Why Finance Needs More Humanity, and Why Humanity Needs Finance

HBR IdeaCast

Harvard Business Review

Leadership, Entrepreneurship, Communication, Marketing, Business, Business/management, Management, Business/marketing, Business/entrepreneurship, Innovation, Hbr, Strategy, Economics, Finance, Teams, Harvard

4.4 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 1 June 2017

⏱️ 28 minutes

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Summary

Mihir Desai, professor at Harvard Business School and Harvard Law School, argues for re-humanizing finance. He says the practice of finance, with increasing quantification, has lost touch with its foundations. But he says finance can be principled, ethical, even life-affirming. And demonizing it or ignoring it means that the rest of us – those not in finance – risk misunderstanding it, which has all kinds of implications for how we make decisions and plan for our futures. Desai is the author of the new book, "The Wisdom of Finance: Discovering Humanity in the World of Risk and Return." He also writes about finance and the economy for hbr.org.

Transcript

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0:00.0	The Closer Podcast brings you the inside story of deals changing the world, told by the people who know how it all went down.
0:09.0	Understand the human motivations behind groundbreaking business decisions with host Amy Keene.
0:14.6	Listen to The Closer, wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the HBRIPA Cast from Harvard Business Review. I'm Sarah Green Carmichael. At a time when it seems
0:35.2	there's so little we all agree on. The finance industry seems universally
0:39.6	reviled. Need someone to blame for market volatility? Point to the hedge fund guys.
0:45.0	Want to be mad at someone for the housing crisis? Criticize the so-called vampire
0:49.8	squid of Goldman Sachs. Angry at the state of the world?
0:54.0	Talk about how Wall Street has ripped off Main Street.
0:57.0	It's not just populists in the 99%.
1:00.0	CEOs too have a bone to pick with finance,
1:02.0	arguing that investors and shareholders force
1:04.7	them into poor short-term decisions.
1:07.3	But our guest today has a different relationship with finance.
1:10.7	Me here in Desai is a professor at Harvard Business School and Harvard Law School.
1:15.4	Finance, he argues, can be principled, ethical, even life-affirming.
1:20.0	And demonizing it or ignoring it means that the rest of us, those not in finance, risk misunderstanding
1:26.1	it which has all kinds of implications for how we make decisions and plan for our futures.
1:31.2	He talks about all of this in his new book, The Wisdom of Finance,
1:34.7	Discovering Humanity in the World of Risk and Return, and he's with us today on the
1:39.0	HBO Ideacast.
1:40.0	We heard thanks for joining us.
1:41.6	Thanks so much, Sarah.
	...

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