It wasn’t that long ago that curious investors had just a few resources at their disposal for intel on where to put their money: Hire a personal financial adviser, tune into the pundits shouting tips on cable TV, or stare into the fine-print stock reports in the business dailies.
Today, the marketplace for investing ideas has exploded, with new mediums and diverse voices delivering libraries of insights every day. There’s never been a better time for investors to get up to speed on the most exciting sectors of the market, and it’s also never been easier to discern how to align your portfolio with those businesses that are aiming innovations toward positive change — if you know where to look.
To learn about purposefully investing in a better planet and society, here are 27 ideas on what to read, who’s trending, and which podcasts are worth your ear.
🎙️ 5 PODCASTS FOR CURIOUS INVESTORS
Stanford University’s Inside Social Innovation is essential listening for impact-oriented investors, posting talks on guiding principles (how to make the world of philanthropy more equitable) and best practices (why companies must learn how to scale before they innovate).
Co-hosted by legendary tech journalist Kara Swisher and New York University marketing professor Scott Galloway, Pivot offers smart, biweekly takes on the inner workings of the Silicon Valley powerhouses and predicts the seed-funded innovators nipping at their heels.
a16z from Andreessen Horowitz narrates how “software is eating the world,” in the famous words of the venture capital firm’s co-founder Marc Andreessen. Expect complex dives into subjects like the algorithms behind your favorite apps and sharp insights into burgeoning fields such as healthcare technology.
With more than 30 million downloads, We Study Billionaires is popular for a reason: they land interviews with master investors like Bill Miller and Warren Buffet and tease out how their same seasoned strategies could work for newbies like you.
Innovation Uncovered, an audio initiative from Invesco, follows the intellectual journeys of science writer Corey S. Powell and culture journalist Kristen Meinzer. Episodes deliver rich storytelling on everything from AI’s effect on music creation to how basketball teams are gaining a competitive edge through data science. Walking listeners through the ways that tech-driven advances can revolutionize industries, the show demonstrates why innovation has proven to be such a steady investment historically.
📚 7 BOOKS TO BRUSH UP ON THE ECONOMY
One of the most influential books of its kind, Thinking in Systems by the late environmentalist Donella Meadows is a primer on systems-based problem-solving, using ecological analogies that can help guide the choices sustainable investors make.
The Future is Faster Than You Think, by futurists Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler, documents not just how incremental technological trends are piling up, but how they will begin combining and recombining to cause exponential change.
Hedge: A Greater Safety Net for the Entrepreneurial Age by Nicolas Colin explains why entrepreneurs need to start businesses that drive innovative technological change, but also help support the resiliency of institutions at a time when traditional safety nets are failing.
A stimulating read on social economics from John Elkington (nicknamed the Godfather of Sustainability), Green Swans: The Coming Boom in Regenerative Capitalism argues capitalism must be put in the service of solving problems like climate change and chronic disease to avoid catastrophe.
Radical Uncertainty: Decision-Making Beyond the Numbers is a necessary corrective to modern over-reliance on probabilistic analysis and a helpful guide for investors on examining how and why they make judgements with their most important assets.
Harvard professor Rebecca Henderson draws on years of research in economics and psychology in Reimagining Capitalism in a World on Fire to show how our systems of finance and business leadership can evolve to achieve social justice.
I Will Teach You to Be Rich, by personal finance author Ramit Sethan, is a book as blunt in its advice as the title suggests, but is one of the best titles for setting up new investors for success.
🗞️ 6 NEWSLETTERS THAT CAN MAKE YOU SMARTER
A newsletter about the future, Exponential View from entrepreneur and author Azeem Azhar is one of the most widely-read emails among innovation-minded investors.
Check out The Brief from niche publisher Impact Alpha for the latest in impact investing. Editors boil down 160 hours of research into actionable insights on sustainable finance, followed by 70,000 subscribers.
In Other Valleys, Anjali Ramachandran, director of content and strategy studio Storythings, offers an excellent round-up of trends in tech, business, education, and art in emerging markets. It’s one of the best ways to tap into perspectives outside the US and Europe.
Get the inside scoop on what’s on the minds of VC movers and shakers with StrictlyVC, published Monday through Friday and jam packed with info on the political, cultural, and economic moves influencing Silicon Valley.
Columnist Matt Levine offers caustically funny takeaways in his Money Stuff newsletter, explaining the deeper dynamics at play in daily and even hourly market developments.
For The Algorithm, reporter Karen Hao gathers essential news and research on one of the world’s most consequential technologies: artificial intelligence.
👩🏫 4 FINANCE GURUS TO CONSIDER FOLLOWING
Vijay Pande, Andreessen Horowitz partner and bioengineering authority, is an expert on how technology, healthcare, and science are reshaping the economy’s future.
Kristina Hooper and Brian Levitt are top Invesco analysts, offering direction on how to navigate the market and adapt your portfolio to both the uncertainty of the moment and the ingenuity on the horizon.
Economist and Harvard professor Jason Furman was known as “the wonkiest wonk” of the Obama administration. Follow him for the low-down on how to read the unemployment rate, GDP growth, and other big economic indicators.
🧰 5 RESOURCES TO HELP UP YOUR MONEY GAME
A major proponent of stakeholder capitalism, Just Capital offers annual rankings on how publicly traded companies perform on issues like paying fair wages, protecting the environment, and supporting local communities.
Breakthrough Energy, founded by Bill Gates and likeminded private investors, tracks progress in clean energy and carbon-free solutions.
CASE i3 from Duke University helps young investors align their transactions with sectors and firms in which their money can make the most impact.
If you’re looking to understand how we’ll shop, govern, and work differently in a post-Covid America (and who will benefit from those changes), Invesco’s Imagine the Possibilities series documents the need-to-know developments in retail, politics, and labor. You’ll also want to check out the company’s robust blog for analysis on trends both macro and micro, from how an election year influences stocks to explaining flux in the price of gold.
To learn how you can be an agent of innovation and access the companies helping build for the future, explore Invesco QQQ ETF.
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