Mihir Desai on the muddle of life and finance

Mihir Desai is a Professor of Finance at Harvard Business School and a Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. In this conversation with Mihir, amongst other things, we cover the cocktail party test; how the principal-agent framework might help clear up the muddle of life; explore the dangers of optionality; examine why the pursuit of alpha is the most important life lesson from finance; and reason about why the income inequality debate is deeply misunderstood.

About and from Prof. Mihir Desai :

• Website: http://www.mihirdesai.org/

• Book, Wisdom of Finance: http://www.mihirdesai.org/all-publications/2016/10/10/wisdom-of-finance-discovering-humanity-in-the-world-of-risk-and-return

• Article, The Trouble with Optionality: https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2017/5/25/desai-commencement-ed/

• Leading with finance: https://hbx.hbs.edu/courses/leading-with-finance/

• Recent opinion piece: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/06/opinion/apple-trillion-market-cap.html

• Mihir Desai testimony before Congress: https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4504433/hbs-professor-mihir-desai

• Reading recommendations:
  • It can Happen Here, Cass Sunstein
  • Kids These Days, Malcolm Harris
  • Ghachar Goachar, Vivek Shanbhag
  • After Hours podcast: http://hbsafterhours.com/
• Follow Mihir on Twitter: https://twitter.com/desaimihira

Assorted links:

• Amartya Sen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amartya_Sen

• Bartelby, the Scrivener: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartleby,_the_Scrivener

• Robert Morris bankruptcy: https://www.sethkaller.com/item/295-21609-Robert-Morris-Signed-Note—Used-as-Evidence-in-His-Bankruptcy-Trial

• A Room with a View: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Room_with_a_View

• O Pioneers!: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O_Pioneers!

• Alpha: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_(finance)

• A Silicon Valley School That Doesn’t Compute: https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/technology/at-waldorf-school-in-silicon-valley-technology-can-wait.html

• Behavioral economics / finance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_economics#Behavioural_finance

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Music:

• Music used in this podcast: Simplex Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
• Chipper Doodle Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
  Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
  http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0

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