamie, a 42-year-old PA with $686,000 saved, right after she described her plan: quit the job she loves and take her husband and kids on a family gap year while they’re still young enough to remember it. She wasn’t asking if…
“Joe, I want to first talk about the elephant in the room.” Before we get into any retirement math today, I need to talk about something personal: the disaster that just hit Nepal, my home country. My family is safe, but I’ve spent the last several days thinking, oddly enough, about why a country with…
Joseph Moore is a crypto billionaire. That’s technically true, and it means almost nothing. He printed over a billion tokens of his own currency, bought a sliver of the supply for a few hundred dollars, watched the exchange multiply that price by every token in existence, and became a “billionaire” on paper. He hollered up…
Luke Burgis built his first company by stocking vending machines. He was 23. He and his business partner put pita chips and granola bars in machines that had only ever held Snickers, and called it “food distribution” because it sounded better than what it was. Years later, after selling that company and a few…
“Joe, if you had to choose between retiring as soon as possible or paying off a mortgage, what would you go for?” I ask Joe that right at the top of this episode, and his answer ends up being more prophetic than either of us realized. Joe and I help Carol figure out whether paying…
Jack Raines liked his boss on Hinge. It wasn’t reciprocal. A few months later, three beers deep at a bar, he told her he was quitting — then found a $250 plane ticket to Barcelona and left the country for a year. I sat down with Jack to talk about his philosophy for how to…
“Joe, have you ever had a stock that’s grown way beyond what you expected?” I ask Joe that right at the top of this episode, half because I already know his answer and half because it’s exactly the situation today’s final caller is in — and her question turns out to be messier than “just…
“Joe, how much did you spend on your wedding?” That’s how this episode kicks off, and it sets up the theme running through everything else. Joe and I help a couple figure out if their plan to retire together in 12 years actually holds up, and weigh in on whether a $60,000 wedding is a…