The Curve

It’s been a week. Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, the ‘humble leather-jacketed dad of tech’, has been pushed out as CEO after not one, not two, but three affairs came to light. One of them was allegedly a Chinese spy. Vic unpacks the uncomfortable truth about what happens to share prices after a tech founder cheats. Then the question everyone’s asking: with no prenup on record, could his wife walk away with half of the world’s most valuable company? Before all that, Soph and Vic dig into Sofia Franklyn’s tell-all ‘Daddy Issues’ and the secret pay gap that blew up C...

Dani is a chartered accountant who grew up logging every cent in a little book, saving 10% of her allowance and paying for her own toothpaste. So when she says you should be spending more on yourself, it’s worth listening. After years of putting every penny towards future her, she burnt out, quit her job and broke her foot on day five of a silent retreat. This week Soph and Dani get into what she’d spend on now, why saving everything for future you can backfire, how much buffer to give yourself before a big leap, and the less...

Someone in The Curve community sent us a screenshot that sums it up: a supervisor finding out the man they supervise earns £4k more than them. Right now only 51% of UK job ads list a salary, but the government plans to make it compulsory. Soph and Emma-Louise Boynton get into what’s changing and why women and minority applicants are 25% more likely to apply when the pay is listed. They also cover how to negotiate as if the law were already here, using Meggie Palmer’s wish, want and walk numbers. Then, nearly half of Australians think they’re overedu...

The US midterms sent markets soaring, then a day later they fell hard. Vic explains what spooked investors and what a fund manager actually weighs up when prices drop: buy now, or wait for them to fall further? Then it’s The Curve Fund’s October update. Google’s parent company Alphabet lost US$500 billion in a single day, and Vic explains why using something we all understand, your own pay packet. Plus, the EssilorLuxottica heir airing his family’s business on podcasts, and why investors care. And David Jones, the department store older than Harrods, has gone into administ...

Madi Stefanis was introduced to investing by her mum at 18, starting with small, regular amounts from her paycheck. Now 26 and the founder of 35mm Co., she invests every Friday, matches every designer purchase with the same amount invested, and keeps six months of expenses in an emergency fund.

This episode is investing for beginners, told through the lens of someone who started small and stayed consistent: the money beliefs Madi grew up with, what she counts as an investment (and what she doesn’t), and what needs to be true about your finances before you even op...

Anthropic just filed to go public, and it could be the biggest IPO in history. Vic breaks down what’s actually in the filing: wild revenue growth, a cash pile bigger than Apple’s and Nvidia’s combined, and an unusual share structure. She also has a big question about why Anthropic is listing now. We cover who can actually buy in, depending on where you live. Then, Mark Zuckerberg is creating a new class of Meta shares with no voting rights at all. Soph starts out on his side. She doesn’t stay there.

Thanks s...

New Zealand votes on 7 November, and this election could change more about your money than you think. Soph admits she’s never read a policy in her life, so Vic walks her through what’s on the table. They cover what National and Labour each want to do with your KiwiSaver, who’d be paying more into it, Labour’s proposed capital gains tax on rental and investment property, and the change for new parents that both parties agree on. Plus, does the sharemarket actually do better under National or Labour? If you want to cut through the campaign noise be...

Hannah Hart started saving for a house at 10 and built her first property by 21. Buying the home she lives in now took four to five months, four auctions and a lot of tears. She joins Soph to talk through what really happens when you buy at auction: why one building report stopped her taking on $400,000 of work, what to do when someone else brings an auction forward, and the bidding move her husband made as the hammer was coming down. Plus the three foundational learnings she wants every first-home buyer to know before they start looking. 

Soph and Emma Louise-Boynton get into the ASOS hack, where hackers messaged customers directly through the app after the company wouldn’t pay up. We talk about how these digital ransoms work, why so many businesses quietly hand over the money, and the flaw hiding under 70% of the internet that nearly went very wrong. Plus, the cybersecurity stocks and insurers doing well out of it all. Then we turn to Victoria’s Secret, from Kylie Jenner’s $50 million bra to how the brand clawed its way back after years of decline. Not financial advice.

Not sure h...

It’s reporting season, when listed companies hand in their report cards and share prices swing on the results. This week Soph and Vic dig into two of them. Netflix grew its profit by around 43%, yet its shares fell, so what were investors actually reacting to, and why is YouTube now the rival to watch? Then there’s a company you’ve probably bought from without realising: EssilorLuxottica, owner of Ray-Ban, Oakley and Sunglass Hut, whose shares just had their biggest one-day jump since 2008.

Don’t miss Vic’s money story! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pT...

Part two of Meet the Founders. After Soph shared her money story, the requests for Vic's kept coming, so our Producer, Emily, and Digital & Social Manager, Lucy, sat her down for the full version.

Vic takes us from selling her sister's clothes on Trade Me as a kid to choosing a South America trip over a job offer at Goldman Sachs, then starting out answering phones at Milford Asset Management. She shares the employee share offer she nearly turned down and what it grew into, what she learned as one of the only women in the...

Bumble was once worth US$14 billion. Now it’s being bought for US$1.3 billion and taken private, and the app built on women going first will be run by two men. Soph and Emma get into what went wrong, what happens to your shares when a company leaves the stock market, and why LVMH shares are down around 40% while Uniqlo keeps breaking records. Plus, is a Chanel bag ever really an investment?

In case you missed our lab-grown vs natural diamonds episode … https://youtu.be/0qCN7Z1XFKM?si=KLlYJa-2hA5wu4Lt

Vic is officially back in New Zealand with big news: The Curve Fund is now live on Sharesies. She explains why September is so often a rough month for markets, the best analogy you’ll hear all year for how AMD became a trillion-dollar company without making a single chip, and why the company everyone should be watching isn’t Nvidia. Plus, how Warner Bros.’ CEO walked away with US$606 million after losing his job, and why stock options are worth asking about next time you negotiate your pay.

Can’t get your head around bonds? h...

Today we're talking lab grown versus natural diamonds, and by the end of it, neither of us landed exactly where we thought we would. Sophie sits down with Martha (@martha.stewish) to unpack where diamonds actually come from, why the cut matters more than the size, and how a 90-year-old marketing campaign convinced generations of women that a natural diamond equals real love.

We get into resale value, the celebrity engagement rings we assumed were natural, and why some of the richest people you know are quietly choosing lab grown.

Full...

Emma Louise Boynton is back, filling in for Vic. Sydney Sweeney’s “just sports” ad caused a stir, but the bigger story is that she’s an investor in Novig, the prediction market now reportedly worth $2 billion. Soph breaks down how prediction markets work and whether they’re anything more than sports betting. Then Emma brings the story of Sarah Creal, the Victoria Beckham Beauty co-founder who’s just launched a brand in the UK for women over 40, the generation with the most money to spend and the fewest products made for them.

Check out Emma’s book...

UK mortgage rates have hit 6% for the first time since Liz Truss’s mini-budget, yet the Bank of England hasn’t raised rates. So who’s pushing them up, and why does it matter even if you don’t own a home?

With Vic on her way home to New Zealand, our lead investor Nicole Bremner steps in alongside Soph to explain.

Then, the race to turn weight-loss jabs like Ozempic into a pill. It could more than double the number of people using them, and Nicole shares how to invest in a trend li...

It’s time to talk about "looksmaxxing," the internet's term for optimising everything about your appearance, and why so many of us are quietly pouring hundreds (or thousands) of dollars every month into it. Soph is joined by Hanna Horvath, author of the money and culture Substack ‘Your Brain on Money’. Together they dig into why Love Island contestants are the extreme end of a spectrum we're all on and why the return on investment for looking good is way blurrier than we like to admit. We also get into the psychology of impulse beauty spending and how to actual...

First up, Oura was about to go public. It was looking to raise $2.2 billion at a valuation of more than $15 billion, then pulled out at the last minute. We break down what an IPO actually is and why companies wait for a sunny market before they list. Plus, why Oura's subscription model could make it one to watch when it finally does go public.

Then, Meta's new AI agent Muse can book, buy, and email on your behalf. We reveal how the Curve community is using AI, from budgeting to building apps. But with new MIT...

We're back from our break, and we're kicking things off with not one but two personal updates. Soph opens with some very happy news, and Vic's comes right at the very end, so make sure you stick around.

Trigger warning: this episode discusses the Cornell University sexual assault case. We look at who holds the power and the purse strings at elite universities, why donors could be the key to real change, and why this is exactly why we do what we do. Women do the work, men have the power, and money is a big...

What is a share price, how is it actually set, and what makes it move up or down. This episode breaks the stock market down to its most basic level, buyers and sellers in a marketplace, and explains why getting emotionally attached to a stock (much like a bad relationship) is one of the easiest ways to make a bad decision. A great primer before you buy your first share.

Credits:

Hosts: Sophie Hallwright & Victoria Harris

Editor: Kate Callaghan

Social & Digital Manager: Lucy Munro

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Diversification is one of those words that sounds boring until it saves your portfolio. This episode breaks down what it actually means to spread your risk, why the stock market works like any other marketplace, and why falling in love with a single investment can be one of the most costly mistakes you make. Comes with a story about a company that no longer exists, and why that matters.

Credits:

Hosts: Sophie Hallwright & Victoria Harris

Editor: Kate Callaghan

Social & Digital Manager: Lucy Munro

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Risk is one of those words that sounds terrifying until you understand what it actually means. This episode walks through how to think about your own risk appetite, why investing and gambling are not the same thing, and why checking your investments constantly can do more harm than good. A solid one for anyone who feels anxious about the idea of investing before they've even started.

Credits:

Hosts: Sophie Hallwright & Victoria Harris

Editor: Kate Callaghan

Social & Digital Manager: Lucy Munro

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There are four main asset classes: cash, bonds, property and stocks, and this episode ranks them from safest to riskiest and explains why. Property in particular gets a reality check here, since it's the asset most people assume is "safe" without really questioning why. A useful one for understanding where your money is sitting and what that actually means for your risk.

Credits:

Hosts: Sophie Hallwright & Victoria Harris

Editor: Kate Callaghan

Social & Digital Manager: Lucy Munro

⁠⁠Leave us a message on The Curve Hotline 💌☎️⁠⁠ (https://thecurveplatfor...

Before anything else in investing makes sense, you need to understand return, volatility and why Einstein rated compound interest so highly. This episode breaks down what people actually mean when they talk about "the return" on an investment, and why different types of investments move up and down at different rates. If you've ever nodded along in a finance conversation without fully following, start here.

Credits:

Hosts: Sophie Hallwright & Victoria Harris

Editor: Kate Callaghan

Social & Digital Manager: Lucy Munro

⁠⁠Leave us a message on The Curv...

The Curve is pausing new episodes for the next couple of weeks. Soph's away and Vic is in the middle of moving back to New Zealand to run the fund, so rather than rush new episodes out, the feed is taking a breather. In its place, five of the very first episodes ever recorded are being re-released, the ones that cover the absolute fundamentals of investing. If you're new here or you want a refresher on the basics, this is the perfect entry point. Regular programming is back on 5 October.

Credits:

Hosts: Sophie...

Holly's back in the studio (this time in person) for another round of Curveballs, real listeners’ submitted property stories sent in after her last two episodes went viral. Soph & Holly unpack a family vacation home at the centre of five and a half years of conflict, a couple who split renovation labour and income unevenly with nothing in writing, and two very different relationships where one partner brings significantly more wealth, inheritance or equity into the picture. Sophie also gets refreshingly honest about her own situation navigating an uneven income dynamic with her partner. If you want to hear so...

Lululemon's founder is getting divorced after 20+ years of marriage, and there's no prenup on a fortune worth over $6 billion. We get into what that means for his wife (one of the company's first employees and founding designer), especially as Lululemon posts its second dire quarter in a row and its stock hits an eight-year low. Then, Kendall Jenner just bought a stake in TRIP, the British calming drinks brand, adding to her tequila empire, and we unpack why celebrities are increasingly choosing equity over a paycheck.

Thanks so much to Generate for making The Curve...

First up, government bond yields just hit levels not seen since the 2008 financial crisis, and the headlines are in full panic mode. Vic breaks down what a bond yield actually is, why investors are suddenly worried that governments around the world have overextended themselves, and why a "boring" corner of finance is about to hit your mortgage, your taxes, and your savings account. Then, Shein went public and lost $5 billion in value in its first week of trading, a brutal comedown from the $100 billion it was worth back in 2022. We unpack why the company's entire business model was built...

Madi Stefanis started her business at 19 with one old film camera and a Facebook Marketplace listing. It sold for 5x the asking price, and that was the beginning of a side hustle that scaled to $70K a month from her bedroom floor, before turning into 35mm Co., a camera brand now sold in nearly every country in the world with over 100,000 units sold.

This episode is a true side-hustle-to-global-business story: how Madi went from sourcing and reselling vintage cameras solo, to betting her entire house deposit on manufacturing her own product, to building an 8-figure company, all...

She's got 33 million followers and one of the most photographed families on the planet. It still took Victoria Beckham 18 years to turn a profit, and £66m in debt to get there. We break down what that says about the difference between revenue and profit, and why runway matters more than either. Plus, tech multimillionaire Bryan Johnson's girlfriend Kate Tolo is running her own 100-day biohacking experiment, tracking 14.8 million data points on her own menstrual cycle in the name of (underfunded) women's health research. And we remember Gloria Steinem.

Thanks so much to Generate for making T...

This week, Soph and Vic share the Curve Fund's very first monthly update and break down the biggest movers, including Estée Lauder's and AMD. They also get into Apple's new CEO John Ternus, only the seventh in the company's 50 year history, and what his $60 million pay package (mostly in stock) says about how the company rewards long-term thinking. Plus, natural disasters cost the world $450 billion last year, and insurance is quietly becoming unaffordable in the riskiest areas. Turns out, skipping cover might be the worst money decision you make.

Chat to our friends at R...

This week, Soph is joined by The Curve’s angel investor, Nicole Bremner. At its peak, Nicole’s portfolio included stakes in over 110 properties. In this episode, the pair get honest about what's shifted in the property market over the last 15 years, and why the old rules of buying property no longer apply. They unpack the diversification blind spot most homeowners don't realise they have, and why an emotional purchase isn't a bad one. Plus Nicole reveals what the UK's Rich List actually shows about how wealthy people build and structure their money. Whether you already own property, are weig...

Soph and Emma pay tribute to Dolly Parton's legacy and the financial genius behind her career, from refusing to give Elvis half her songwriting credit to owning her entire catalog decades before artists like Taylor Swift and Dua Lipa followed suit. They also break down Meta's $18 billion legal settlement, why prosecutors have finally found a way to hold the platform accountable, and what it signals for big tech going forward. Plus, they get into the rise of men paying matchmakers tens of thousands of dollars to find themselves a traditional wife.

Thanks so much to...

This week we're asking an uncomfortable question: can money literally buy you a longer life? We dig into the eyebrow-raising world of biohacking billionaires spending millions to reverse their biological age, the stark wealth gap in life expectancy (up to 15 years in some countries), and the rise of $50,000 genetic screening packages that let the ultra-wealthy select for IQ, height and health in their future children. Then we shift gears to sport as an investment - unpacking the $12.5B LA Lakers sale, why scarcity drives sports team valuations, and how to get exposure to the female sport boom without buying...

Before Pete West buys a single investment property, he runs through 7 questions - skip one, and it could cost you thousands.

Soph sits down with Pete (the property investor she's worked with on two of her own investments) to break down exactly what he looks for before he buys anything. This isn't about finding your dream home, it's a practical framework for assessing an investment property before you buy.

Pete shares the Google Maps trick he uses before even visiting a property, why "the best suburb you can afford" beats a bigger house in a...

"Emma Grede disease" is TikTok's new shorthand for our collective obsession with founder culture - the private jets, the polished business profile, the highlight reel version of building something from nothing. This week, Soph and Emma unpack where the term came from and whether it holds up, using Grede's Start With Yourself as the springboard for a wider conversation about what success in business actually requires: the trade-offs, the years of unseen graft, and why the aesthetic of success is so often mistaken for the substance of it. They cover the rise of the creator economy and Time's 100 Creators...

Samsonite just bought a chunk of Shay Mitchell's luggage brand Beis; a 116-year-old company getting cool by buying it rather than building it. We unpack why this "buy vs. build" move makes sense (and what it means for celebrity-backed brands generally). Then: Selena Gomez is being sued for fraud by Wondermind investors after 3 years of alleged radio silence, is this a case of where there's smoke, there's fire? And finally, Anthropic's revenue has gone from $9bn to $65bn in six months, putting it on track to be the largest tech IPO in history. We break down what that growth...

Over 50% of US couples go into debt paying for their wedding, and 1 in 3 regret how much they spent. So what's actually driving the cost up, and what do people wish they'd spent their money on instead? Sophie sits down with Margie Riddiford, co-founder of wedding platform Veil, to unpack the results of The Curve's own audience survey alongside global spending data from New Zealand, Australia, the UK, and the US. They get into the "wedding tax," and why spending money on preserving memories is the one investment that pays off every time. Also, don’t miss the unspoken reality of...

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is freezing her eggs and sharing every part of the process with her 6 million+ followers; the hormone injections, the bloating, the uncertainty, and it's got Soph and Emma asking what egg freezing actually costs. In this episode, we cover the real price of freezing your eggs (upfront costs plus the ongoing storage fees nobody mentions), why only 6% of women who freeze their eggs ever go on to use them, why 35-37 (not your 20s) is when most women can actually afford to do it, the booming $129 billion surrogacy industry sparked by the backlash to Cameron Diaz's...

Sophie and Vic get into why Alix Earle might be one of the smartest businesswomen on the internet right now, quietly building her own VC firm off the back of her TikTok reach. They put her playbook up against Alex Cooper's, whose media company Unwell just hit a $500 million valuation, and break down who's actually building the bigger empire. Plus, El Niño is compounding the global warming effects we’re already witnessing, and it's about to hit your coffee and chocolate. But first, Spotify could soon be revealing your favourite artist is secretly AI … 

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