The Missing Billionaires

A Guide to Better Financial Decisions

De: Victor Haghani, James White

Narrado por: Victor Haghani, Jon Vertullo

Over the past century, if the wealthiest families had spent a reasonable fraction of their wealth, paid taxes, invested in the stock market, and passed their wealth down to the next generation, there would be tens of thousands of billionaire heirs to generations-old fortunes today. The puzzle of The Missing Billionaires is why you cannot find one such billionaire on any current rich list. There are a number of explanations, but this book is focused on one mistake which is of profound importance to all investors: poor risk decisions, both in investing and spending. Many of these families didn't choose bad investments—they sized them incorrectly—and allowed their spending decisions to amplify this mistake.

The Missing Billionaires book offers a simple yet powerful framework for making important lifetime financial decisions in a systematic and rational way. It's for listeners with a baseline level of financial literacy, but doesn't require a PhD.

Part One builds the theory of optimal investment sizing from first principles, starting with betting on biased coins. Part Two covers lifetime financial decision-making, with emphasis on the integration of investment, saving, and spending decisions. Part Three covers practical implementation details, including how to estimate the expected return and risk on a broad spectrum of investments.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2023 Victor Haghani and James White (P)2024 Ascent Audio

Financial jargon

Book is very technical, even though the title and table of contents do not present it as such. The book has very little application to real life, but it might, if you can weed your way through all the jargon. I'm not sure who the audience is that this is written for. Is it personal finance advisors or college students? Or for extremely studious investors?

I wouldn't throw this book out completely. I may try it again and see if it was me who is just impatient or ignorant. Just be advised this isn't a book that you can rish through and have a clear picture of what to do in your day-to-day life.

Great insights for building and using your wealth

The book explains difficult concepts of risk management and of investing in relatively easy terms. It shows how the concept of right sizing of risk and the utility framework can be used by individuals in accumulating wealth and in spending it.

Play by play description of the stock market being a casino & how to play it…or not!

The author plugged this book as meant for those outside the everyday traders that knew the system….but it turns out to be only about the odds of betting & risk taking. Finally he says just buy bonds! Unbelievably boring to a layman or a non- gambler.

Reads like an academic textbook

Expected a story, a history and a lesson but got advanced economic theory instead. Works as an effective sleep aid though, in 15 minutes or less.

45 minutes of introduction for a limited idea

I was hoping for some insightful ideas and modeling. I want to understand their thesis on how to understand your own risk utility function and such. but I have been listening for nearly an hour and we are on the 7th or 8th intro and disclaimer that it's going to be really hard to understand. still have no idea what their ideas are. I don't have the time to just listen to them re introducing and disclaimong their work