Usama Ali is the founder of Financial Beings and a self-taught investor with a deep interest in how businesses create lasting value. His journey has been shaped by studying classic finance works such as Benjamin Graham’s The Intelligent Investor, Aswath Damodaran’s Valuation and The Little Book of Valuation, and Stephen Penman’s Financial Statement Analysis and Security Valuation — a text widely used at Columbia Business School’s Heilbrunn Center for Graham & Dodd Investing.
Beyond the numbers, Usama believes investing is as much about understanding people as it is about analyzing balance sheets. He draws inspiration from books on human behavior and psychology, including Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow, Morgan Housel’s The Psychology of Money, and Robert Cialdini’s Influence, which shape how he views risk, decision-making, and investor behavior.
Alongside books, Usama spends countless hours reviewing SEC filings, annual reports, and market data to connect theory with practice. This hands-on approach, paired with lessons from both finance and psychology, informs the independent research he shares on Financial Beings.
For Usama, investing isn’t just about stock prices — it’s about building clarity, freedom, and well-being. His guiding principle, Money · Mind · Happiness, reflects the belief that financial health and mental resilience go hand in hand.