About the Author

John C. Bogle, 80, is founder of The Vanguard Group, Inc., and president of the Bogle Financial Markets Research Center. He created Vanguard in 1974 and served as chairman and chief executive officer until 1996 and senior chairman until 2000. He had been associated with a predecessor company since 1951, immediately following his graduation from Princeton University, magna cum laude in economics. He is a graduate of Blair Academy, class of 1947.

The Vanguard Group is one of the two largest mutual fund organizations in the world. Headquartered in Malvern, Pennsylvania, Vanguard comprises more than 120 mutual funds with current assets totaling more than $1 trillion. Vanguard 500 Index Fund, the largest fund in the group, was founded by Mr. Bogle in 1975. It was the first index mutual fund. The story of his life and career is told in John Bogle and the Vanguard Experiment: One Man's Quest to Transform the Mutual Fund Industry, by Robert Slater (1996).

In 2004, Time magazine named Mr. Bogle as one of the world's 100 most powerful and influential people, and Institutional Investor presented him with its Lifetime Achievement Award. In 1999, Fortune designated him as one of the investment industry's four "Giants of the 20th Century." In the same year, he received the Woodrow Wilson Award from Princeton University for "distinguished achievement in the Nation' s service." In 1997, he was named one of the "Financial Leaders of the 20th Century" in Leadership in Financial Services ...

Get Common Sense on Mutual Funds: Fully Updated 10th Anniversary Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.