The Importance of Money Conversations, with Jennifer Risher

Back in the 1990s, Jennifer Risher went to work at Microsoft and met her husband, and when they were expecting their first child, her husband decided to go to work for an entrepreneur who had an audacious dream to sell books online. As part of this transition, they walked away from valuable Microsoft stock options in exchange for stock options in this high-risk business.

Jennifer covers this adventure and many others during our conversation. And, if you have not figured it out yet, the business her husband joined was a little-known company at the time called Amazon.

Jennifer is the author of “We Need to Talk: A Memoir About Wealth,” which tells her story and explores the impact of wealth on identity, relationships and sense of place in the world. She was born in Seattle, Washington, grew up in Oregon and graduated from Connecticut College. She joined Microsoft in 1991, where she worked as a recruiter and then as a product manager. She and her husband David have two daughters and live in San Francisco, where David is CEO of Worldreader, a nonprofit he cofounded offering digital reading programs to keep kids learning. When COVID hit, Jennifer and David launched the #HalfMyDAF challenge to inspire more charitable giving.

During the course of the Money Tales interviews, our guests talk about areas of personal finance that we believe listeners might want to learn more about. In this episode of Money Tales, the financial insight is about stock options. Stick around to the end for this financial insight.