Watch On YouTube

In each episode, we explore investing through an entirely unique lens, bringing in authors to discuss books that have directly or indirectly influenced our investment decisions.

How did one family build Fidelity into one of the most powerful forces in American investing, and what allowed it to endure across three generations?

In the latest episode of A Book with Legs, Smead Capital Management CEO and Portfolio Manager Cole Smead and Analyst Will Keenan sit down with journalist and author Justin Baer to discuss his book, titled “House of Fidelity: The Rise of the Johnson Dynasty and the Company That Changed American Investing.”

Cole and Will explore the 80-year rise of Fidelity with Justin, tracing three generations of the Johnson family and the various investing styles of Fidelity leadership throughout the years. They also discuss the closed-door battles that shaped the firm’s direction, the rise and legacy of Peter Lynch, and what this story tells us about active management businesses that last.

Justin Baer is an award-winning journalist and an editor for The Wall Street Journal. In a career that includes stints at the Financial Times and Bloomberg News, he has covered almost every significant financial event over the past two decades, including the dot-com bubble, the 2008 financial crisis and the economic fallout from the pandemic. Along the way, Baer has chronicled the ups and downs of such major institutions as Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan Chase, Citigroup and Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway.

Purchase “House of Fidelity: The Rise of the Johnson Dynasty and the Company That Changed American Investing” here: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/justin-baer/house-of-fidelity/9781538766958/

Sign up to be notified about new A Book with Legs episodes: https://hubs.ly/Q0452Lh70

More Episodes

Justin Baer – House of Fidelity

How did one family build Fidelity into one of the most powerful forces in American investing, and what allowed it to endure across three generations? In the latest episode of […]

⟶ Start listening

Andrew Seth Meyer: To Rule All Under Heaven

What makes a civilization endure, and how did a Chinese empire that conquered everything fall apart in 15 years? In the latest episode of A Book with Legs, Smead Capital […]

⟶ Start listening

Gaurav Suri – The Emergent Mind: How Intelligence Arises in People and Machines

What in the subconscious mind informs our actions, and what are our neural networks capable of that distinguishes them from machines such as LLMs? Gaurav is a computational neuroscientist, experimental […]

⟶ Start listening

Jason Bardi – The Great Math War: How Three Brilliant Minds Fought for the Foundations of Mathematics

What happens when brilliant minds disagree not just on answers, but on the very rules of how answers can be found? These questions are addressed in the latest episode of […]

⟶ Start listening

The Smead Book List – Spring Book List

What is the Smead Capital Management team reading, and what’s up next? In this new quarterly ‘book list’ episode, value investors Bill and Cole Smead discuss memorable takeaways from books […]

⟶ Start listening

Kathryn Paige Harden – Original Sin: On The Genetics of Vice, The Problem of Blame, And the Future of Forgiveness

How much of our temperament and behavior is passed through DNA, and how do we punish those whose behavior may be shaped by genetic forces outside of their control? These […]

⟶ Start listening

Subscribe

Scroll to Top