Masters in Business

→ WHAT IT COVERS Francine Lacqua, award-winning journalist with 25 years interviewing global leaders, launches the podcast version of Leaders, exploring what drives influential figures, how they rose to power, and lessons applicable to everyday professional life. → KEY INSIGHTS - **Decision-making bias toward action:** Leaders consistently favor imperfect decisions over paralysis.

→ WHAT IT COVERS Patrick Kilbane, CFP and divorce attorney at Oman Wealth Partners, explains how ultra-high-net-worth divorces involving billions in assets, complex estate vehicles, and illiquid holdings differ from standard splits—and the strategies used to navigate them. → KEY INSIGHTS - **Estate Plan Complexity:** Long-married wealthy couples often hold assets inside SLATs, GRATs, and other irrevocable estate structures designed to be permanent.

→ WHAT IT COVERS Matt Cherwin, co-founder and CIO of Merrick Capital, explains how sixteen years at JPMorgan Chase — including a front-row seat to the 2019 repo crisis and the COVID-era financial system — shaped a proprietary MCCLR framework (money, capital, credit, liquidity, regulation) now applied across a multi-asset credit hedge fund launched in 2024.

→ WHAT IT COVERS Barry Ritholtz interviews Alpha Architect's Wes Gray on pursuing alpha through specialized ETFs. Gray covers factor-based strategies (value, momentum), box spread ETFs approaching $10B AUM, tail risk protection via CAOS, and inflation/deflation hedging via HIDE — all positioned as satellite holdings around a passive core index portfolio.

→ WHAT IT COVERS Ed Perks, CIO of Franklin Income Investors and lead portfolio manager of the 75-year-old Franklin Income Fund since 2004, covers multi-asset income investing across fixed income, equities, convertibles, and private credit, explaining how cross-asset analysis, capital structure flexibility, and income-focused positioning navigate today's volatile policy-driven market environment.

→ WHAT IT COVERS Benchmark Capital's Bill Gurley traces his path from Compaq engineer to legendary venture capitalist, covering the equal-partnership model that produced Uber, OpenTable, and Zillow, while discussing his book on career fulfillment, the dangers of hustle culture, AI market dynamics, and overvalued private market paper marks threatening endowments and institutional portfolios.

→ WHAT IT COVERS Jeff Chang, cofounder and president of Vest, explains how his firm built a $50 billion ETF business around defined outcome investing — using options and derivatives to create buffered funds and income-generating strategies that give investors downside protection with capped upside, targeting wealth preservation over wealth accumulation across equities, fixed income, gold, and Bitcoin.

→ WHAT IT COVERS Andrew Beer, founder of Dynamic Beta Investments, explains why the traditional 60/40 stock-bond portfolio has broken down as correlations rise above 2% inflation, and how managed futures ETFs serve as low-cost, liquid alternatives that replicate hedge fund strategies to provide genuine portfolio diversification during market stress. → KEY INSIGHTS - **Bond correlation failure:** Bonds historically had a maximum drawdown of only 4% and reliably offset equity losses, but that...

→ WHAT IT COVERS Law professor Hilary Allen, author of Fintech Dystopia, examines how Silicon Valley's venture capital model uses regulatory arbitrage rather than genuine technological innovation to build financial products. Allen connects lessons from the 2008 financial crisis to current crypto, AI, and fintech trends, arguing deregulation cycles repeat because institutional memory fades predictably fast.

→ WHAT IT COVERS Dan LaRosa, retirement plan expert at Ritholtz Wealth Management, explains the Mega Backdoor Roth — a fully IRS-approved strategy allowing contributions up to $72,000 annually into a Roth account, tripling standard 401(k) limits for eligible employees and self-employed individuals. → KEY INSIGHTS - **Contribution ceiling:** The Mega Backdoor Roth raises total annual 401(k) Roth contributions from $24,500 to $72,000 by allowing after-tax contributions beyond standard limits.

→ WHAT IT COVERS Heather and Doug Bonaparte discuss their book Money Together, exploring how couples navigate financial decisions through communication and transparency. They share insights from interviewing hundreds of couples about joint accounts, prenuptial agreements, inheritance, wealth gaps, and power dynamics. The conversation reveals how childhood money experiences shape adult financial behaviors and relationship conflicts within marriages.

→ WHAT IT COVERS Drew Warshaw, candidate for New York State Comptroller, outlines his plan to reform the $300 billion state pension fund by replacing 664 active managers with low-cost index funds. He argues the current approach has cost taxpayers $59 billion in underperformance and fees over eighteen years under incumbent Tom DiNapoli. → KEY INSIGHTS - **Pension Fund Underperformance:** New York State pension fund underperformed market benchmarks by 39% over eighteen years while paying $11.

→ WHAT IT COVERS Bob Moser, founder and CEO of Prime Group Holdings, explains how he built America's largest privately held self storage operation by acquiring over $10 billion in assets across 350 locations. He details his unconventional sourcing strategy, using Freedom of Information Act requests and proprietary AI software to identify undervalued properties owned by mom-and-pop operators.

→ WHAT IT COVERS Barry Ritholtz interviews Patrick Kilbane, a former matrimonial lawyer now leading a divorce advisory group, about navigating the financial complexities of divorce including asset division, tax implications, retirement accounts, business valuations, and cash flow planning during family dissolution. → KEY INSIGHTS - **Initial Financial Triage:** Before making any agreements, obtain complete information about all marital holdings and understand your legal rights.

→ WHAT IT COVERS Kate Burke, CEO of Allspring Global Investments managing $635 billion in assets, discusses her career path from teller to CEO, the evolution from Wells Fargo Asset Management to Allspring, building effective investment teams, why active fixed income management outperforms, and strategic asset allocation in current market conditions. → KEY INSIGHTS - **Career Transition Strategy:** Moving from revenue-generating roles into corporate functions like Chief Talent Officer provides...

→ WHAT IT COVERS Wes Gray of ETF Architect explains the complete process of launching an exchange-traded fund, covering capital requirements, timeline expectations, cost structures, and strategic considerations for analysts and fund managers considering their own ETF launch. → KEY INSIGHTS - **Capital Requirements:** Minimum seed capital has increased from 5 million dollars four years ago to 25 million dollars currently, with expectations to rise to 50 million dollars.

→ WHAT IT COVERS Zach Buchwald, CEO of Russell Investments managing $370 billion, discusses the critical shift from defined benefit pensions to 401(k) plans, the firm's open architecture approach to portfolio construction, and how Russell pioneered innovations including smart beta, OCIO services, and pension consulting while addressing America's looming retirement security crisis.

→ WHAT IT COVERS Cory Doctorow explains enshittification, his framework for understanding platform decay across digital services. He traces how companies like Amazon, Facebook, and Uber lock in users, extract value from business customers, then degrade service quality while maintaining monopoly power through legal protections that prevent competition and user modification of software.

→ WHAT IT COVERS Richard Thaler and Alex Imas discuss their updated edition of The Winner's Curse, examining how behavioral economics anomalies from the 1980s-90s remain unchanged despite thirty years of research, affecting institutional investors and retail traders alike. → KEY INSIGHTS - **Disposition Effect Persistence:** Investors consistently sell winning stocks too early while holding losing positions too long, a pattern documented since 1985 that appears identically in modern Robinhood...

→ WHAT IT COVERS Perth Tolley explains how her Freedom 100 EM Index ETF excludes authoritarian regimes from emerging markets, outperforming traditional indices by avoiding China, Russia, and other autocracies. → KEY INSIGHTS - **Freedom-weighted methodology:** The index uses 87 variables measuring civil, political, and economic freedoms from Cato Institute to weight countries, automatically excluding worst offenders while traditional indices market-cap weight autocracies.