Today we publish over 30 titles in the arts and humanities, social sciences, and science and technology. MIT Press began publishing journals in 1970 with the first volumes of Linguistic Inquiry and the Journal of Interdisciplinary History. International Affairs, History, & Political Science.Thanks for everything.MIT Press Direct is a distinctive collection of influential MIT Press books curated for scholars and libraries worldwide. I didn’t get a chance to thank him to say how much it meant to have the chance to chat with him to say goodbye.Īnd so this will have to do: Goodbye, Mr. He’d slipped away, no doubt bound for his office. Basking in that and discussing some of the production details with members of the video crew afterward, I lost track of him. Afterward, as we discussed the segment, he couldn’t have been more gracious, saying he thought it went well, which was exactly the encouragement I needed at that moment (as we were on a tight deadline).
He brought that same intensity and engagement to our interview, which went great Jack was funny, insightful, and opinionated-the perfect subject. 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. (His legacy-as an agent for enormous good-has long been secure, not that he rested on that amid ceaseless research, writing, and other appearances in recent years.) I didn’t have to know Jack well, which I didn’t, to appreciate these complexities and recognize that they were intrinsic to who he was and what he’d accomplished, not irreconcilable from it. He had a healthy self-regard and actively sought to cement the way his place in the industry and legacy came to be viewed. He could be proud, pugnacious, and, at times, a scold. That exacting standard, and the public-service ethos that seemed to energize it, animated much of what Jack stood for. It was a reminder that for all of his stature, Jack took nothing for granted and demanded excellence, of himself most of all. But it came as no surprise, really, for the night before, as I prepared to board my flight to Philadelphia, he’d phoned me at the airport, asking for the particulars I wanted to cover and jokingly seeking reassurance that I wouldn’t be quizzing him on the intricacies of the Indian mutual fund market.
What a tableau it was: Here was one of the giants of our industry, who’d built a financial colossus in Vanguard and improved the lives of millions of investors. Jack squared away a few details with his research assistant before our interview commenced, jotting down notes about price/earnings multiples, rates of earnings growth, dividend yields, and the like. He pressed on.Īnd on we pressed that morning. When the index fund was just a kernel of an idea when The Vanguard Group was an obscurity when putting the investor first was a twee, fanciful notion when his heart gave out when “retirement” threatened to consign him to irrelevance when the frailties of age crept upon him. But what really defined Jack Bogle to me-perhaps because it was his most relatable quality-was his sheer determination. To be sure, he was way more than insistent: an incandescently brilliant intellect a savvy businessman a charismatic leader a gifted author, analyst, and speaker he was all of these things.
For Jack Bogle was nothing if not insistent. Bogle,” with all due reverence, he’d responded the same way: “Call me, Jack!” And so it was this day. For as many times as I’d met Jack, and as many times as I called him “Mr. And call me JACK!” he said in mock indignation, smiling. Bogle,” I said, “Thank you so much for doing this for us.” The response came in a voice that was a bit more gravelly than usual, but in the familiar baritone: “Jeff, I’m happy to. I greeted him that day as I always had, the way you greet your hero: “Good morning, Mr. At 89 years of age, he’d lost none of his vigor. As it happened, he’d spent that entire morning in Vanguard’s production studio, filming one video after another, the two segments prior to mine being acceptance speeches for awards he’d been bestowed. I was at Vanguard headquarters in Malvern, Pennsylvania, to interview him for an upcoming investment conference we were holding in Mumbai, India. I last saw Jack Bogle in person three months ago.
0 kommentar(er)
