Jack (as he prefers to be called) Bogle is the founder of Vanguard—the only mutual fund company owned by its investors, not by its founder or outside stockholders. This was a tremendous gift to Vanguard investors, since it means that, unlike other fund companies, Vanguard does not use part of investor returns to pay company stockholders. The result is that, after company expenses, all the Vanguard fund returns go to the Vanguard fund investors. The results are remarkable.

The Vanguard advantage is becoming more widely recognized. Vanguard is now the largest mutual fund company in the world, with over $4 trillion in assets. Jack Bogle could easily have become a multi-billionaire by taking a share of his company profits; instead, he chose to give the money back to the investors who own the Vanguard funds.

My wife and I first met Mr. Bogle in February 1999 at The Money Show in Orlando, Florida, where Jack was the keynote speaker. Jack describes our first meeting in the Foreword of our first book, The Bogleheads’ Guide to Investing:

It was not until February 3, 1999, that I met my first Boglehead. The occasion was ‘The Money Show’ in Orlando, Florida, where I gave a contentious speech about investment principles (“The Clash of the Cultures in Investing: Complexity vs. Simplicity”) that at once seemed to confound the hosts who invited me to address the show, to infuriate the sponsor firms (all offering their own routes to easy riches), and to amaze and delight the audience of several thousand individual investors.

Shortly before my talk, Taylor Larimore (there with his wife, Pat) introduced himself to me. Taylor, then and now considered the unofficial leader of the Bogleheads, proved to be as fine a human being as I’ve ever met—warm, thoughtful, intelligent, investment-savvy, and eager to help others. A combat veteran of World War II and an exceptional sailor are only a few aspects of Taylor’s background. I mention them because the first demands courage and discipline; the second, careful planning and staying the course one has set, all the while adjusting to the winds and tides. These traits, as it happens, are the principal traits of the successful investor.

My next opportunity to meet Mr. Bogle was when he came to Miami in March 2000. He was again the keynote speaker, this time at the Miami Herald “Making Money” seminar.

Mel Lindauer and I had become good friends on the Morningstar Vanguard Diehards online forum. We extended an open invitation on the forum to anyone who would like to join us for dinner at the first Boglehead Reunion to be held in my Miami condominium. Inasmuch as Mr. Bogle would be in town for the Miami Herald’s seminar, we took a chance that he just might attend our Boglehead event. We invited him to join us and, as fate would have it, he accepted!

It was a beautiful evening for the 21 Bogleheads who attended. My late wife, Pat, prepared a delicious Florida lobster dinner, and Mr. Bogle told us of the difficulties he experienced when attempting to start a new kind of mutual fund company that would be owned by its investors. Jack answered all our questions in his usual honest and forthright way. During the ensuing years, I have had the privilege of becoming close friends with Jack and his lovely wife, Eve. Jack was very kind and referred to me as one of his “heroes” in his 2011 book, Don’t Count On It. Of course, Jack is the real hero for having the courage to fight the industry in voice, print, and action, “to give ordinary investors a fair shake.”

Today, Mr. Bogle lives with his wife in an unpretentious home near the Vanguard campus. He drives an aging Volvo and still wears the $14 watch given to him by a friend while he was in the hospital waiting for his 1996 heart transplant.

Jack retired as Chairman of Vanguard in 1999. Now, his weekdays are usually spent in the John C. Bogle Research Center where he continues working on behalf of investors. As you might suspect with such a generous human being, he donates much of his income to charity.

Jack Bogle’s contributions to the world have not gone unnoticed. He has received hundreds of awards, including being named to Time magazine’s list of “The World’s 100 Most Powerful and Influential People” and Fortune magazine’s “One of the Investment Industry’s Four Giants of the 20th Century.”