Enterprising Investor – Details, episodes & analysis

Victor Haghani — co-founder of Long-Term Capital Management and founder of Elm Wealth — joins host Mike Wallberg, CFA, to discuss the ideas behind his book The Missing Billionaires: A Guide to Better Financial Decisions. Using the "missing billionaires" puzzle as a starting point, Haghani explores why so many investors struggle with risk sizing, how our instincts often sabotage long-term results, and why dynamic asset allocation makes more sense than sticking to static rules.
Listen now to learn how understanding "how much" to invest can be the key to lasting financial success.

Risk expert and author Richard Bookstaber joins guest host Genevieve Hayman, senior researcher at CFA Institute, to explore why traditional financial models often fail to capture the real dynamics of markets. Drawing from decades of experience — from hedge funds to the US Treasury — Bookstaber unpacks how human behavior, feedback loops, and network effects shape systemic risk and market crises. The conversation delves into how complexity science, agent-based modeling, and new AI tools can help investors build resilience and rethink how risk is managed.
Listen to the episode for insights on navigating today's interconnected financial landscape, and read Genevieve's recent report, Reframing Financial Markets as Complex Systems, available at https://rpc.cfainstitute.org/research/reports/2025/reframing-financial-markets-as-complex-systems.

Barbara Stewart, CFA, returns to The Enterprising Investor to share findings from her latest Rich Thinking study, based on candid conversations with 54 people across the globe. This year's central question—"What's the smartest thing you ever did?"—unlocks an inspiring range of stories about personal and professional transformation.
From a Singaporean ballet dancer who defied expectations, to an Argentine executive who discovered the Japanese concept of ikigai, to an Australian entrepreneur who rebuilt his life after addiction, Barbara explores how risk-taking, mindset shifts, career pivots, and geographic leaps often lead to unimagined success. With trademark warmth and insight, she illustrates how the boldest moves can become the smartest decisions.
Listen to the full episode for powerful, real-life stories—and explore the Rich Thinking summary on the Enterprising Investor blog for even more global insights.

Michael Falk, CFA, a partner at the Focus Consulting, applies the lessons he learned as a competitive baseball pitcher to investment teams and discusses the importance of creating a sell discipline for losers and winners in an investment portfolio, his many writing projects, and living with ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease.
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►Transcript: https://cfainst.is/3loZLxT

►Email us for comments, questions, or appearance requests:Take15podcast@cfainstitute.org
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Topics discussed:
2:10 Michael's love for baseball and lessons to learn from the sport
4:33 Becoming a better listener
8:05 Sell discipline
11:11 When to retire and succession planning
15:17 Michael's article, Everything You Want to Know About Investing
18:30 Michael's new paper on stakeholder capitalism
21:25 Bitcoin: how should investors be thinking about cryptocurrencies
25:30 Michael's thoughts on blockchain technology
27:28 Michael's clinical trial
34:28 Embracing vulnerability
38:08 Flight or invisibility?

Related articles and links:

Everything You Need to Know About Investing
https://www.iwmonitordigital.com/iwmonitor/november_december_2020/MobilePagedArticle.action?articleId=1652473&app=false&cmsId=3881786#articleId1652473

Crypto Dreamin'? The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
https://blogs.cfainstitute.org/investor/2020/06/16/crypto-dreamin-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/

Michael S. Falk, CFA, on Safety Nets, Trampolines, and Opportunity Equality
https://blogs.cfainstitute.org/investor/2020/09/15/michael-s-falk-cfa-on-safety-nets-trampolines-and-opportunity-equality/

Drug May Extend A.L.S. Patients' Lives by Several Months, Study Finds https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/16/health/ALS-treatment.html

Brené Brown's TED talk, The Power of Vulnerability https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=iCvmsMzlF7o

John Hodgman on This American Life ep.178
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/178/superpowers/act-one-0

HBR video "Five Whys"
https://hbr.org/video/2189146765001/5-whys

HBR article The Contradictions That Drive Toyota's Success
https://hbr.org/2008/06/the-contradictions-that-drive-toyotas-success

This American Life ep. 178: Invisible Man Vs. Hawkman

CFA Institute members and charterholders Professional Learning Tracker https://cpd.cfainstitute.org/

Find Michael here:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mlfalk/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/msfalk?lang=en

Find Lauren here:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauren- foster/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/laurenfosternyc

Connect with the Research Foundation:
RF Showcase page: https://lnkd.in/e66zSKD
Download and share RF content (free to all): https://lnkd.in/emhTTi5

Herman Warren, Africa Director for The Economist Corporate Network, discusses the economic and social impact of Covid-19 on sub-Saharan Africa in general, and South Africa in particular, the outlook for the continent post-pandemic, whether the commodities boom will turn into a supercycle, the role of China, and what Africa can expect from the Biden administration.

Andrew Lo discusses his various fields of expertise and research with Anastasia Diakaki. Professor Lo's most recent work in healthcare finance, more timely than ever, serves as the starting point for a conversation covering the COVID-19 pandemic, machine learning applications in biopharma, artificial intelligence and the interpretability of machine learning results in the finance industry. When it comes to preparing for the future, we ask Andrew Lo: "Do we all need to become computer scientists?"

Topics discussed:

1:30 - Professor Lo's philosophy and approach in health care finance sector

2:43 - Applications: what are the implications of these tools?

4:51 - Lo's view on the pandemic and the acceleration of some processes

6:41 - Machine learning applications and health care

8:58 - Successes and improvements to algorithms in practice

10:57 - Computer science – the new life skill to have

13:24 - Machine learning algorithm used in the investment process

15:25 - Are your current students more comfortable with science skills?

16:55 - AI and human intelligence

Related articles and links:

CFA Institute members and charterholders Professional Learning Tracker https://cpd.cfainstitute.org/

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► Subscribe to the Take 15 channel here https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCA3HUMuK4FSp_CvQH_2Ji7g

►Email us for comments, questions, or appearance requests:Take15podcast@cfainstitute.org

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Find Andrew here:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewwlo/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AndrewWLo?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

Find Anastasia here:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anastasiadiakaki/?originalSubdomain=uk

Twitter: https://twitter.com/anastdiakaki

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Find Lauren here:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauren-foster/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/laurenfosternyc

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