Speaker 1: This is Mesters in Business with very Results on Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Radio this weekend. On the podcast, I have an extra
Speaker 1: special guest, Tom ram Poula has been with the Vanguard
Speaker 1: Group since He has worked with every CEO, starting with
Speaker 1: Jack Bogel all the way up to the curren CEO,
Speaker 1: Tim Buckley, and has essentially helped to establish the Financial
Speaker 1: Advisors Group, essentially the group at Vanguard that works with
Speaker 1: r A s and broker dealers and other UH financial
Speaker 1: professionals who provide portfolios, advice, financial plans UH to the
Speaker 1: investing public. He has a unique perch from with which
Speaker 1: to view the financial services industry, both from within Vanguard
Speaker 1: as well as looking out over the financial landscape and
Speaker 1: seeing what's going on with such trends as mutual funds,
Speaker 1: E t f s, direct indexing, the rise of passive,
Speaker 1: the rise not just a Vanguard, but the dominance of
Speaker 1: Vanguard and the associated Vanguard effect, the pressure on fees
Speaker 1: that have helped make investing so affordable. We we discuss
Speaker 1: all these things, as well as why there has never
Speaker 1: been a better tell him to be a retail investor
Speaker 1: than right now, right here in this era. I found
Speaker 1: the conversation to be absolutely fascinating and I think you
Speaker 1: will also, So, with no further ado, my conversation with
Speaker 1: the Vanguard groups Tom Rampulla. I'm Barry rit Halts. You're
Speaker 1: listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio. My special
Speaker 1: guest this week is Tom Rampulla. He is the managing
Speaker 1: director of Vanguard's Financial Advisor Services Division, where he began
Speaker 1: back in two thousand and two. That group provides investments, services, education,
Speaker 1: and research to more than a thousand financial ad lisory
Speaker 1: firms representing more than three trillion dollars in assets. Tom
Speaker 1: joined Vanguard back in Tom Rampula, Welcome to Bloomberg. Thanks, Barry,
Speaker 1: it's great to be here. Yeah, it's good to have you. So.
Speaker 1: So I've worked my way through, uh, just about the
Speaker 1: whole c suite at Vanguard, and I'm glad we finally
Speaker 1: got to you. Um, tell us a little about about
Speaker 1: your plans coming out of college. How did you ends
Speaker 1: up at Vanguard? Yeah, I believe it or not, Barry,
Speaker 1: I wanted to go to Wall Street coming out of
Speaker 1: school and came up to New York and, uh, wall
Speaker 1: Street didn't work out for a variety of reasons, but
Speaker 1: I ended up working sort of an adjacent industry and
Speaker 1: the portfolio management software business, and it really wasn't where
Speaker 1: my passion was. So decided to make the move from
Speaker 1: New York to Philadelphia. And I had a friend that
Speaker 1: worked at Vanguard. I honestly knew nothing about Vanguard. In fact,
Speaker 1: that was at of Philadelphia career Fair when I first graduated,
Speaker 1: and there was a Vanguard table there and somebody said,
Speaker 1: you want to go interview a Vanguard. I looked and
Speaker 1: I was like, no, I don't think so. And they said,
Speaker 1: what do they do. I think that's a supermarket or
Speaker 1: something that. So that's how clueless was. But um, it
Speaker 1: was really lucky. I had this friend started Vanguard in
Speaker 1: March of quickly realized it was a pretty special place. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, it's a It's a place where it's really
Speaker 1: incredibly mission driven, It's got such a sense of purpose,
Speaker 1: were owned by our clients, all these things that actually
Speaker 1: took me a while to realize working there. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it was a little bit of a by chance. Wasn't
Speaker 1: really looking for Vanguard, but somehow I found it and
Speaker 1: got really really lucky. So so going back to Philadelphia
Speaker 1: is not a big change to you you went. I
Speaker 1: went to Bloomsburg University, which is a midside school in
Speaker 1: central Pennsylvania, and then Drexel, which is right in the
Speaker 1: middle of Philly. Went to Drexel part time while I
Speaker 1: was at Vanguard. Um did that commute down to Philadelphia
Speaker 1: from the suburbs, you know, three times a week for
Speaker 1: a number of years, which isn't too bad if you
Speaker 1: go in the opposite the direction of traffic. Right, I
Speaker 1: don't know about that. Not a lot of great mass
Speaker 1: transit from Malverne to Film, from Malvern to Philly. Actually
Speaker 1: you could, you can. You can take the train, but
Speaker 1: at that time it was a long time ago. I
Speaker 1: think I graduated ninety three. Um, it was more convenient
Speaker 1: to drive. So so you mentioned of Vanguard was a
Speaker 1: special place when you joined it. It's clearly a different
Speaker 1: place today than it was in the eighties and nineties. Uh,
Speaker 1: tell us a little bit about what it was like
Speaker 1: working there, you know, pretty much before Vanguard became the
Speaker 1: beheamoth we know it as today. Yeah, it was a startup.
Speaker 1: It felt like a startup. I mean, it wasn't. It
Speaker 1: wasn't quite a startup. Probably we probably had seven employees
Speaker 1: at the time, but only about thirty billion in assets
Speaker 1: under management, and we were trying to figure things out
Speaker 1: and grow. Nobody really cared about indexing, and if they
Speaker 1: did care about it, usually pretty negative thoughts about indexing.
Speaker 1: You know, we were called un American and you are communist. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right, we were Communists. Why settled for average? All
Speaker 1: those things? But you know, Jack Bogel was at the
Speaker 1: home when I started. I was fortunate enough to work
Speaker 1: with him for about eight years, and you know, he
Speaker 1: was so passionate about our mission. Um. You know, he
Speaker 1: would we have partnership picnic every summer and he would
Speaker 1: get up and speak and it would fire you up
Speaker 1: for the rest of the year. The guy was incredibly
Speaker 1: inspirational and you really felt like you were you were
Speaker 1: taken on the ablishment and doing something special. So it
Speaker 1: was really really fun start up, very collaborative, felt like
Speaker 1: a family. Um. And you know, it took a while
Speaker 1: to start growing, to be honest with you, I mean,
Speaker 1: we really didn't start growing probably in mid nineties, you know,
Speaker 1: started to get a little bit of attention. Then Now
Speaker 1: in the nineties everybody was growing, stocks were going high,
Speaker 1: or you're the middle of an eighteen year or so
Speaker 1: giant thousand percent bowl market. What was Vanguard doing in
Speaker 1: the mid nineties that finally began to gain traction? Was it?
Speaker 1: Was it the underlying philosophy started to find some some
Speaker 1: adherents or was it just the rising tide lifted all?
Speaker 1: But I think I think a couple of things, Barry.
Speaker 1: First of all, we had some real zealots, you know,
Speaker 1: the Bogel heads of today, which you probably familiar with. Um,
Speaker 1: they stumbled onto Vanguard. We didn't do advertising, we didn't sell.
Speaker 1: We were actually Jack Bogle wouldn't let us say the
Speaker 1: word sell or product or advertising. UM. He actually had
Speaker 1: to put a dollar in a jar near his office
Speaker 1: if you did UM. But you know, we had something special,
Speaker 1: and I think people realize that people may not even
Speaker 1: really understood that they owned the company, you know, by
Speaker 1: investing in the funds on the company. But you've got
Speaker 1: this core base of of people that really identified with Vanguard,
Speaker 1: felt like they're part of the club, and great word
Speaker 1: of mouth, so that was helpful. We had some great
Speaker 1: performance from some of our active funds early days, winds
Speaker 1: Or Fund, John Neff's superstar fund manager that helped UM.
Speaker 1: You know, really talking about indexing, Jack taking that on,
Speaker 1: taking the industry on. People started to get disappointed in performance.
Speaker 1: You had star managers in the early nineties. That sort
Speaker 1: of the shine came off the star a little bit,
Speaker 1: so indexing had a little bit more of appeal cost,
Speaker 1: you know, when you really camera home to what you
Speaker 1: can control as an investor. Cost. It finally started to
Speaker 1: catch on with people like, hey, I can get low
Speaker 1: cost through indexing and get the market return, which, by
Speaker 1: the way, over time is pretty darn good returns. And
Speaker 1: and around the same time you started to see the
Speaker 1: rise of some UH academics saying, a the market sufficient
Speaker 1: very few if anybody can beat it, and those who can,
Speaker 1: you don't know. It's persistent, if it was luck, if
Speaker 1: it was whatever. And there was a lot of UM
Speaker 1: academic defense of the idea of the advantages passive that's right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean Bert mackiel, Sure, that's right. Random walked down
Speaker 1: while she was a Vanguard board member for many years.
Speaker 1: Charlie Ellis another one, um you know, the Losers game
Speaker 1: his book there. So there was a lot of academic
Speaker 1: research around and it started to become practical. People started
Speaker 1: to release see it and feel it and that that
Speaker 1: started to give us a little bit of wind in
Speaker 1: our sales. So back in the forget late eighties, even
Speaker 1: in the early nineties, when you start to attract more capital,
Speaker 1: did you ever imagine, hey, in twenty years, twenty five
Speaker 1: years will be you know, six seven, eight trillion dollars. Uh? No,
Speaker 1: not at all. It was it was a tough go
Speaker 1: early early on UM and Jack was adamant about, Hey,
Speaker 1: cash flow and market share is an outcome. We have
Speaker 1: to just do what's focused on, doing what's right for investors.
Speaker 1: Don't worry about growth, you know. He really hammered that
Speaker 1: home to us. So we didn't really think big like that.
Speaker 1: We're just trying to do the right thing. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I'd say absolutely not. Had no idea how big we'd be.
Speaker 1: When did it become clear that this was going to
Speaker 1: be a multi trillion dollar I'm not I'm not sure
Speaker 1: if there was ever a moment where I said, wow,
Speaker 1: this is you know, we're big. Um. I do think
Speaker 1: after the Global financial crisis we really start to get momentum.
Speaker 1: Our funds held up well. We served during the everybody
Speaker 1: saw outflows except Vanguard. That's right. We picked up share
Speaker 1: there um, and I do think that that trusted brand.
Speaker 1: People started to understand that they own the company, and
Speaker 1: you know that the benefits of that structure are enormous
Speaker 1: and many. Um. And so coming out of the financial
Speaker 1: into the financial crisis, now the financial crisis, we really
Speaker 1: start to take off. I was in London at the
Speaker 1: time and you could see, Wow, things are really starting
Speaker 1: to happen here. You mentioned London. You served as head
Speaker 1: of Vanguard's UK and European operations. Tell us a little
Speaker 1: bit about that experience. It was a fabulous experience that
Speaker 1: was coming off helping start our financial advisor business, the
Speaker 1: business i lead today. I did that for about six
Speaker 1: or seven years, and then Bill McNab, the CEO at
Speaker 1: the time, asked me if i'd go and start a
Speaker 1: similar business in in the UK and run the European operation.
Speaker 1: So packed up my wife and my four kids and
Speaker 1: went to London and it was an unbelievable experience. It
Speaker 1: felt like the the old days at Vanguard. You know,
Speaker 1: you were coming in starting up. I was employee number
Speaker 1: one in London. Um, we're taken on high cost funds,
Speaker 1: active managers sort of the industry trying to bring transparency
Speaker 1: and low cost of the industry, and it was just
Speaker 1: really fun to build that business and we had a
Speaker 1: great team there. What was that always supposed to be
Speaker 1: a finite amount of time or did something specific bring
Speaker 1: you back to the U S now it was I
Speaker 1: was told three d years to five years and ended
Speaker 1: up being there seven years and probably would have stayed
Speaker 1: even longer, but I got the opportunity. Bill McNab again,
Speaker 1: who I know, you know, was CEO and asked me
Speaker 1: if i'd come back and joined senior f and lead
Speaker 1: the f A S business, which was a lot bigger
Speaker 1: than when I left in two thousand eight, and I
Speaker 1: was thrilled to be able to do that. That's fantastic.
Speaker 1: So let's talk a little bit about the Advisor Services division.
Speaker 1: What exactly does it do and what sort of clients,
Speaker 1: uh and customers are you working with? Yeah, well, first
Speaker 1: of all, we work with financial advisors of all types
Speaker 1: in the industry, UM, non vanguard financial advisors, so you've
Speaker 1: got broken dealers, independent regter investment advisors are a S
Speaker 1: and bank wealth advisors and uh, you know, we have
Speaker 1: a team that serves those advisors and the home offices
Speaker 1: of those advisors talking about vanguards product and educating about product.
Speaker 1: We also do a lot of education around advice and
Speaker 1: behavioral finance and coaching and all these things to help
Speaker 1: advisors drive great outcomes for their clients. Well, we'll talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about advisors alpha in a bid. But
Speaker 1: you mentioned broker dealers. I did not realize they were
Speaker 1: part of this group because I recall back in the
Speaker 1: day they used to arg for shelf space like supermarkets
Speaker 1: do for serials. How does Vanguard operate and not advertise,
Speaker 1: not pay shelf space. Yeah, we still don't do that.
Speaker 1: We like the transparency of an explicit fee. But I
Speaker 1: think the move to fee based advice in the broker
Speaker 1: dealer community really helped drive that. So advisor charges for
Speaker 1: the advice that they provide the clients, and that pays
Speaker 1: pays the bills and so um, we don't we don't
Speaker 1: do the payment for distribution. Now it's pretty limited to
Speaker 1: et f s with our broken dealer relationships, not exclusively,
Speaker 1: so that the model around ETFs is a little different.
Speaker 1: There isn't that same payment for service with the metro funds.
Speaker 1: That's right, Barry. Really interesting and and let's talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about the research and education that you provide.
Speaker 1: Is this aimed at the advisor community, is it aimed
Speaker 1: at the investor of public within your group? Who's your focus?
Speaker 1: It's both, Um, you know, we do the typical stuff
Speaker 1: market economic outlooks and research their product research, but importantly
Speaker 1: being advisors work with their clients, coaching them through tough
Speaker 1: times like this. Um, So we we do have uh
Speaker 1: materials and research target at the advisor, but we also
Speaker 1: helped them out and target their end client. You know,
Speaker 1: Vanguards deals with tens of millions of individual investors and
Speaker 1: we know how to speak to them very clearly and
Speaker 1: very candidly and very openly. So we leverage that expertise
Speaker 1: and we help advisors speak to their clients about you
Speaker 1: name it, market savings, all all the things that they
Speaker 1: talked about. So so I think it was fran Kinnary
Speaker 1: a Vanguard came up with the concept of advisors Alpha.
Speaker 1: Tell us a little bit about that, Yeah, advisor's alpha. Um,
Speaker 1: we all know and believe very strongly today that advisors
Speaker 1: help clients and in fact, the Vanguard, which is a
Speaker 1: big shift from many years ago. We think most investors
Speaker 1: would be well served with using a financial advisor, and
Speaker 1: they bring a lot of value. Right, So there's the hey,
Speaker 1: I'll i'll work with you and we'll develop goals and
Speaker 1: a plan how to get there. They'll they'll construct a portfolio,
Speaker 1: they'll do tax planning, right so the harvest losses to
Speaker 1: offset future gains. They'll do a state planning, other complex
Speaker 1: financial planning. And so what Fran and his team did
Speaker 1: they did research and said how how much alpha does
Speaker 1: an advisor add through the services they provide? And you
Speaker 1: know it's hard, it's hard to pin that down exactly, Barry,
Speaker 1: but we've come up with about three basis three basis
Speaker 1: points or three percentage points of alpha working with an advisor.
Speaker 1: And if you think about that, you know, you pay
Speaker 1: an advisor fifty basis points a hundred basement whatever they're
Speaker 1: providing on average annually. So really good value there. And
Speaker 1: a lot of that comes from, believe it or not,
Speaker 1: the behavioral coaching. To say the very least, that there
Speaker 1: was a study done not too long ago that showed
Speaker 1: when people panic out of the market, something like of
Speaker 1: them never returned back to equities. That that leaves a
Speaker 1: mark when it comes time to mark. Uh, you add
Speaker 1: in tax lost harvesting, and just helping with having a
Speaker 1: financial plan. I'm I'm a believer. Hey, that's that's my
Speaker 1: day job. But I'm always curious to hear how you
Speaker 1: guys came up with that phrase, which is so funny
Speaker 1: because when I think of Vanguard, I think of beta.
Speaker 1: I don't think of alpha. Developing a way to obtain
Speaker 1: alpha seems sort of contrary. That's right, you can obtain
Speaker 1: alpha even even if you use all beta as underlying investments.
Speaker 1: The real value is the behavioral coaching and the tax management. Again,
Speaker 1: the more complex value add around financial planning. So you
Speaker 1: mentioned um transparency and low fees. Price obviously has a
Speaker 1: big impact on long term returns. How can Vanguard keep
Speaker 1: lowering its fees? At what point do you just run
Speaker 1: out of runway? Yeah, our fee cuts are not a
Speaker 1: pricing marketing strategy, Barry, It's it's a function of the
Speaker 1: corporate structure of Vanguard. So we're really a mutual mutual
Speaker 1: fund company. What I mean by that is, if you're
Speaker 1: an investor in one of our funds, you own a
Speaker 1: little pro rata piece of Vanguard. And if you think
Speaker 1: about that from a leadership perspective, of management perspective, You
Speaker 1: focus on one constituent, you the investor, and that's it.
Speaker 1: Don't have to worry about my shareholders on Wall Street.
Speaker 1: I don't have to worry about some family or family
Speaker 1: office that owns me. It's all about you. So as
Speaker 1: we grow become more efficient, we get scale. We sort
Speaker 1: of make a profit, and we take that profit and
Speaker 1: we do two things with it. One, we invest in
Speaker 1: the business to better serve you, right so better digital
Speaker 1: experience if your retail investor, more services for advisors. We
Speaker 1: also take that profit and drive down expense ratios. And
Speaker 1: really that's what we're all about, delivering value back to
Speaker 1: those investors in our funds who own the company. And
Speaker 1: as we grow and grow, that scale helps us drive
Speaker 1: down the expense ratios. So so when I think of
Speaker 1: owning a financial I think of three things. Uh. First,
Speaker 1: I control I get to vote my shares in a proxy. Second,
Speaker 1: if there's a dividend distribution, I capture some of that
Speaker 1: in Third, if it's ever sold, I participate in the
Speaker 1: equity when it's a mutual. Those things will kind of
Speaker 1: roll into one. They do. Yeah, we I mean, we
Speaker 1: could pay you a dividend, but it's actually more tax
Speaker 1: efficient if we lower your fees. Huh. So that that's
Speaker 1: really that's really quite fascinating. Um, we talked about research
Speaker 1: and education. Let's let's talk a little bit about portfolio analytics,
Speaker 1: financial planning tools. I didn't know you guys have a
Speaker 1: healthcare calculator. Tell us about some of the software and
Speaker 1: other analytical tools you guys have made available. Yeah, so, UM.
Speaker 1: I think one of the unique things about Vanguard is
Speaker 1: we serve a lot of different markets, right, So, we
Speaker 1: serve financial advisors, we serve retail investors, and we actually
Speaker 1: have an advice business of our own, and through that
Speaker 1: advice business, we've developed a lot of capabilities, whether it's
Speaker 1: the Thought Leadership Advisors ALPHA that we talked about before,
Speaker 1: or some technology capabilities for our advisors to use. And
Speaker 1: what we've done is taken some of those capabilities and
Speaker 1: deliver them to the f a S clients, the Financial
Speaker 1: Advisor Services client to help them drive better outcomes for
Speaker 1: their their clients. So healthcare cost Estimator is a really
Speaker 1: great example. We partnered with a firm in this space
Speaker 1: and developed a module to help with healthcare cost and
Speaker 1: determining healthcare costs in retirement, and we offer that module
Speaker 1: and a lot of materials around it and client and
Speaker 1: client materials to advisers to help them talk about healthcare
Speaker 1: with their clients. It's it's typically the largest expense people have.
Speaker 1: They have trouble getting their head around it, and it's
Speaker 1: a really valuable tool. It's just an example of you know,
Speaker 1: one of the things we do quite quite interesting. So
Speaker 1: one of the other giants in the space is black Rock.
Speaker 1: They have a risk management technology. How do you guys
Speaker 1: think about risk management? What does that mean to advisors
Speaker 1: who are trying to serve their clients in a somewhat
Speaker 1: volatile environment. Yeah, we have a really good risk management
Speaker 1: tool as well. Uh, it's it's through our Portfolio and
Speaker 1: Analytics and consulting service and uh, you know, you run
Speaker 1: a portfolio through it and will give you all your
Speaker 1: risk exposures. We can consult with you on Hey, you
Speaker 1: might be overexposed here under exposed. Did you know that?
Speaker 1: Oh you didn't? You want to do something about it?
Speaker 1: We can help you with that. So we provide a
Speaker 1: similar service to our clients. They deem it really really valuable. Um,
Speaker 1: it's interesting. I get every day, I get net promoter
Speaker 1: scores from clients and and this service in particular, I
Speaker 1: can't remember a time when it hasn't been like a
Speaker 1: nine out of ten or a ten out of ten.
Speaker 1: They see it as incredibly valuable. And one thing they
Speaker 1: cite verbatim all the time is objectivity. You know, hey,
Speaker 1: it really feels like Vanguard's trying to help me out,
Speaker 1: not trying to necessarily sell me a product. And so
Speaker 1: we distributed through that through thousands of advised We have
Speaker 1: thousands of those engagements a year. Quite quite interesting. So
Speaker 1: there's a quote I really love UM, and I want
Speaker 1: to get your feedback on it. There has never been
Speaker 1: a better time to be a retail investor than right now.
Speaker 1: True false true? Why is that? Why is now so
Speaker 1: great to be I'm an optimistic guy, Barry, but but seriously,
Speaker 1: I think, UM, if you think about the markets and
Speaker 1: market structure, you know, you think about this, you can
Speaker 1: get exposure to the entire stock market and ETF for
Speaker 1: two and a half three basis points. That's pretty Penny's
Speaker 1: pen Henny's UM. Think about trading. I'm buying into It's free, right,
Speaker 1: advice more accessible now than ever I can decide to
Speaker 1: do it digitally. I can go hybrid and have digital
Speaker 1: and an advisor with me, or I can you know,
Speaker 1: see my advisor down the street and go in person.
Speaker 1: So there's so many services there. There's so many tools
Speaker 1: for investors, or so many tools for advisors to help investors.
Speaker 1: I think it's a fabulous time. Yeah, no, I totally agree.
Speaker 1: And I wasn't referring to what's going on in the market.
Speaker 1: I just mean generally, if you have a long term perspective,
Speaker 1: it's cheap, it's easy, it's transparent. You know, you go
Speaker 1: back to the early days of Jack Bogel, and we'll
Speaker 1: talk about that in a little bit about how hard
Speaker 1: it was to simply try and come up with an
Speaker 1: execution for here's the whole market or here's the SMP five.
Speaker 1: You couldn't do that fifty years ago. It was practically impossible.
Speaker 1: That's right. It was. It was tough. The technology wasn't there,
Speaker 1: The cost, the frictional costs were high. You know, in
Speaker 1: trading UM it's really um come in favor of retail
Speaker 1: investors quite quite interesting. So when you began at Vanguard,
Speaker 1: Jack Bogel was a CEO. Jack Brennan followed him Bill McNabb,
Speaker 1: now it's Tim Buckley that that's kind of a a
Speaker 1: list of CEOs tell us about the way the CEOs
Speaker 1: you work with impact how the firm operates. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: was fortunate to work with all four CEOs of Vanguard.
Speaker 1: I worked with Jack Bogel for about eight years before
Speaker 1: he retired, and you know, Jack was the visionary, the
Speaker 1: guy that would get everybody motivated that we're doing something special.
Speaker 1: We were small at the time. Uh, people thought we
Speaker 1: were a little quirky. We're out in Pennsylvania, you know,
Speaker 1: far away from Wall Street. But he was such a
Speaker 1: motivator and instilled this sense of purpose. You know, you're
Speaker 1: you're part of something bigger than yourself, which was really exciting.
Speaker 1: And you know, Jack his words, he he could give
Speaker 1: a speech like nobody else, and you know what he
Speaker 1: wrote in the press and on interviews. He was just
Speaker 1: so inspirational. So the perfect guy to to get us
Speaker 1: really going. And then Jack Brennan took over after Jack
Speaker 1: Bogel retired, hand pick successor. We started starting to grow
Speaker 1: a little bit there, and I think Jack Brennan was
Speaker 1: the right guy at that time as well. And there's
Speaker 1: a common theme here you'll hear from me about the
Speaker 1: right guy at the right time. Jack was helping us
Speaker 1: grow up and mature. So we're growing like crazy, and
Speaker 1: you know, we're financial services firm, so growth is good,
Speaker 1: but you have to have control and processes and quality
Speaker 1: and you know, you got to make sure you can
Speaker 1: handle the volumes, both from an investment perspective but also
Speaker 1: importantly from a processing and client service perspective. And Jack
Speaker 1: was great at that. He brought in, you know, the
Speaker 1: old total quality management programs and centers for excellence and
Speaker 1: really matured us as an operator. He retired and uh
Speaker 1: in two thousand eight, Bill McNab took over. We all
Speaker 1: know what happened in two thousand and eight. But again,
Speaker 1: I think Bill was was the right guy at the
Speaker 1: right time. There was such turmoil and you know Bill,
Speaker 1: he's a calm guy. Um and and really you know,
Speaker 1: harness the power of the team to get us through
Speaker 1: that tough environment. Leaned really hard into leadership development. You know,
Speaker 1: we uh, we had a bunch of really great technical experts,
Speaker 1: but as you grow immature, you want to have a
Speaker 1: strong leadership team and Bill really invested in that lean
Speaker 1: of that and that's that's a big part of his legacy.
Speaker 1: Also looked outside of the US to to grow a
Speaker 1: little bit more aggressively there. And again, great guy at
Speaker 1: the right time. Bill retires, Tim Buckley takes over. Tim's
Speaker 1: a fabulous CEO. UM. You think about his background in
Speaker 1: today's and very interesting. He was chief information officer, head
Speaker 1: of all I t Advantguard and then chief investment officer.
Speaker 1: Think about the trends in our our industry today, tech,
Speaker 1: the intersection of investments, advice and technology, and Tim's got
Speaker 1: that intersection in his portfolio of experience, which is pretty incredible.
Speaker 1: And he's a really smart guy, very disciplined, very creative. UM.
Speaker 1: And I think the way we think about the world
Speaker 1: now has changed under Tim. I think we're much more
Speaker 1: focused on outcomes and driving great outcomes for clients. Were
Speaker 1: much more nimble than we ever were through some new
Speaker 1: management systems of pushing decision making down and being more nimble,
Speaker 1: and uh, it's been really nice to be a big
Speaker 1: organization yet pretty responsive. That's really uh, quite quite interesting.
Speaker 1: You were in London and eight o nine is that right?
Speaker 1: So so there's a story. I'm curious if you saw
Speaker 1: or witness this from your perch in the UK at
Speaker 1: the time. Bill McNabb tells the story about I guess
Speaker 1: it's just part of regular quality control. They audit customer
Speaker 1: service reps on the phone with Vanguard investors and there's
Speaker 1: a pretty clear freak out going on as the market
Speaker 1: melts down in in oh eight and this eventually reachs
Speaker 1: reaches McNabb, or maybe he was listening on one of
Speaker 1: these calls and does an all hands on deck conversation
Speaker 1: and says, listen, we're growing like a weed. There're gonna
Speaker 1: be no layoffs. Were hiring, Stop worrying about your jobs
Speaker 1: and serve the client and make everybody comfortable. UM. What
Speaker 1: was your view of that from from across the ponds. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think, um, look, we we we ask our employees
Speaker 1: to be loyal to us, and I think you know
Speaker 1: they deserve loyalty as well, and there was a lot
Speaker 1: of uncertainty. UM, people were worried about their jobs. I mean,
Speaker 1: the market takes such a big hit, you know, were
Speaker 1: paid off of sts under management and they all of
Speaker 1: a sudden declined by significant ount so a lot of
Speaker 1: people were worried. I think Bill's leadership got us through that,
Speaker 1: UM saying Hey, well, phones have slowed down, lots of
Speaker 1: slowed down. We got plenty of work for you to do.
Speaker 1: And I think, uh, the team really appreciated that, and
Speaker 1: I think it allowed them to serve clients better and
Speaker 1: more calmly. From my vantage point, honestly, I was employee
Speaker 1: number one and in London, as I mentioned, so I
Speaker 1: had my head down. Um. You know another thing Bill
Speaker 1: did that I thought was really great at the time
Speaker 1: is in London Sky's following everybody's laying off. Bill said,
Speaker 1: don enough, we're gonna keep investing. Just go with your
Speaker 1: business plan. I was able to get great people that
Speaker 1: were dislodged or not dislodged, but wanted stability, wanted a
Speaker 1: great brand, and came to Vanguards. We hired great people.
Speaker 1: We were able to buy advertising really cheap. I mean,
Speaker 1: we were able to really lean in. And that's the
Speaker 1: beauty of Vanguards corporate structure. We can really focus on
Speaker 1: the long term. And hence Bill could say that too.
Speaker 1: Two employees, Hey, we're with We're in this for the
Speaker 1: long term. We're committed to you. I don't have to
Speaker 1: worry about a quarterly earnings call. So so let's talk
Speaker 1: about that brand a little bit, what what makes it
Speaker 1: so unique? What create what makes that culture so special
Speaker 1: and different from what we typically see uh in the
Speaker 1: world of finance. Yeah, I think people feel in the
Speaker 1: Vanguard brand a sense of trust and you know, they
Speaker 1: get that their owners, they're what's most important all decisions
Speaker 1: around doing what's best for them. And I think that
Speaker 1: just permeates and and we the brand were known as
Speaker 1: a really trusted brand and financial services. That's a really
Speaker 1: good thing obviously when you're when you have people's money,
Speaker 1: and then it creates a culture of again, um, being
Speaker 1: part of something bigger than yourself. You know, it's not
Speaker 1: it's not just a business, it's a cause, it's a purpose.
Speaker 1: We're trying to make people's lives better by helping them
Speaker 1: save for retirement, fund college, by a home, whatever their
Speaker 1: financial dreams are. We're there to help them and they
Speaker 1: know that. People people understand that and it's all about
Speaker 1: them and UH permeates both the brand and the culture
Speaker 1: within Van Card. So given given that framework of Brandon culture,
Speaker 1: obviously lots of things have changed since the days of
Speaker 1: Jack Bogel. He wasn't a big fan of ETFs. He
Speaker 1: wasn't a big fan of uh international investing. They're probably
Speaker 1: half a dozen different UM initiatives that Vanguard has come
Speaker 1: up with that Jack isn't a fan of. How has
Speaker 1: that culture persisted even as the company itself has gone
Speaker 1: through pretty substantial changes, not just growth but the products
Speaker 1: you're offering. Yeah, so, um, it's funny Jack. Jack had
Speaker 1: a lot of things that were off limits. I think
Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier. We weren't allowed to say sell. We
Speaker 1: weren't allowed to call products products. We had to call
Speaker 1: him programs for some reason. Uh Colin's stand ETFs UM.
Speaker 1: Wasn't interested in international, didn't think you had to do
Speaker 1: it um either business or investing. Wasn't a big fan
Speaker 1: of advice, you know, Jack, like, you don't need really
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Jack, Jack was you don't need advisor. Total
Speaker 1: stock market, total, on market total international thrown together, that's
Speaker 1: all you need. Isn't that advice in and of itself?
Speaker 1: It wasn't he just acting as an advisor by providing
Speaker 1: that portfolio and telling people, yeah, I went to buy
Speaker 1: it and how long to hold it for? Yeah? I
Speaker 1: mean that's uh. He was an advisor. He didn't like advice.
Speaker 1: He didn't like selling his funny story, true story, Barry.
Speaker 1: I know Jack very very well. Uh, you know, worked
Speaker 1: with him a long time. Actually spent some time one
Speaker 1: summer with him and his family where we happened to
Speaker 1: be um vacationing up at Lake Placid in my family,
Speaker 1: and I went and visit him and spent a day
Speaker 1: on the boats, know them really really well. And I
Speaker 1: got on a plane to go to Boston and there
Speaker 1: was Jack um and coach of course, and my seat
Speaker 1: was right now he's uh he was, yeah, he got
Speaker 1: a little smaller as he aged, but um, yeah, so
Speaker 1: he's he's sitting there and he would never fly anything
Speaker 1: but but coach and um. But my seat was right
Speaker 1: next to his. And I hadn't really hung out with
Speaker 1: Jack a whole lot. He was, you know, off doing
Speaker 1: the research and and um, you know, testifying a Congress
Speaker 1: and doing other things, not not involved in the company
Speaker 1: at all. Hey, Thomps, you know, glad, God, we're sitting
Speaker 1: next to each other. So what do you do in
Speaker 1: these days? So Jack hates ETFs, doesn't like advisors, and
Speaker 1: he hates sales. And I had to tell him that
Speaker 1: I was the head of sales, selling et S to
Speaker 1: financial advisors and Barry, I'm not kidding. He folded his
Speaker 1: arms and looked straight ahead and didn't talk to me
Speaker 1: the rest of the flight. On true story, Absolutely true story.
Speaker 1: So yeah, we've come a long way since then. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, I think Jack's distaste for ETFs is he
Speaker 1: worried them that they would be used incorrectly. That it's
Speaker 1: a fair pretty clear that those fears were mostly unfounded.
Speaker 1: They are mostly unfounded. And you know, you think about
Speaker 1: what e t fs. It made indexing so much more accessible.
Speaker 1: You know, financial advisors could now, um, you know, really
Speaker 1: use indexing in a big way through e t F
Speaker 1: s um. It just became so much more accessible to
Speaker 1: public and helped indexing, which we know is a good
Speaker 1: thing for investors grow and grow and grow. So Gus Sauder,
Speaker 1: who was our chief investment offer time, was a big
Speaker 1: dishoner of et f s and felt that that they
Speaker 1: may be disruptive and be the new way the index
Speaker 1: and I think he was uh spot on there, and
Speaker 1: so we leaned into them, and Jack didn't love it,
Speaker 1: but you know, we did it, and we're happy we
Speaker 1: did it. Providing advice if you think about driving investor outcomes,
Speaker 1: we have great, low cost product. What else can you
Speaker 1: do to help investors um get better outcomes? And it's
Speaker 1: financial advice, So we have our own financial advice, but
Speaker 1: also importantly working with my clients. Working with those financial
Speaker 1: advisers to help them do better for their clients really
Speaker 1: important to the mission. So I would say some of
Speaker 1: the execution has changed it a little bit, but the
Speaker 1: mission is absolutely there. Low cost, broadly diversified, driving great outcomes,
Speaker 1: helping investors get the best chance for investment success. So
Speaker 1: there's a crazy stat that I've never been able to validate.
Speaker 1: You're probably the right person to ask. I read somewhere
Speaker 1: that something like nine percent of certified financial planners in
Speaker 1: the state of Pence, Vania work for Vanguard. Is that
Speaker 1: remotely true? I can't. I can't verify that, but I
Speaker 1: would guess it's probably pretty close. Really, Yeah, that's just
Speaker 1: that's just astonishing. So let's talk a little bit um
Speaker 1: about the Vanguard Effect. My friend Eric Valcunas, who is
Speaker 1: a Bloomberg intelligence analyst, wrote a column a couple of
Speaker 1: years ago called the Vanguard Effect and eventually turned that
Speaker 1: into a book, The Bogel Effect, where he points out
Speaker 1: not only has Vanguard driven down costs for their own clients.
Speaker 1: If that was the end of the story, all right,
Speaker 1: it would be an interesting little tale. But what's happened
Speaker 1: is through market forces and competition, everybody else in the
Speaker 1: financial services has been forced to follow suit. And Beltunist
Speaker 1: calculates it's hundreds of billions soon to be a trillion
Speaker 1: dollars in costs savings. Tell us a little bit about
Speaker 1: the Vanguard effect. Yeah, I think it's true. I agree
Speaker 1: with Eric that you know, Vanguard are are set up
Speaker 1: structurally to drive costs lower. Became very competitive. Investors wanted
Speaker 1: low cost, came to Vanguard and droves. Competitors had to
Speaker 1: respond or or not grow, and so they cut price,
Speaker 1: which we all know that compounds over long periods of
Speaker 1: time and it's a good thing for investors. And we
Speaker 1: saw that as we started to really grow in the
Speaker 1: US that took effect in a big way. But I'll
Speaker 1: tell you that the first time I heard the headline
Speaker 1: the Vanguard effect is I went to London in two
Speaker 1: thousand eight. We launched our first set of funds in
Speaker 1: the UK in June of two thousand nine, and right
Speaker 1: before that, a couple of our competitors before as we're
Speaker 1: actually officially out, they cut their price and there was
Speaker 1: an article in the ft and it it talked about
Speaker 1: the Vanguard effect. We didn't even launch yet, we weren't
Speaker 1: even grown. We didn't know if we're gonna be successful,
Speaker 1: just the thread of moving into a space. So so
Speaker 1: how does Vanguard think about competitors A Do you even
Speaker 1: think about competitors or do you just focus on doing
Speaker 1: your own thing? At a certain point, you have to
Speaker 1: be aware of what's going on places like State Street
Speaker 1: or Black Rock or Wisdom Tree. Yeah. Look, we're certainly
Speaker 1: aware of the competition. But we've always said do what's
Speaker 1: right and customers will will follow. And so for us,
Speaker 1: it's very very easy to do what's right. We just
Speaker 1: don't have any conflicts of interest in any decision making
Speaker 1: we have. It's all about the end investors, so you
Speaker 1: only offer them quality products. You don't go to fads
Speaker 1: so they don't get burned. You communicate very clearly and
Speaker 1: candidly about the risks. You know, you talk about return,
Speaker 1: but talk about the risks as well to manage expectations.
Speaker 1: And when you do what's right, you get a lot
Speaker 1: of trust built up and you grow. So should I
Speaker 1: not hold my breath waiting for the Vanguard crypto e
Speaker 1: t F? Is that, Uh, it's unlikely we'll have a
Speaker 1: crypto et F Barry. Um, you know, the way we
Speaker 1: look at crypto is it doesn't really have an intrinsic value.
Speaker 1: It's more of a supplied demand thing. So that feels
Speaker 1: more like speculation than Yeah, but an investible asset. But
Speaker 1: the technology behind crypto is pretty interesting and there's some great,
Speaker 1: great use cases for that, and we think that's the
Speaker 1: future in many aspects of financial services market. Really interesting.
Speaker 1: All right, so we mentioned belt Tunas's book. Let's talk
Speaker 1: about Robin Wiggleworth's book Trillions. You know, we we all
Speaker 1: sometimes feel like the area we work in our space. Oh,
Speaker 1: I know the history that I'm really knowledgeable about that,
Speaker 1: But as I read that, I was genuinely shocked as
Speaker 1: to the history of both the industry and what took
Speaker 1: place in passive investing in indexing. Tell us a little
Speaker 1: bit about how trillions resonated over at Vanguard. Yeah it was.
Speaker 1: I thought it was really well written. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: I lived part of that revolution, if you will, of indexing.
Speaker 1: But there are certainly things that I learned from that book,
Speaker 1: some of the other characters that were involved, some of
Speaker 1: the really early days and the characters around that as well,
Speaker 1: So it resonated really well. It was interesting for me
Speaker 1: because I helped start our et F business UM back
Speaker 1: in the early two thousand's and a lot of those
Speaker 1: folks UM I knew, and we're trying to get these
Speaker 1: things going and and it was a really interesting time.
Speaker 1: Once again, you kind of felt like you were doing
Speaker 1: something disruptive and really exciting. But I thought it was
Speaker 1: a fascinating history. I would recommend that book to to
Speaker 1: anybody that's interested investing at all. I think it's got
Speaker 1: a great history of of something that was super disruptive,
Speaker 1: but maybe a little more of a slower burn than
Speaker 1: than people might think. Yeah, no, absolutely, it was definitely
Speaker 1: a slow burn and then exploded UM. And I think
Speaker 1: to some degree, I think the inherent advantages of ETFs
Speaker 1: over mutual funds are are part of that. I know
Speaker 1: some people like the ability to just buy when they
Speaker 1: want to buy and not have to wait till the
Speaker 1: end of the day and get mutual fund pricing. But
Speaker 1: to me, the single biggest advantage of ETF seems to
Speaker 1: be enormous tax benefit of not paying for somebody else
Speaker 1: who's selling. Um. Explain, first off, if mutual funds were
Speaker 1: introduced today, would they even be approved if it was
Speaker 1: a new product. Wait, this is much worse than he yes,
Speaker 1: why why would we want to approve that? How do
Speaker 1: you think about the differences between the two products. Yeah, look,
Speaker 1: I think mutual funds are still a very good product. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, they may not go away in the too
Speaker 1: short of term. Um, it's a really good product. I
Speaker 1: think there's some benefits to mutual funds. Um. If you
Speaker 1: think about four one K plans, they really go Yeah
Speaker 1: you read in my mind they certainly work well and
Speaker 1: in a quality any qualified retirement you don't need an
Speaker 1: e t S you don't, um, you know you you
Speaker 1: only need to strike an N A V once a day. Um,
Speaker 1: So there's that aspect of it. Index mutual funds are
Speaker 1: pretty tax efficient as well, not quite as tax efficient
Speaker 1: for most as the e t F. You still have
Speaker 1: that changeover and I recall when something like Tesla was added,
Speaker 1: it had a big disruptive impact. So if that's some
Speaker 1: mutual funds that's not in a qualified account, there could
Speaker 1: be ramifications versus the straight up ets. That's right. That
Speaker 1: that that's absolutely right. And then if you go to
Speaker 1: active strategies. Uh, you know ETFs right now, most of
Speaker 1: the growth is in transparent ETFs. UM, non transparent are
Speaker 1: starting to come along. Um, that's only for equity funds
Speaker 1: right now. Equity assets, not fixed income. So to the
Speaker 1: extent you've got an active manager that feels that they're
Speaker 1: not very comfortable disclosing holdings on a daily basis, they're
Speaker 1: gonna want to keep that in mutual fun until the
Speaker 1: technology advances there. Uh, there's also barried there's a lot
Speaker 1: of embedded gains in some of these mutual funds, so
Speaker 1: you don't necessarily want to jump ship. You might shift
Speaker 1: to e t f s, but selling out your old
Speaker 1: low cost basis holdings doesn't make a lot of sense.
Speaker 1: So maybe that's some of the reasons as well. It
Speaker 1: makes a lot of sense. Let's talk about another product.
Speaker 1: Can we use the word product? Um custom indexing, You
Speaker 1: guys also are direct indexing. You call it personalized indexing. UM.
Speaker 1: I was skeptical about this ten years ago. Over the
Speaker 1: past few years, I've um come to embrace it. Tell
Speaker 1: us a little bit about why Vanguard does direct indexing
Speaker 1: and what makes your product unique to Vanguard. UM. So,
Speaker 1: first of all, just quick education, UM, personalized indexing, custom indexing,
Speaker 1: direct indexing, they're all the same thing. UM. It's a
Speaker 1: little different structure than your your E t F. And
Speaker 1: by the way, e t f are super tax efficient
Speaker 1: and great in many ways. But the e t F
Speaker 1: you buy, you buy v t I. You own a
Speaker 1: share of v t I, not the underlying holdings. In
Speaker 1: direct indexing or personalized indexing, you actually hold the basket
Speaker 1: of underlying securities individually. So all five what is VT
Speaker 1: I two thousands something something like that. It's it's it's
Speaker 1: a lots of page through. For sure, you own the
Speaker 1: underlying securities, and it's basically a separate account, but very scalable,
Speaker 1: and I'll talk about that in a second. And what
Speaker 1: you can do with individual securities. It allows you to
Speaker 1: do to two things pretty well. One be very tax efficient.
Speaker 1: So since you're holding five hundred security instead of one,
Speaker 1: you can look at losses and individual securities, harvest those
Speaker 1: losses and you can allocate them to go against future gains.
Speaker 1: So it's very tax tax efficient. And that's probably the
Speaker 1: biggest use case with so tax that that tax efficiency
Speaker 1: and that adds quite a bit alpha. You know, go
Speaker 1: back to adviser's alpha. Doing that, well, you can add
Speaker 1: a substantial amount of alpha to what sort of numbers
Speaker 1: are you looking at? Because I know was just an
Speaker 1: outrageously unusual year. You know, Um, it can be pretty substantial.
Speaker 1: I mean it could be a couple of percent at times. Um. So, uh,
Speaker 1: it's very very valuable. Now it doesn't it's not for
Speaker 1: everybody obviously, you know, your average investor may not benefit
Speaker 1: as much and then they're a tax efficient et F
Speaker 1: might be the way to go. So it's a great
Speaker 1: use case. Another use case is investors being able to
Speaker 1: express views on the market, meaning their personal values along
Speaker 1: the lines of E s G, but without buying an
Speaker 1: E s G fund. You can really customize that. That's right,
Speaker 1: So you could say, hey, I you know that one
Speaker 1: of the challenge with E s G products is everybody's
Speaker 1: got different definition of what E s G is, So hey,
Speaker 1: I want to exclude X, Y or Z, but I
Speaker 1: don't want to exclude a being. See you can do
Speaker 1: that in this structure, and you can. We've had clients
Speaker 1: who say we don't want cigarettes or vice stocks. We've
Speaker 1: had other people say no, no, I'm fine with an index.
Speaker 1: I just don't want any gunstocks um And we've had
Speaker 1: other people say, hey, I don't want anybody associated with
Speaker 1: abortion providers. It's not a left or right thing. It's
Speaker 1: you pick what your values are and you can express
Speaker 1: that in your portfolio. It doesn't differ appreciably from the
Speaker 1: index other than that narrow um group. The exception being
Speaker 1: if you say, hey, I don't want any energy, any oil,
Speaker 1: any carbon, Well that'll differ dramatically, But most of the
Speaker 1: other tweaks seem to be around the edges. That's right.
Speaker 1: If you with what you do with direct index things,
Speaker 1: you optimize around something. So if you exclude five stocks,
Speaker 1: you optimize and overweight the others and minimize tracking air
Speaker 1: versus the index. So you're right, it's tends not to
Speaker 1: be too much unless you exclude something like energy, which
Speaker 1: would be a big chunk. Huh really really quite intriguing.
Speaker 1: Jack Bogel once said, the first signed Vanguard's mission has
Speaker 1: created a better world for the investor will be when
Speaker 1: our market share begins to erode. Has that not happened yet?
Speaker 1: You guys don't seem to be losing market share now.
Speaker 1: In fact, we're gaining market share and just about all businesses. Um,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of opportunities still out there. I mean
Speaker 1: in my business, we've got maybe a share something like that.
Speaker 1: Lots to go there, even on the on the retail side,
Speaker 1: tons to go there. You think about the advice market
Speaker 1: and the retirement market, and then international chiefs, there's there's
Speaker 1: a tremendous amount of opportunity there. So we still have
Speaker 1: to bring the mission to many millions more people. So
Speaker 1: if you're still taking share, at what point do you
Speaker 1: become the biggest investing firm in the world. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I've read some articles recently that are making projections on that.
Speaker 1: But again I've got Jack Bogel's voice in my head
Speaker 1: from saying that growth doesn't matter, just do what's right
Speaker 1: for investors. So we don't think about that too much.
Speaker 1: So so I promised we would talk about the state
Speaker 1: of the world today. Two has been, UM, just a
Speaker 1: very challenging environment. I don't think we've seen both stocks
Speaker 1: and bonds down double jet since you want something like that,
Speaker 1: So that's forty plus years. What's it like working with
Speaker 1: asset managers during a stressful time like this. Yeah, it's um,
Speaker 1: you know, assets are down and you get paid off
Speaker 1: assets in this business, which tends to be a good
Speaker 1: thing because stocks and bonds tend to go up over time.
Speaker 1: But um, yeah, so it's it's a bit stressful. Clients
Speaker 1: are stressed. You spend a lot of time talking to
Speaker 1: your clients, trying to bring perspective, the long term perspective,
Speaker 1: not to pend that advisor's outfit. Even if you're not
Speaker 1: an advisor, you're talking to somebody on the phone. You're
Speaker 1: trying to say, hey, calm down, put this in perspective
Speaker 1: to him off the ledge. You talk them off the ledge.
Speaker 1: And uh, my clients, the advisors are really earning their
Speaker 1: fees right now and and um providing a tremendous amount
Speaker 1: of value. Uh So there's a lot of phone volume,
Speaker 1: a lot of digital volume. So we're very very very busy. Um.
Speaker 1: And you know it's all about common people down. We'll
Speaker 1: get through this. You look at the long term. Um,
Speaker 1: things tend to work out. We you know, are investing
Speaker 1: philosophy is first of all, get objective, put a plan together,
Speaker 1: make sure it's a low cost plan. And the other
Speaker 1: thing is be discipline right, stick to your plan. Just
Speaker 1: get rid of the noise. This is big noise. This
Speaker 1: isn't just some little blit. This big noise, but you know,
Speaker 1: get rid of the noise and be disciplined. Most times
Speaker 1: that's around rebalancing. This time, stocks and bonds are both
Speaker 1: going down, so you're not rebouncing so much. But you know,
Speaker 1: marchy was a great opportunity to rebalance and add some values.
Speaker 1: So it's really sticking to that long term approach and
Speaker 1: that discipline is what we really recommend. So you sit
Speaker 1: in a unique perch. You're not only watching what's going
Speaker 1: on at vanguard from the inside, but you're looking out
Speaker 1: at the world of advisors. And as we've seen over
Speaker 1: the past twenty years, fiduciary fee based advisors have been
Speaker 1: capturing share at the expense of transactional brokerage UM. From
Speaker 1: your perch, tell us what you see of the world
Speaker 1: of finance looking out over the next decade. How are
Speaker 1: things going to continue, what's going to change? What do
Speaker 1: you think about when you think about the future of finance.
Speaker 1: I think financial services UM for a long time had
Speaker 1: been a bit stodgy right, So you know, you focused
Speaker 1: on returns and um, you provide a good returns, You've
Speaker 1: got some flows, and you might do some advertising a brand,
Speaker 1: but client expectations have increased incredibly, so they're not comparing
Speaker 1: Vanguard to Fidelity anymore. They're comparing Vanguard to my experience
Speaker 1: with Uber and so you know, I think, um, you
Speaker 1: have to have great products, you have to be innovative there,
Speaker 1: you have to keep fees low. But the client experience
Speaker 1: is it's happening now, but I think that's a huge
Speaker 1: next frontier for financial services really now in the client experience,
Speaker 1: like some of the other industries have done, and we're
Speaker 1: on a journey there. We're getting better with it, but
Speaker 1: there's a lot of opportunity there. I think advice is
Speaker 1: going to continue to grow. UM, do it yourself is
Speaker 1: a lot tougher than Jack Bobio said it was. There's
Speaker 1: a lot to it, and again we think most investors
Speaker 1: are better served by some sort of advice. So we
Speaker 1: see the growth and that we see the the intersection
Speaker 1: of advice and investments and technology to bring mass customization.
Speaker 1: And if you think about what we just talked about,
Speaker 1: direct indexing and personalized indexing. That's customization. The technology allows
Speaker 1: you to do that and mass now and scale that,
Speaker 1: so that mass customization is gonna be really important. I know,
Speaker 1: only have you for a limited amount of time. So
Speaker 1: let me jump to my favorite questions that we ask
Speaker 1: all of our guests, starting with, you have a bunch
Speaker 1: of kids. What were you doing to keep them busy
Speaker 1: during the pandemic? Tell us what you were watching on
Speaker 1: either Netflix or Amazon. Yeah, so, um, all my kids
Speaker 1: were either in we're in college during during the pandemic.
Speaker 1: I got two out. Now were they at school? They
Speaker 1: did come home, so my wife and I were empty
Speaker 1: nesters for a few months celebrating that. And then also
Speaker 1: so us and the two dogs, and you know, just
Speaker 1: life was very very chill, and then you know, pandemic
Speaker 1: hits and you know I'm doing I'm like a commando
Speaker 1: coming to get my son out of Manhattan and bring
Speaker 1: them home. And um, so they all came home and
Speaker 1: it was fabulous. You know, actually look at a little
Speaker 1: bit of a gift because they were gone and they
Speaker 1: came back for a few months. So we did a
Speaker 1: lot of cooking. Uh, they started a garden. My one
Speaker 1: daughter bought some chickens, some crazy things like that. Did
Speaker 1: a lot of streaming. Um, I don't remember what we
Speaker 1: were watching at the time, silly things like The Tiger King.
Speaker 1: Don't know if you saw that on Netflix, A crazy show,
Speaker 1: UM documentary. I did a lot of streaming together. Played
Speaker 1: a lot of games too, like went back old school
Speaker 1: and you know, cards and backgammon and things like that.
Speaker 1: So it was really really good quality family time that
Speaker 1: sounds like fun. Tell us about some of your early
Speaker 1: mentors who helped shape your career. Yeah. When I first
Speaker 1: came to Van Guard eighty eight, I was in a
Speaker 1: business where we were providing administrative and accounting services for
Speaker 1: actually competitors and the guy that ran the division was
Speaker 1: this guy called Bill of a Starts and um, we
Speaker 1: we hit it off really well from my first day there.
Speaker 1: And he was a great mentor. You know, I'm twenty two,
Speaker 1: not right out of school but out of school year
Speaker 1: and he really uh help me develop some confidence, believed
Speaker 1: in me, talked about how you know, really helped me
Speaker 1: build relationships, taught me how to write well, to be
Speaker 1: honest with you. So a really good early mentor. And
Speaker 1: then Bill McNab and I first intersected. I think it
Speaker 1: was around actually applied for a job in his group
Speaker 1: and didn't get it, but we we connected through that
Speaker 1: and and my entire career. Bill was a great mentor
Speaker 1: for me. UM and you know, gave me a lot
Speaker 1: of opportunities to to grow and develop. So I really
Speaker 1: appreciate that. There was also a guy when I worked
Speaker 1: in our fixed income group. UM. He passed away unfortunately
Speaker 1: a number of years ago, but Mike Proplaski and UM,
Speaker 1: he taught me about the fixed income market and how
Speaker 1: to be an analyst and how to manage portfolios. And
Speaker 1: you know, that was tremendous. And then taking that to
Speaker 1: all my other positions. Having that investment, that hands on
Speaker 1: investment knowledge was just gold for me the rest of
Speaker 1: my career. So that's a that's a few of the
Speaker 1: early early days, the folks who mentored me. I've heard
Speaker 1: the name for sure. UM let's talk about books. What
Speaker 1: are some of your favorites and what are you reading
Speaker 1: right now. It's a little embarrassing, but I if you
Speaker 1: think about the theme of a couple of these books,
Speaker 1: A couple of my favorites. I love Bonfire The Vanities, UM,
Speaker 1: you know it Uh, I wouldn't say that's that's highly regarded. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was cool because it was, you know, kind of
Speaker 1: a story about New York in you know, the late
Speaker 1: eight Wall Street and then kind of doing something wrong
Speaker 1: and losing everything. So it always scared me, you know,
Speaker 1: scared me straight if you will. Um. And then you know,
Speaker 1: around the same time, maybe a couple years later, it
Speaker 1: was Liars Poker, which I just found fascinating. Michael Lewis
Speaker 1: book just had its thirtieth anniversary and reissue recently, and
Speaker 1: I gotta tell you it holds up pretty well. The
Speaker 1: great the great part about that book is he wrote
Speaker 1: it to talk people out of going to Wall Street,
Speaker 1: and I think it inspired millions to do it. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, so uh to my old you know favorite books.
Speaker 1: Right now, I'm reading a book. Did you grew up
Speaker 1: in the Trying State area? Do you remember crazy Eddie? Sure?
Speaker 1: Of course Eddie had antar and what were his prices?
Speaker 1: They were insane? That's right, they were. Um. There's a
Speaker 1: book right now called Retail Gangster. I don't know if
Speaker 1: it's new. Book just just came out in the last
Speaker 1: couple of months, and it is the story of Eddie
Speaker 1: Anton and yeah, I'm about a third of the way
Speaker 1: through it, and it's fascinating. He was a character at
Speaker 1: a criminal but really retailer. That wasn't his brother in
Speaker 1: law who wrote it, who was the accountant who went
Speaker 1: to jail and the one who turned but he is
Speaker 1: prominently featured in the Yeah, he's a fascinating guy, don't
Speaker 1: He didn't write it, but I don't. I don't remember
Speaker 1: who the author is, but it's a it's been good
Speaker 1: so far. When when I was in college, I worked
Speaker 1: at the local Lathayette if you're a New York region,
Speaker 1: so you remember, laughing he had a million years ago
Speaker 1: and they had this um. Crazy Eddies had this wonderful
Speaker 1: um scam they would do when they were out of
Speaker 1: stock on something. They would cut the price in half
Speaker 1: and then once it came back into stock, it went
Speaker 1: back to regular price. So you're selling it for two
Speaker 1: hundred bucks. Crazy Eddie has it for So you call
Speaker 1: up Crazy Eddie, Hey, I want to buy three of
Speaker 1: these were out of stock. You should go get the
Speaker 1: crazy Eddies. They don't have it. When when it's in stock,
Speaker 1: it's two hundred one, it's out of stock. People wouldn't
Speaker 1: believe you. I would think it's insane. Their prices are
Speaker 1: literally insane. The people used to think the guy on
Speaker 1: the commercial and it was Crazy Eddie and that was
Speaker 1: just an actor, just an actor. And you know what
Speaker 1: I did when I when I I read about the book,
Speaker 1: I think in the journal or in Bloomberg or something
Speaker 1: like that, and it was like, oh, this is interesting.
Speaker 1: So I got and then I went on YouTube and
Speaker 1: looked at a bunch of the old commercials and brought
Speaker 1: back childhood message. That guy, you know, he was, he
Speaker 1: was something he would have the Santa Claus had on
Speaker 1: during the Christmas That's right. I forgot about that. They
Speaker 1: were ubiquitous, both both the ads and and Crazy Eddie.
Speaker 1: At one point in time. They were like a couple
Speaker 1: of dozen UM stores. And uh, they blew up spectacular
Speaker 1: they did. They did quite quite interesting. Um. So our
Speaker 1: last two questions starting with what sort of advice would
Speaker 1: you give to a recent college grad who was interested
Speaker 1: in a career in either investments, et F mutual funds
Speaker 1: financial advice? What would you tell a recent college grad? Well,
Speaker 1: I have a couple of recent college grads, my twins
Speaker 1: graduated about a year ago. And what I told them
Speaker 1: was um, and it's not necessarily specific to finance, but um,
Speaker 1: it certainly applies. And that is pick a company, not
Speaker 1: a job. And what I meant by that is find
Speaker 1: a company that aligns with your values. Um, and you know,
Speaker 1: do something that you're interested in there. Don't worry about
Speaker 1: your job, your first job, your second job, whatever. But
Speaker 1: if you align with a company, could be there forever,
Speaker 1: you can have a career there. And obviously I'm biased
Speaker 1: in a Vanguard thirty four years I stumbled onto Vanguard
Speaker 1: and happen to find a company that aligns with my values.
Speaker 1: I got lucky. They grew tremendously, But I think it's
Speaker 1: really important. Yeah, money is nice, um, But being happy
Speaker 1: or work, being satisfied and having an organization that aligns
Speaker 1: with what you care about, I think is more important
Speaker 1: than anything. And you have a lot more longevity and
Speaker 1: happiness in your career if you do that. And our
Speaker 1: final question, what do you know about the world of
Speaker 1: investing today that you wish you knew back in or
Speaker 1: so when you were first getting started. Yeah, a couple
Speaker 1: of things. And either just Jack bo principles, and of
Speaker 1: course I listened to them, but I may have I
Speaker 1: may have strayed a little bit um here and there.
Speaker 1: But first of all, it's really hard to consistently pick winners.
Speaker 1: Um hence the appeal of indexing. But yeah, you might
Speaker 1: get a winner, you might get a few winners, but
Speaker 1: it's it's hard to do that over time. And and
Speaker 1: sort of as a corollary to that is stay away
Speaker 1: from fads. I I did get caught up personally in
Speaker 1: the dot com era a little bit. And you know,
Speaker 1: I had my long term four one K investments and
Speaker 1: all probably diversified vanguard funds, but I had a brokerage accountant.
Speaker 1: I made some mistakes on companies like Vertical Net I
Speaker 1: was gonna, you know, And so be careful to fads
Speaker 1: and um give them my my children age and their
Speaker 1: interest in investing, you know, growing up in an investing house. Uh.
Speaker 1: They told me I was old and stodgy, you know,
Speaker 1: not being excited about crypto or some of the meme stocks.
Speaker 1: Are your kids apes? Are they n f T fans
Speaker 1: or no? They they're they all well compliance. They all
Speaker 1: have to invest in vanguards, so they're they're broadly diversified
Speaker 1: and low cost funds. As you would image but they're
Speaker 1: really interesting and of course all their friends are. It
Speaker 1: made so much money on this and then till the
Speaker 1: until they didn't, So um, stay away from the trends.
Speaker 1: Just focus on a long term have some discipline. The
Speaker 1: other thing is I was fortunate to get this advice.
Speaker 1: I showed up my first DAID Vanguard, did my onboarding.
Speaker 1: They said, oh, we got this four wind K plan.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm not really sure what that is. Like, oh,
Speaker 1: just max out your contribution. That's what everybody does, and
Speaker 1: we'll match up to ten or eleven percent whatever it is.
Speaker 1: And I just did it and it's thirty four years ago.
Speaker 1: It adds up for sure. So one of the last
Speaker 1: wee with that match and growing taxes right, growing tax
Speaker 1: offer and so hey, just you know, time is on
Speaker 1: your side with investing, So start young, even if it's
Speaker 1: a little bit, and it adds up over time. I
Speaker 1: am genuinely shocked when we sit down with the potential
Speaker 1: clients and and one of the things that comes up
Speaker 1: is why are you throwing away free money if your
Speaker 1: firm is going to match up to you know, four
Speaker 1: or five six percent is pretty standard these days. If
Speaker 1: the firm is going to give you five percent of
Speaker 1: your salary to put into your four own Why would
Speaker 1: you say no to that? It's for I understand that
Speaker 1: there are bubbles we all want, but it's not like
Speaker 1: you know, they don't even feel it. Yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: not like it's that big a chunk. It's rash and
Speaker 1: free money. And yet you know, whenever people talk about
Speaker 1: rational investors, why do people say no to free money?
Speaker 1: That seems to be somewhat rash? Absolutely right. So my
Speaker 1: my daughter tried to say no. Then she she's in
Speaker 1: New York and say it's really expensive. I said, I'll
Speaker 1: match it. So you put it in the company and
Speaker 1: I'll match it. And so we did that for a
Speaker 1: year and wander off and she realized that she could
Speaker 1: do it. So that's fantastic. Hey, Tom, thank you for
Speaker 1: being so generous with your time. We have been speaking
Speaker 1: with Tom Rampula. He is the managing director of Vanguard's
Speaker 1: Financial Advisor Services division. If you enjoy this conversation, we'll
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Speaker 1: don't know, four hundred and thirty we've had over the
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Speaker 1: We love your comments, feedback and suggestions. You can write
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Speaker 1: Starting with my producer is Paris Walds. My head of
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