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There are objects we pass every day without giving them a second thought. A worn dollar bill folded gently into a wallet. A credit card tapped against a reader anxiously awaiting that familiar beep. A stock certificate unsigned collecting dust. A number glowing quietly on the phone screen, a green number fueling joy, while a red number crushing the spirit. They're so familiar that it's easy to forget how strange they really are, because none of them have value on their own. Their value lives somewhere else. In trust, in belief. In stories we've been telling ourselves for thousands of years, money is an illusion nestled in our imagination. But it doesn't mean that nature doesn't have a system of accounting. I'm Brian. I've spent the last 15 years working in finance, helping families make the biggest financial decisions of their lives. But the questions that have stayed with me were never really just about investing. They were questions about people. Why do bubbles happen? Over and over. Why does fear spread faster than confidence? How did a handful of merchants in Amsterdam change the way the entire world invests? Why does a piece of paper printed by a government become something we trade our time, our labor, or even our lives for? Those questions eventually led me somewhere unexpected. History, psychology, economics, politics, philosophy. Because the deeper I looked, the harder it became to separate money from the people who created it. This podcast is an exploration of those stories. Some episodes will take us to crowded trading floors and forgotten banks, others will begin in kitchens, factories, harbors, or around family dinner tables. Every one of those stories starts with people, because money's always been a human story. So if you're curious about how we got here, if you ever wondered why markets behave the way they do, or if you simply found yourself asking questions that don't really fit neatly into a textbook, I hope you'll join me. This is Money's the Matter.