Vanguard Investments founder John C. ‘Jack’ Bogle passed away yesterday at the age of 89. Given his importance to the investment industry, there has been no shortage of remembrances of Bogle. Please find a selection of them below.
Quote of the Day
"Half a trillion dollars that would have gone to Wall Street motherfuckers for no good reason has instead gone to Joe and Jane Average investors and retirees, thanks to John Bogle."
(Hamilton Nolan writing in 2016)
Obituaries
- Art Carey and Erin Arvedlund, "Motivated by a mix of pragmatism and idealism, Mr. Bogle was regarded by friends and foes alike as the conscience of the industry and the sheriff of Wall Street." (philly.com)
- Jason Zweig and Sarah Krouse, "American investors have lost the fiercest advocate they may have ever had." (wsj.com)
- Edward Wyatt, "Vanguard’s advantage came from the unusual corporate structure that Mr. Bogle adopted. Vanguard managed its indexed mutual funds at cost, charging investors fees that were far lower than those of virtually all of its rivals." (nytimes.com)
- Ben Steverman and Melissa Karsh, "John Bogle turned investing upside down." (bloomberg.com)
- Thomas Heath, "Vanguard’s simplicity, low cost and transparency on fees made Mr. Bogle a hero to many, who saw him as the champion of the small-time investor." (washingtonpost.com)
- Robin Wigglesworth, "Bogle was not shy about touting the achievements of Vanguard, even if it didn’t bring him many financial rewards." (ft.com)
Rememberances
- Josh Brown, "But the way in which he [Bogle] described good investing, the morality behind his message and the unmistakeable truth and clarity with which he explained things changed everything for me." (thereformedbroker.com)
- Jonthan Burton, "Defending the virtues of indexing against the powerful forces of costly active management was Bogle’s lifelong fight — his crusade, really — and he was always one to rally to the ramparts. " (marketwatch.com)
- Ben Carlson, "Bogle’s books are chock-full of great ideas but the way in which he communicates those ideas is a big reason they’ve spread so far and wide." (awealthofcommonsense.com)
- Jonathan Clements, "Without a doubt, John C. Bogle is the greatest man I’ve had the privilege of knowing. " (humbledollar.com)
- Dan Culloton and Alec Lucas, "As influential as Vanguard became, it was never influential enough for Bogle. He was a firebrand who made full use of the bully pulpit that came with the fame of his entrepreneurial success." (morningstar.com)
- JC de Swann, "The challenge in discussing Bogle lies in the scale of his impact. By so effectively pressuring the asset management industry to lower its fees, he created more social good than perhaps any contemporary in the finance industry. He makes comparisons with other potential role models daunting." (qz.com)
- Rick Ferri, "You cannot measure the quality of a man by the size of his bank account, but in John Bogle’s case, you can measure it by the size of your bank account." (forbes.com)
- Justin Fox, "Having the path of great riches closed off to him left open the ultimately more satisfying and disruptive course of putting the interest of Vanguard's investors first." (bloomberg.com)
- Mark Hulbert, "But in coming days as you trade into and out of the entire market with one transaction, at virtually no cost, stop for a moment and give Bogle thanks." (marketwatch.com)
- Russ Kinnel, "I can't think of anyone who has done more for investors than Bogle. A mutually owned fund company that would charge only at costs for investors was revolutionary. Index funds, pioneered by Bogle, were revolutionary." (morningstar.com)
- Dave Nadig, "His point—pretty much throughout the last decade—was simple: While we as an industry may have created many very sharp knives, we put them in the hands of toddlers." (etf.com)
- Rick Newman, "Bogle was a financial whiz who only started Vanguard because he lost a boardroom battle at another company he was running, Wellington Management, which fired him in 1974. He didn’t march out and incorporate Vanguard the next day. He moped and wondered what to do next." (finance.yahoo.com)
- Joe Nocera, "In the end, although he never put it like this, Bogle understood that investing is hard. Most of us lack not only the time to put into it, but also the fortitude to zig when others are zagging, or to buy when others are selling. That’s why we should have listened to Jack Bogle for all those years..." (bloomberg.com)
- Jeffrey Ptak, "There’d not be a Vanguard, after all, if there wasn’t a Jack Bogle simmering with ambition and a desire to crush the competition." (morningstar.com)
- Barry Ritholtz, "Bogle was a force of nature." (ritholtz.com)
- Julie Segal, "During our interviews, Bogle laughed often. He seemed to have a lot of fun being the curmudgeon. Even so, the Vanguard founder was a serious critic of the asset management industry, and perhaps its most formidable." (institutionalinvestor.com)
- Jeff Sommer, "He built something bigger than personal wealth: a reasonable way for great masses of people to get a more equitable share of the world’s financial pie." (nytimes.com)
- Jon Stein, "Betterment would not exist without the example he set. I don’t say this lightly, I mean it seriously: None of the impact we’ve had on the financial industry—and I hope we’re just getting started—would have happened without him." (betterment.com)
- Jason Zweig, "Mr. Bogle hadn’t always been his own industry’s harshest critic. Like St. Paul, the former persecutor of the first Christians, Mr. Bogle blazed with the zeal of the convert; he knew about high fees and performance-chasing firsthand. He had long defended many of the industry practices he eventually derided." (wsj.com)
