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HOW FOUNDERS ARE BUILDING WEALTH:
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EPISODE DETAILS:
Most founders spend years learning how to make money. Almost none of them prepare for what their brain does once they have it.
Henrik Cronqvist is a behavioral finance professor who trained under Nobel laureate Richard Thaler and has spent 25 years studying exactly that. His research has been cited over 7,000 times. He has studied 38,000 people to answer one uncomfortable question: how much of the way you save, spend, and invest is actually hardwired into your DNA?
The answer will change how you think about every financial decision you make after an exit.
This episode covers the science behind why the traits that made you a great founder may work against you as an investor, what actually happens in your brain the day the wire hits, and the one thing Henrik says every founder should do before making a single investment.
TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 — The traits that made you a great founder will make you a bad investor
01:45 — What is behavioral finance and why should founders care
04:35 — How Henrik got into this research (the Stockholm subway story)
06:39 — The 38,000 twin study: how much of your money behavior is genetic
10:56 — The first thing to do when the wire hits your account
12:49 — Loss aversion, performance chasing, and home bias explained
20:35 — Your personal mortgage predicts how you'll run your company's finances
30:08 — Why your brokerage app is designed to work against you
37:07 — Why founders feel depressed after selling (the science behind post-exit emotions)
47:14 — "I think I'm the exception" — and what the data actually says about that