Praise for

INSIDE VANGUARD

There is no one better able to tell the story of the remarkable investment institution Vanguard than Charley Ellis. A brilliant writer, Ellis is the author of 17 books, including Winning the Loser’s Game, the book that provides one of the most astute arguments supportive of indexing as an optimal investment strategy. He was also the founder of Greenwich Associates, providing strategic planning and analytic insights to financial services companies. He has written the definitive histories of the great investment firms Goldman Sachs and The Capital Group. In his book The 7 Secrets of the World’s Greatest Professional Firms, he lays out exactly what it takes to succeed.

Perhaps most important, Ellis is the ultimate insider, not only of the investment industry but of Vanguard itself, where he served as a long-term director. He witnessed firsthand how the organization developed and grew and the decisions along the way that allowed Vanguard to gather over $8 trillion of the investment funds of individual and institutional investors. In these pages you will learn of the unwavering determination of Vanguard’s founder, Jack Bogle, as well as the consummate business executives who followed and ensured that rapid growth could be accommodated effectively while preserving the unique culture of this iconic organization. This compelling inside story proves that it is really possible to build a dominant company by putting the client’s interest first.

—Burton G. Malkiel

author of A Random Walk Down Wall Street

Inside Vanguard is a fun, engaging, and informative book! It provides a fascinating account of the leaders, vision, principles, personalities, conflicts, and market dynamics that led to Vanguard as a critical part of the investment landscape, how it arose, and where it is going. Inside Vanguard is a story told with a blend of both interesting anecdotes and focus upon key principles in a manner that only Charley can do!

—Narv Narvekar

CEO, Harvard Management Company

A master historian of investment management, Ellis recounts the story of Vanguard with characteristic fluency and insight. Ellis reveals the important first principles that gave rise to Vanguard and continue to fuel its success, while drawing engaging portraits of the firm’s creative leaders through the decades. Readers curious about one of the most important and iconoclastic investment firms of the modern era will greatly enjoy Inside Vanguard.

—Robert Wallace

Chief Investment Officer, Stanford University

A riveting account of a firm and a mercurial founder that pioneered radical changes in the asset management industry. Fast-paced and incisively written, it provides unusual insights into how the success of a firm’s culture is contextual to its time and corporate challenges. In Vanguard’s case, the transition between two nearly opposite management cultures led to unprecedented achievements as it tackled exponential growth, technological change, and fierce competition

—Gumersindo Oliveros

CEO and CIO, KAUST Investment Management Company

Charley Ellis has written a fascinating book with numerous personal insights about the history of Vanguard that doubles as a treatise on how great organizations are built. I really enjoyed reading it!

—Seth Alexander

President, MIT Investment Management Company

Charley Ellis has done it again, presenting an engaging and insightful history of an institution which created the groundwork for many things that today’s investors take for granted: passive investment vehicles, ETFs, low-cost alternatives, and a focus on the investor rather than the investment firm through low fees, good governance, and transparency. As in his excellent histories of Goldman Sachs and the Capital Group, Charley enlivens the story of Jack Bogle and the creation of Vanguard with the back stories of the people around Bogle who collaborated with him and challenged him in building one of the leading financial platforms serving both retail and institutional investors alike.

—Paula Volent, CFA

Vice President and Chief Investment Officer, The Rockefeller University