Inside Vanguard: Leadership Secrets From the Company That Continues to Rewrite the Rules of the Investing Business

INTRODUCTION

The Vanguard Adventure

The Vanguard adventure began nearly 50 years ago with almost nothing: a few dozen people, mostly clerks, doing the routine work of administering 11 mutual funds that were losing assets as investors continued to reduce their investments. Vanguard had no role in either selling or investing, the two main parts of the mutual fund business; for these, it was entirely dependent on the organization that had, after an increasingly bitter fight, terminated the man who was the tiny entity’s leader.

Today, Vanguard is the world’s largest and most widely admired mutual fund organization—larger than its three main competitors combined—as it serves over 30 million investors and over $8 trillion in assets. At the same time, ...