Writing a 10,000-word children’s book about money was personal for Mellody Hobson. Although she is now one of the most powerful women in the world of finance, money was once something that made her feel powerless. She is the youngest of six children, raised by a single mother in Chicago, and her childhood was marked by financial insecurity: the family was occasionally evicted and the lights went out when the electricity bill could not be paid. Hobson credits his mother with giving him a practical understanding of money and how much things cost, talking to him about bills and rent, and having him calculate the tip if they ate at a restaurant.
“We talked about money because it was an issue in our house,” says the 55-year-old co-CEO and president of Ariel Investments – She is also on the board of directors of JP Morgan and lead independent director of Starbucks, among other roles. “In some ways, that was traumatic, because there were times when I knew there was no way we could pay the bill.” As he speaks in his New York penthouse living room, with extraordinary views and a museum-worthy art collection, his unwavering eye contact drills straight into my soul. “In other ways, it was extremely enlightening. . . I had a clear idea of what I had to do to take care of myself. “I’m trying to teach that to my daughter.”
Hobson’s new book, Invaluable facts about moneyis aimed at children the same age as her daughter, Everest, who is 11 years old. Hobson has long been on a mission to get people talking about money with their kids. He cites a survey statistic: 77 percent of Americans feel anxious or uncomfortable when it comes to money. “Most parents would rather talk about condoms than credit cards,” he says.
Hobson could write books on finance for the most sophisticated investors, but he chose children. That fear of money from her early years is still very important to her. Her husband – Hobson married star wars filmmaker jorge lucasfather of Everest, in 2013, helped her understand why. “George always tells me this: The only thing about being a child is that whatever happens to you stays with you, because you don’t have any advanced reasoning skills,” he says.
(Hobson often begins sentences with “George always says…” An endless supply of wisdom is a perk of being married to “Yoda’s dad,” as Hobson refers to him. In the Hobson-Lucas kitchen, not far from a work of art by Keith Haring, there is a toaster in the shape of a stormtrooper.)
Priceless facts is a wild 80-page ride through the history of money, packed with outlandish information about the global financial system, as well as an alarming reminder of the fecal matter present on dollar bills (Hobson also got the memo about the obsession of a child with scatological humor). It’s ambitious and fun, with a good dose of history. It arose when Hobson, frustrated by the lack of financial literacy in the American education system, decided to “stop admiring the problem” and do something about it. The book debuted at number four on The New York Times bestseller list when it was published this fall.
“I was probably a little ambitious in my mind, and all my friends know that, but I thought, ‘I want a bestseller,’” she says, laughing. “I want it to be something that people actually buy and read.”
Hobson’s early financial education sometimes took her to extremes: She found her own orthodontist and began financing it herself in fifth grade. And as a young adult, I still learned other financial lessons the hard way. When he was a student at Princeton, he charged his credit card for a ski trip with his classmates. When he couldn’t pay it, debt collectors called his college dorm. “In that moment, I literally knew, wow, I’m repeating the cycle,” she says, “nothing was worth the anxiety I felt, not the trip, not belonging, not being with my friends.”
Even though we’re talking in a pied-à-terre penthouse, your recurring nightmare is waking up one day with nowhere to live. “I’ve been dealing with that relationship with money since I was an intern at Ariel when I was 19,” he says. Upon landing a job in finance, “I thought, this is my therapy,” he says. With money, “it was never about quantity, but about knowledge. And I’m still in that same search.”
Hobson has worked at Ariel for more than three decades and jokes that she is the only one of her classmates who has had the same number since she graduated. Ariel’s founder, John W. Rogers, impressed with Hobson’s intelligence, work ethic, and enthusiasm, acted as one of her mentors and chose her early on as a potential leader for his company. He started in the marketing and customer services department, but traveled with Rogers everywhere for years, as a pseudo-chief of staff. Introducing her to Vanguard founder Jack Bogle on a train ride from New York to Philadelphia, Rogers told the businessman that he wanted Hobson to be president of Ariel when she turned 30; the board would not allow that to happen before then.
In fact, Hobson’s superpower may lie in his ability to attract extraordinary mentors and teachers and see every blow as an opportunity to learn. Their stories often take the form of lessons and anecdotes from others. She credits former Senator Bill Bradley for giving her tough comments at a breakfast when she was 23: He told her not to be a “ball hog” (Bradley was also a professional basketball player). It transformed the way he carried himself. They stayed close. He walked her down the aisle when she got married. As she rose within Ariel, becoming president in 2000, she gained board positions at Estée Lauder and Dreamworks Animation, where she served as president. (Talking about the movie business at a conference was how he met Lucas).
Hobson is a red-eyed frequent traveler, traveling between the West Coast, Ariel’s headquarters in Chicago, and New York. He spends most of his time outside of San Francisco, at Skywalker Ranch, with his family. “We don’t show up at parties. we look wheel of fortune and Danger with an 11-year-old child,” he says. “The other day, George tried to get Everest to observe The golden girls.”
You recognize that the financial reality of Everest is very different from your own experience and consciously work to manage the way you perceive value and abundance. Each year, Everest brings some of her birthday gifts to donate to a Chicago church, where she learned that not all children get new toys, not all children live with their parents, and not all parents are lucky enough to have a job.
“We tell him that you’ve just been lucky: you’re not special. That’s a message that’s hard to get across… That she didn’t earn any of it, but also to make her feel burdened by any of it, so that she feels safe but disenfranchised,” she says. “I’m very aware of some of the excesses in my life and I’m very aware of where I need to be very intentional.”
Yoda’s father also provides a useful background. “George always pushes,” Hobson continues of her husband. “He says: you want joy. Joy lasts a long time. You don’t want pleasure. Pleasure is very fleeting. You can only live on pleasure a little bit and then you need more.”
She fell in love with Lucas’s mind, as well as their shared values. Lucas had no funding to go to art school; He had his first opportunity in cinema thanks to a student scholarship from Warner Brothers. “It’s always amazed me,” he says. “He has great ideas all the time… Like building a museum. Who builds a museum, for God’s sake?
Currently, the couple is working together on the Lucas Museum of Narrative Artwhich will focus on all forms of visual storytelling, including painting, photography, sculpture, illustration, comics, performance and video; It is expected to open in Los Angeles in 2026. “It’s as important as anything I’ve ever done,” he says of the project. But it turns out that building a museum is “really difficult. Hard. Hard”.
“George told me just this week, when it is open we will be proud of it and we will know that this is something important for society. “It’s not to glorify ourselves, it’s just that we can leave something behind.”
Despite his achievements, Hobson isn’t too bothered by his own legacy. She tells a story I heard about a time when Lucas told her that he had no doubt that she was going to reach the top of whatever mountain she was climbing; He was just worried that when she got there, it would be cloudy and she would say, “I can’t see anything!” “I think he was trying to help me see that there’s no perfect ending,” he says. “Most things are not black and white. “There is so much gray in everything.”
More immediately, he has another book to write. Invaluable facts about money It is conceived as the first of a pair of books. Another is planned for young adults when Everest enters high school. More complex concepts will be addressed, such as debt and credit cards. Hobson still uses the same Amex green card he obtained in 1997, a nod to one of his idols, Warren Buffett. “It’s never been rejected,” he says.