210: The Science Behind Financial Decisions with Dan Egan

Today, I’m speaking with Dan Egan. He’s the Director of Behavioral Science and Investing at Betterment, where he integrates behavioral finance and passive investment management to help customers achieve their goals. The Betterment platform is designed to help make good behavior automatic and bad behavior difficult, and it’s helped his customers avoid reduced returns as a consequence of bad trading.

Using his background in Decision Science from the London School of Economics and deep knowledge of programming and statistics, he uses his work to explore the psychology of design, money, investing, spending, and randomness.

Dan was introduced to me by Brian Portnoy, one of my previous guests, and I’m excited to have a chance to speak to another expert in this unique field. Today, we talk about what behavioral finance is (and why it matters), why it’s human nature to make bad financial decisions, and who benefits the most from working with Robo-advisors as they grow their portfolios at any age.

Show Notes: Howardbailey.com/210

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