INVESTING FOR ROOKIES Episode 1 of 12 • Building wealth one Monday at a time What Is Investing & Why It Matters in 2026 Picture this:  traders in the 1600s gathering in busy coffee houses, shouting prices and exchanging handwritten certificates. That chaotic scene was the birth of modern investing. Fast forward to today, and you can invest from your phone while sitting on your couch. The technology has changed dramatically, but the core concept remains the same. Welcome to Investing for Rookies . This is a 12-week series where we're going to figure out investing together. I'm not here to sell you anything or make it sound more complicated than it is. I just want to help you understand how money can work for you instead of the other way around. Let's start with the basics: What is investing? Where did it come from? And honestly, why should you even care? Let's Go Back to the Beginning Investing has been around for centuries, but it didn't start...

This year, for the first time ever, you're going to be able to invest in some of the biggest companies of our generation. And I'm not exaggerating. Anthropic, OpenAI, Canva, and SpaceX are all gearing up for what could be the most historic IPO wave in tech history. We're talking about companies that have fundamentally changed how we work, create, and think about artificial intelligence. But before you start planning your investment strategy, let me break down what's actually happening, because there's a lot of hype and misinformation floating around on social media. I did the deep research so you don't have to. First Things First: What Is an IPO? IPO stands for Initial Public Offering . It's the process by which a private company lists its shares on the public stock exchange for the first time. This transition transforms the company from privately held (only accessible to venture capitalists, employees, and select investors) into publicly traded, ...