Episode notes
In this episode, William Green speaks with Victor Haghani, founder & CIO of Elm Wealth & author of The Missing Billionaires: A Guide to Making Better Financial Decisions. Victor’s journey is among the most remarkable & instructive in modern investment history. As one of the founders of Long-Term Capital Management, he experienced dazzling success & devastating failure. Today, he oversees billions of dollars using a low-cost, diversified, index-driven strategy that reflects hard-won lessons about resilience, humility, simplicity & risk management.
IN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL LEARN:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:04:17) How Victor Haghani’s tumultuous family history shaped him.
(00:14:02) What he learned as a star trader on Salomon’s famed arbitrage desk.
(00:22:56) How he honed his skills by playing high-stakes games of Liar’s Poker.
(00:30:35) How Long-Term Capital Management hit the jackpot—for a while.
(00:46:04) How Russia’s default in 1998 sparked a cascading disaster.
(00:49:18) Why he defends the fund’s enormous appetite for leverage & risk.
(00:52:20) What he views as the real lessons of the fund’s collapse.
(00:58:21) How the concept of expected utility can improve our financial decisions.
(01:11:09) Why he fell out of love with exotica like private equity & hedge funds.
(01:13:22) What troubles him about the traditional, static approach to indexing.
(01:18:52) Why he favors a “dynamic asset allocation” based on risks & rewards.
(01:27:21) How his firm’s current allocations reflect a wary view of US equities.
(01:40:45) What he’s learned about overcoming adversity & finding happiness.
Disclaimer: Slight discrepancies in the timestamps may occur due to podcast platform differences.
BOOKS AND RESOURCES
- Inquire about William Green’s Richer, Wiser, Happier Masterclass.
- Victor Haghani’s investment firm, Elm Wealth.
- Victor Haghani & James White’s book “The Missing Billionaires.”
- Michael Lewis’ book, “Liar’s Poker.”
- Roger Lowenstein’s book, “When Genius Failed.”
- Daniel Gilbert’s book, “Stumbling on Happiness.”
- Viktor Frankl’s book, “Man’s Search for Meaning.”
- William Green’s book, “Richer, Wiser, Happier” – read the reviews of this book.
- Follow William Green on X.
- Related books mentioned in the podcast.
- Ad-free episodes on our Premium Feed.
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