Morgan Housel
Partner at Collaborative Fund and author of The Psychology of Money, Same As Ever and The Art of Spending Money. Writes essays on investor behavior and posts frequently on X.
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What they believe
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Most of society’s problems run downstream of housing affordability.
I think the majority of society problems are all downstream of housing affordability.
collabfund.comSaid 6 Jan 2026This on korrents
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Debt is best understood as narrowing the range of outcomes you can survive, not as a cost of capital.
I think this is the most practical way to think about debt: As debt increases, you narrow the range of outcomes you can endure in life.
collabfund.comSaid 30 Apr 2024This on korrents
The bold line is korrents’ wording; the quote is theirs. These 2: what they wrote before what they said aloud, one per source, newest first.
Beliefs
Korrents What they believe 24 beliefs — each backed by an exact quote.
Each is a — compiled by korrents.com, not by them: the one-line wordings are korrents', the quotes are theirs.
Recent
Most of society’s problems run downstream of housing affordability.
I think the majority of society problems are all downstream of housing affordability.
A Few Things I’m Pretty Sure About Said 6 Jan 2026
The right response to housing costs is to build millions more homes as fast as possible.
Every economic issue is complex, but this one seems pretty straight forward: we should build more homes. Millions of them, as fast as we can.
A Few Things I’m Pretty Sure About Said 6 Jan 2026
The internet is unusual among universal technologies in having made about as much worse as it made better.
The internet is unique in the history of technology because there’s a list of things it improved (communication, access to information) but another list of things it likely made worse for almost everybody
A Few Things I’m Pretty Sure About Said 6 Jan 2026
Show 21 more
Cycles are hard to predict because forecasters extrapolate in straight lines and cannot see the forces undoing the present.
Cycles are so hard to predict, because it’s easier to forecast in straight lines.
A Few Things I’m Pretty Sure About Said 6 Jan 2026
When most people expect a top-five-per-cent outcome, mass disappointment is guaranteed.
But when a majority of people expect a top 5% outcome the result is guaranteed mass disappointment.
A Few Things I’m Pretty Sure About Said 6 Jan 2026
Risk is best defined as whatever could keep a person from their own goals, so stock-market volatility is a risk for a day trader and not for someone retiring in fifty years.
I think broadly it's anything that's going to prevent you from achieving the goals that you want that's a a very basic answer but I think that's what it is and the reason that's important is because take volatility in the stock market is that risk well it could be if you're a day trader then yes if the market goes down tomorrow that's a risk for you if you're in if you're going to retire in 50 years it's not whatsoever
Morgan Housel: What You Need to Master (And Avoid) to Get Rich, Stay Rich, and Build Wealth Said 28 May 2024
When luck is separated from skill, the part to pay most attention to is what is repeatable: what someone could do again.
you want to find what is repeatable and what you could do again and those are the things you should just pay the most attention to
Morgan Housel: What You Need to Master (And Avoid) to Get Rich, Stay Rich, and Build Wealth Said 28 May 2024
An investor with a 20-, 30- or 50-year game should not take cues from people playing a different game, such as trading for the next quarter, and that is where much of investing's danger comes from.
my game is is different I think your game is different most people's game might be a little bit different and what's important is that if your game is to invest for the next 20 30 50 years that you're not taking your cues from people who are playing a different game of trading for the next quarter and that's where a lot of danger and investing comes from
Morgan Housel: What You Need to Master (And Avoid) to Get Rich, Stay Rich, and Build Wealth Said 28 May 2024
Most financial debates are not real disagreements but people with different personalities talking over each other, and there may be no single right answer.
I think most Financial debates whether it's like an investing debate or a saving or spending debate people are not actually disagreeing with each other they're not actually debating it's people with different personalities talking over each other and once you come to terms with that there's not one right answer for any of this
Morgan Housel: What You Need to Master (And Avoid) to Get Rich, Stay Rich, and Build Wealth Said 28 May 2024
Being average for an above-average period of time can lead to a well above-average result, because endurance rather than this year's return is the variable that matters.
if I can be average for an above average period of time that leads to a way above average result it's not it's it's not about like what are the returns that I can earn this year if I can earn 8% returns for 50 years the results are ridiculous the results are absurd and so maximizing the variable that matters which is time and endurance
Morgan Housel: What You Need to Master (And Avoid) to Get Rich, Stay Rich, and Build Wealth Said 28 May 2024
In investing, extra effort tends to correlate negatively with results for the vast majority of people, with some exceptions such as Renaissance Technologies.
investing is one of the very few Endeavors in life where the harder you try the worse you're probably going to do and yes there are exceptions to that Renaissance Technologies of course you you you can name the exceptions for people who tried very hard and did very well but for the vast majority of people there's going to be a negative correlation between the effort you put into it and the results that you got out of it
Morgan Housel: What You Need to Master (And Avoid) to Get Rich, Stay Rich, and Build Wealth Said 28 May 2024
Because stock returns are concentrated in a few winners that are very hard to know in advance, owning the whole index guarantees owning whichever ones turn out to be the drivers.
it's always the case that it's very taal driven the distribution of returns and owning the index just guarantees that whatever is going to be the next driver I own because it's extremely difficult to know what those are going to be
Morgan Housel: What You Need to Master (And Avoid) to Get Rich, Stay Rich, and Build Wealth Said 28 May 2024
Trouble comes from the gap between net worth and expectations: it is when expectations grow faster than net worth.
if your net worth grows 10% but your expectations grow 12% that's that's when you get into trouble it's just the gap between the two
Morgan Housel: What You Need to Master (And Avoid) to Get Rich, Stay Rich, and Build Wealth Said 28 May 2024
Bold risk-taking and conservative paranoia can work together, as when Gates pursued an audacious vision while wanting a year of payroll in cash, combining getting rich with staying rich.
the example that I always use is Bill Gates when he started Microsoft took the most audacious entrepreneurial swing that maybe anyone's ever taken of saying every desk in the world needs a computer on this and he's saying this in 1974 whatever it was crazy amount of risk crazy bold Vision at the same time he said that he always wanted Microsoft to have enough cash in the bank to make payroll for one year with no Revenue which is the most conservative pessimistic way to run a business so he's like very risk-taking and very conservative paranoid at the same time very good at getting rich very good at staying Rich at the same time
Morgan Housel: What You Need to Master (And Avoid) to Get Rich, Stay Rich, and Build Wealth Said 28 May 2024
More about money may be learned from fields like politics, military history, biology and sociology than from a finance book, because the question is how people make decisions.
I think you can learn more about money by reading about politics military history biology sociology than you will by reading a finance book because you're just trying to figure out how do people make decisions how do you make decisions and how do other people make decisions and by and large you're not going to learn that in an economics textbook but you will learn about it by reading all of these other fields that have nothing to do with money
Morgan Housel: What You Need to Master (And Avoid) to Get Rich, Stay Rich, and Build Wealth Said 28 May 2024
Susceptibility to FOMO, especially in markets inflamed by social media, leaves little hope of building wealth over time.
particularly in modern markets that can get so crazy with social media and Reddit and Twitter and everything if you if you are susceptible to fomo there's no hope for you over time
Morgan Housel: What You Need to Master (And Avoid) to Get Rich, Stay Rich, and Build Wealth Said 28 May 2024
If something can be done to change the odds of an outcome, it is not luck by definition; luck is what is truly outside one's control, such as where and when one is born.
if you can can do something that changes your odds of an outcome it's not luck by definition luck to me the biggest are where and when you were born you can't control it
Morgan Housel: What You Need to Master (And Avoid) to Get Rich, Stay Rich, and Build Wealth Said 28 May 2024
Debt is best understood as narrowing the range of outcomes you can survive, not as a cost of capital.
I think this is the most practical way to think about debt: As debt increases, you narrow the range of outcomes you can endure in life.
How I Think About Debt Said 30 Apr 2024
The real price of debt is paid in options and flexibility, which is the asset that matters most.
you start to see it as a constraint on the asset that matters most: having options and flexibility
How I Think About Debt Said 30 Apr 2024
When learning from someone successful, copy only what is repeatable; the rest of their success cannot be reproduced.
It’s so important to know the difference between the two when attempting to learn from someone. You want to try to emulate skills that are repeatable.
Lucky vs. Repeatable Said 7 Apr 2024
Market history teaches why things behave as they do, never what happens next, because the details never repeat.
you want to learn the big lessons about why things behave the way they do without assuming the past is a direct guide to the future, because it’s not – most of the details are not repeatable
Lucky vs. Repeatable Said 7 Apr 2024
Money is used either as a tool for a better life or as a yardstick of status, and most people aim at the first while chasing the second.
There are two ways to use money. One is as a tool to live a better life. The other is as a yardstick of status to measure yourself against others.
A Few Thoughts on Spending Money Said 31 Jan 2024
Unspent money buys freedom and control over your own time, which is what makes saving worth more than whatever it could have bought.
Unspent money buys something intangible but valuable: freedom, independence, autonomy, and control over your time.
A Few Thoughts on Spending Money Said 31 Jan 2024
There is no objective level of wealth: how rich you are is always a judgement made against someone else.
There is no such thing as an objective level of wealth. Everything is relative to someone else.
A Few Thoughts on Spending Money Said 31 Jan 2024
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Recommends rcmnd
rcmnd What they recommend 12 things — each backed by an exact quote.
Compiled by rcmnd.app, not by them: the quotes are theirs, and each links to the post it was copied from.
Recent
Loved When Breath Becomes Air
When Breath Becomes Air will make you reexamine what’s important in life and make you appreciate each day you’re here.
collabfund.com 12 May 2017
Loved Boyd
Boyd is an excellent story on brute-force learning, focus, and bureaucracy.
collabfund.com 12 May 2017
Loved Guns at Last Light
Guns at Last Light is the best World War II book I’ve read, and explains the most important event in modern history through human stories rather than bland statistics.
collabfund.com 12 May 2017
Show 9 more
Loved The Wright Brothers
The Wright Brothers is one of the best business and innovation stories of all time.
collabfund.com 12 May 2017
Loved Truman
Truman, a biography of the 33rd president, is an incredible story of the world’s biggest problems falling into the lap of someone who never thought he’d face them.
collabfund.com 12 May 2017
Loved Endurance
Endurance is the best example of how far people can be pushed when the stakes are high.
collabfund.com 12 May 2017
Loved Nobody Wants to Read Your Shit
Nobody Wants to Read Your Shit has had the biggest influence on how I write.
collabfund.com 12 May 2017
Loved The Great Depression: A Diary
The Great Depression: A Diary is the best economics book I’ve read, written by a person who didn’t know he was writing one.
collabfund.com 12 May 2017
Loved Famous Financial Fiascos
Famous Financial Fiascos is one of the best investing history books that few people have heard of.
collabfund.com 12 May 2017
Loved The Quest of the Simple Life
The Quest of the Simple Life, written in 1907, totally changed how I think about personal finance and life goals.
collabfund.com 12 May 2017
Liked The Big Change
The Big Change, a look at how life in America changed from 1900-1950, got me interested in the social and cultural part of economic growth.
collabfund.com 12 May 2017
Liked The Science of Fear
The Science of Fear is the first book that opened my eyes to how poor we are at interpreting risk.
collabfund.com 12 May 2017
Where they publish
Blog Collaborative Fund His author page at the firm's blog. No per-post byline in the feed, so listed as a fixed shelf.
Essays on investor behavior, risk and how people actually think about money, at the venture firm where he is a partner. The firm's blog has several writers and its feed carries no per-item author, so an automatic feed would mix in their posts; these six are listed by hand instead.
Links
- Long-Term Money 2 Apr 2026
- A Few Things I'm Pretty Sure About 6 Jan 2026
- My New Book: The Art of Spending Money 3 Sept 2025
- Little Rules About Big Things 13 Aug 2025
- What A World (A few Stories) 4 Aug 2025
- Very Bad Advice 12 Jun 2025
Link verified 8 Sept 2026.
x.com @morganhousel Short-form notes on investing and behavior, several times a day.
The same subject matter as the essays, in shorter form and posted much more often -- his most active channel.
Recent
- Traveling to other countries you realize one of the strongest brands in America is the Yankees. 21 Oct 2026
- The Psychology of Money Podcast Mark Twain on relative wealth, the obsession with minimalism, worrying in your 20s, and the barbell approach to investing. 17 Oct 2026
- Craig and I talked to Matt Sonsini about philanthropy, raising capital, and how Silicon Valley has changed over the years. Apple: https://t.co/pfIx2kJynT Spotify: 14 Oct 2026
Show 17 more
- "Since $100 million in New York and 22 fish-hooks on the border of the Arctic Circle represent the same financial supremacy, a man in straitened circumstances is a fool to stay in New York when he can buy ten cents' worth of fish-hooks and emigrate." - Mark Twain 12 Oct 2026
- The Psychology of Money Podcast A False Sense of How People View You 10 Oct 2026
- New book on Tom Brady: "A common trait I’ve found among repeat champions is a prominent chip on their shoulder, from slights both real and imagined, often nurtured for decades. When what you seek is not wealth or fame but vindication, you can never get enough." 10 Oct 2026 wsj.com
- Taps the sign. 8 Oct 2026
- The Psychology of Money Podcast Part of why home prices are so high, and Yogi Berra's joke that "no one goes there anymore, it's too crowded." 29 Sept 2026
- The Psychology of Money Podcast The Richer You Get, The Easier It Is To Imagine Something Better 22 Sept 2026
- Albert Einstein with the optimistic take on nuclear war - the last new technology threatening to wipe us out. 15 Sept 2026
- The Psychology of Money Podcast AI Optimism and the Agony of Waiting Most forecasts are hyper-optimistic or hyper-pessimistic. Not enough attention to the possibility that the main outcome in 10 years is that all businesses are 20%-30% more productive and life goes on. 11 Sept 2026
- Good piece on the downside of meditation. "The point of meditation was never merely to relax or just 'clear your mind' but to wholly rearrange one’s relationship to one’s thoughts. This might make sense for a Buddhist monk pursuing the great unbinding, but not for a random Brooklynite who just wants to be more productive at work." 4 Sept 2026 theatlantic.com
- Will Durrant: Psychology is a theory of human behavior. Philosophy is an ideal of human behavior. History is a record of human behavior. 3 Sept 2026
- The Psychology of Money Podcast: Household debt/GDP has plunged at the same time Government debt/GDP surged. On net, we're about where we were 20 years ago. 28 Aug 2026
- Good line: “The longer your holding period, the more chance that something you can’t forecast occurs.” 27 Aug 2026 ft.com
- "You've probably lived entire lives you've completely forgotten, because you don't write things down." @DylanoA4 27 Aug 2026
- The Psychology of Money Podcast "Be careful who you socialize with." - How wealthy you feel depends so much on where you live and who you socialize with. 21 Aug 2026
- It's not a perfect analogy but I view this as the equivalent of "most college players don't make the NBA." You shouldn't expect the majority of people to succeed at a very hard thing. 17 Aug 2026
- The Psychology of Money Podcast Bitcoin, A Reasonable View of The World, and Passion Is The Inverse of Information 14 Aug 2026
- The Psychology of Money Podcast: A Tale as Old As Time: Getting Rich vs. Staying Rich 7 Aug 2026
Link verified 8 Sept 2026. Recent items update automatically from the channel.
Books Books The Psychology of Money, Same As Ever, and The Art of Spending Money.
Three bestsellers on the psychology of investing and spending, together sold over 13 million copies.
Link verified 8 Sept 2026.
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