Welcome to the 11th episode of Bogleheads on Investing. Today, we have a special guest, one of the founders of the Bogleheads, Mel Lindauer. I'll be talking with Mel about the incredible growth of the Bogleheads over the years, in this country and abroad. Hi, everyone. My name is Rick Ferry, and I'm the host of Bogleheads on Investing.

This episode, as with all episodes, are brought to you by the John C. Bogle Center for Financial Literacy, a 501(c)(3) corporation. Today, we'll be talking with Mel Lindauer. Mel is one of the founders of the Bogleheads. The Bogleheads are a global community of individual investors who help each other through forums, the incredibly in-depth Bogleheads Wiki.

There is this podcast, local meetings, national meetings. It's a global phenomena that just keeps getting better. So let me introduce the prince of the Bogleheads, Mel Lindauer. Welcome, Mel. Oh, it's great to be with you, Rick. I love your podcast. Thanks for all you're doing. It's nice to be with you.

Well, thank you for being on the program, Mel. We're really excited to have you today. You were Boglehead number two. Boglehead number one was Taylor Larimore, who was a good friend of Jack Bogle's, who started the Bogleheads many years ago on the Morningstar forum. But before we get to the history of the Bogleheads, could you talk a little bit about your background?

I mean, you didn't come from the investment industry. No, I didn't. I ran a graphic art business in the Philadelphia area for 30 years. In 1968, started investing with a colleague friend who was a broker. And little did I know that the program he put me in was a 50% commission.

And they claimed that by paying the 50% up front that you-- it was going to entice you to stay into the program. So Mel, I remember that back when I was in the military. Those 50% plans were called cafeteria plans. Do you remember that phrase? Oh, yes. I remember that well.

And in our later days, we fought against that to try to get them out of the military because they were taking advantage of our service people. And fortunately, I think that we succeeded. We raised such a ruckus that I think Congress got-- or Senate got involved. And I think they're no longer allowed on military bases, if I'm correct.

I think you are. But go ahead and continue with your background. I started investing in the late '60s with that program. But when my business started doing well, I thought that I should start learning more about investing. So I started reading a lot of investing books, magazines, and really became a student of investing.

So I started helping friends and relatives who asked for my help because I knew something about investing, and they didn't. And eventually, when I retired in 1997, I turned the business over to my sons. I was looking for some kind of charity work that I could do, volunteer work.

And that's how I got involved with the Morningstar Forum. I figured that I could help out there by helping other people avoid all the mistakes that I made in my early years of investing. The Morningstar Diehards Forum was the first Bogleheads Forum, correct? At first, everything was on-- it wasn't even called Bogleheads back then, was it?

That's right, because the people used to call us other forum members. There were a lot of forums on Morningstar, and they used to make fun of us and call us Bogleheads, and it was a derogatory term back then. We were as a badge of honor, but Morningstar thought since it was a derogatory term, they didn't want to upset Jack by calling us the Bogleheads.

So they called us the Vanguard Diehards, and the subtitle of our forum was "Bogleheads Unite-- Talk About Your Favorite Fund Company." We did not become the Bogleheads officially until we left Morningstar in 2007 and started Bogleheads Org Forum. Could you just explain for just a few minutes for people who are not familiar with what the Bogleheads are exactly what the organization is, and who the people are that are behind it, the Bog-- how big it is, I mean, how much it's grown?

Well, the numbers are just phenomenal. We get something like 70,000 to 90,000 unique visitors a day on the forum. The number of hits are in the millions. So it has grown from a small organization to a very large organization. We have about close to 100,000 registered members. And any one time on the forum, we have about 10 guests for each registered forum member that's online.

We get a couple thousand posts a day. It's just grown phenomenally. But basically, the Bogleheads is an organization of people who volunteer to help other investors. And we have no vested interests. We don't sell anything. We don't do-- we have no ads. None of the board members, none of the officers get paid a penny either.

It's all volunteer work. And I think that's very important. So basically, this is funded by a nonprofit organization. And the way expenses are paid are by donations. So how would someone find out how to donate? Well, they would donate to the John C. Boglehead Center for Financial Literacy. And the address is on the forum.

They can donate directly to the forum. It's not tax deductible. If they donate to the John C. Boglehead Center for Financial Literacy, and then we donate as part of our mission to support the forum, it is a charitable deduction. Who was it who came up with the idea of starting a forum that concentrated on low-fee investing, or at that time at least, on Vanguard funds?

The initial impetus for the Bogleheads on the Morningstar forum was Taylor Larimore. The Bogleheads used to post on other forums, but they kept asking for their own forum. And that's why Morningstar called our group the Diehards, because we kept insisting on getting our own forum. And that forum soon became the number one forum, the most popular forum on Morningstar.

The number of posts on that were greater than all of the other forums combined. So it was really a thing that was led by Taylor. Taylor is just one unique individual. And Taylor and I got connected fairly early. In the beginning, I joined shortly after the Diehards was set up.

But I just wanted to lay in the background and see what was going on, and who was who, and who knew what they were talking about, and so forth. And there were questions about annuities that nobody answered. So I thought, well, I know about annuities, so I'll answer the questions.

So I started answering questions about annuities. And then Taylor got in touch with me and said, no, I really like the stuff you're doing. Why don't we work together? And that's how Taylor and I ended up working together. So when you said Taylor is one unique individual, what did you mean?

Yes, Taylor is a World War II vet. He was in the Battle of the Bulge as a paratrooper. And he and I, as I'm a Marine, he's a paratrooper. We joke around a lot, but we really respect each other. And he is the kind of guy that I would want to have my back anywhere.

He is a real gentleman, an ace. Jack Bogle called him the King of the Bogleheads, and it's a well-deserved title. I told Taylor many times, Jack called me the Prince of the Bogleheads. And I told Taylor, I have no desire-- this prince has no desire to be king. So Taylor has to stick around as long as I'm around.

Well, one of the things that you started was a annual Bogleheads reunion. Yeah, that was kind of a strange occurrence. I made a post in Thanksgiving of 1999 on the Vanguard Diehards Morningstar Forum. And I listed all the things I was thankful for-- my wife, my kids, and so forth, and good fortune.

And a lot of people did the same thing. Everybody was chiming in. And we felt like we were a family, the Diehards. Even though we didn't know each other, we just felt like a family. And Taylor chimed in and said basically the same thing that most of us said.

We were thankful for our wife, and the kids, and how lucky we'd been in life, and so forth. But at the end, Taylor said, and I'm especially thankful to Jack Bogle for founding Vanguard, because I live in the house that Jack built. He calls his 35th floor condo overlooking Biscayne Bay the house that Jack built.

Jack Bogle saw that post. Jack used to follow our forum on a somewhat regular basis. He saw that post and replied to Taylor and asked Taylor if there was any interest in possibly getting together. And for Taylor and I, this was like an invitation to the White House or an audience with the Pope for somebody of Jack's stature to ask if we would like to get together with him.

So Taylor knew that I was a snowbird in Florida in the winter. And he contacted me and said, Jack is going to be his keynote speaker at the Miami Herald Making Money Seminar. Do you think this would be a good opportunity for us to get together with him like he mentioned?

So I contacted the Miami Herald people and asked them if they could arrange something, a room for some of us to get together with Jack at lunch, for lunch, for maybe an hour or so. And they kind of shooed us away as groupies and said that they had Jack too busy.

He didn't have time to get together with us. So I called Jack's office and told them that they said that we couldn't get together. And Jack said, well, I'll go wherever you want. So now we decided to have the get together away from the Miami Herald Making Money Seminar.

And the Miami Herald people came patting hands and said, Mel, is there any chance we could send a reporter and a photographer to cover your event with Jack? So we hired a chef, a cook, and a maid and had to get together with Jack with about 22 or so bogleheads.

And it was a memorable evening. Jack sat after dinner. Jack sat in the living room. We were all around and asking questions and so forth. And it was just really a night to remember. So this all occurred in Taylor's condo. And I had the good fortune of driving Jack from the hotel to Taylor's and then driving back after the event was over.

And you talk about being petrified of what I was going to say to this guy for a half hour or 40 minutes that it took to get to Taylor's house. And I can tell you that Jack was the most gentle, easygoing, unpretentious guy. I knew he played golf. And I mentioned golf.

And we started talking about golf. But there was never a pregnant pause. I mean, Jack was just so easy to talk to. What a remarkable guy. And I had such a hard time calling him Jack. He kept telling me to call him Jack. He likes everybody to call him Jack.

But he was Mr. Bogle. And it took a long, long time for me to be able to call him Jack. Well, that would be understandable for two reasons, number one, who Jack Bogle was, but number two, you are in that culture, right? I mean, Taylor tells me that you're a Kentucky colonel.

Is that correct? Yeah, that's correct. I was honored by the governor of Kentucky some time ago. I think it was in 1981 as a Kentucky colonel. And my license, my Florida license plate is K-Y-C-O-L, Kentucky colonel. I am very proud of being a Kentucky colonel. And I'm proud of my heritage and coming from Kentucky.

But yes, you're right. We did say yes, sir and no, sir. And of course, the Marine Corps reinforced that. So the very first Boglehead reunion took place in Taylor Larimore's condo in Florida in 2000. But these reunions have just grown substantially over 20 years. And now, even what's going on now, even though Jack has passed, reunions still seems to continue to grow.

We thought this would be a one-time-off. Jack had offered to get together with us. And so we had our reunion, and we thought that was the end of it. But Jack posted using Taylor's computer that night talking about what a great night it was and how he loved being with his Bogleheads and so forth.

And the next thing you know, I got a request for Mel. When's the next one? Well, I had no idea that there was going to be more than one. But-- Well, now you know there is. Yeah, so I was approached by someone who I didn't know from the forum.

But he had inherited a farm in Pennsylvania near Vanguard. So he offered his farm, and he wanted to host the Bogleheads for the second reunion. So at that time, when he got in touch with me, I told him, I'm leaving for Florida. I'll be gone for three months. When I get back, we'll get together, and we'll talk about it.

After I got back from Florida, I called, and they told me that he had died while I was in Florida. So I said, oh, well, just forget about it. And his family would not let it go. They said they wanted to do it in his honor because that's what he wanted.

So our second reunion was at his farm in Pennsylvania near Vanguard. And several things happened there. Jack took us on a tour of Vanguard, was our Vanguard tour director. And Jason Zweig covered that for Money magazine. He was with Money magazine at that time. And we ended up with a six- or eight-page spread in Money magazine titled "Here Come the Bogleheads." And it's still available online.

And that was the start of what continued to be, or what turned out to be, an annual or almost annual event. We had the next one in conjunction with the Money Start Conference in Chicago. The next one was in conjunction with the CFA Institute. We had another one with the Money Show.

So all of the ones we did initially, other than the first two, were done in conjunction with shows where Jack was appearing. In 2005-- and we couldn't find anywhere that Jack was appearing. So then Jack got in touch with me and said, Mel, when's our next conference? And I said, well, we're trying to find something where you're speaking and tie in with that.

And that's when Jack said, I don't care about where I'm speaking. I'll go wherever you guys want me. And that was that we broke away from the shows and started doing our own shows. We went to DC. Then we went to San Diego. And then after that, we went Dallas-Fort Worth.

And Dallas-Fort Worth was a really touching event because Jack was in the hospital. Jack had made every one of our events. And he told us that he wanted to speak to the crowd. So we put a phone line in and wired it into the ballroom. And Jack called in at the appointed time.

Don't ask me how he got a phone in intensive care in the hospital. But anyway, Jack called in. And he talked to us for about 15 minutes. So that was the only one that Jack missed. But being concerned for his health, I thought that it best that we would keep him in Philadelphia so Jack didn't have to travel.

And so all the conferences since then have been held in Philadelphia where Jack has not had to go cross-country or travel at all other than from his home. So Mel, I understand that getting to one of these conferences is a pretty hot ticket in that there's a limited seating.

And in order to go to the conference, as soon as the invitation goes out on the internet, out on the Vogelheads forum, they have to almost immediately reserve their spot because these tickets are gone within a day. And there's a reason for that. We started out the first conference with about 20, 22 people.

And we liked the intimacy. So I kept trying to enlarge the crowd a little bit at a time to find out if we were going to lose that intimate feeling where people got a chance to talk to Jack and the authors that were there and so forth. So we went from 20 to somewhere around 40 for the second one, maybe 60 for the third, 80.

And finally, we got to 200. And at that point, I felt that anything larger than that, we would lose the personal touch. So we now sell about 225 tickets. And they go-- sometimes they've gone in as little as six hours. This year, we sold out again despite the fact that Jack is not going to be there.

We still sold out in less than one day. And we have a waiting list for people who are hoping that they can get in. But we feel that the 200, somewhere around 200, is the ideal number because people got to talk to Jack. They got to talk to people like you and Bill Bernstein and all of the authors and the people whose books they've read.

And it just works out that they get a chance to meet them and talk to them. And we feel that that's one of the real important parts of the event. I actually think I could sell out Yankee Stadium. But we don't want that kind of event, like Warren Buffett's event, where you have thousands and thousands and tens of thousands of people there.

But I just like the intimate feeling. And everybody agreed that that was the ideal setup. So yes, the tickets are scarcer than hen's teeth. But one thing that you did set up several years ago was local chapters so that people could go locally and have the same intimate feeling and talk about a lot of the same topics.

Which, by the way, I wanted to clarify, the Bogleheads is not about Vanguard. I mean, Jack Bogle was the founder of Vanguard. But the Bogleheads is not a Vanguard fan club. It espouses the virtues of Jack Bogle, not necessarily Vanguard. Well, Vanguard says we're their biggest fans and their biggest critics.

And that's probably true. The reason we like Vanguard and mention Vanguard a lot is because of the low cost and their indexing and so forth and their corporate structure, which the way it's set up is unique. But we have mentioned and we feel that there are certainly other places, especially when people don't have access to Vanguard, there are other companies that we respect.

But the main thing we look for is low cost, because cost matters. And of course, we are fans of indexing. But there are other companies, and we mention them in some of our books. So if Vanguard does something wrong, they're going to hear about it, and they're going to read about it on the bogleheads.org forum.

So we are friends. We've probably driven tons and tons and billions, possibly, of money to Vanguard simply because we were getting people out of bad situations into good situations. But we also recommend Fidelity and some of the other places where they have good choices available. I think that, in many ways, Vanguard was the leader, and it's really helped to drive down cost everywhere.

But it's become, in many ways, more of a level playing field where you have indexing products at Schwab, Fidelity. You've got ETF companies like iShares. Everyone has come way down in price and access to extremely low cost index investing. And of course, Vanguard was the leader driving that. I agree, a lot of people don't have access to Vanguard.

But there are a lot of good funds and a lot of good companies everywhere now, because it has become much more of a level playing field. Exactly, and I credit Jack. And our message has gotten across, too. I'm sure that we had some impact on that, the bogleheads forums have.

So it's good. It's good for all investors, whether they are at Vanguard or Fidelity or at Schwab or wherever they are. It's good that they're focusing on costs. So we feel that we might have had some little-- played a little part in that. That was Jack's mission. And what we tried to do is carry on Jack's mission and spread the word.

So helping to spread the word, let's talk about local chapters. A lot of people can't make it to the annual conference or they can't get a ticket to the annual conference. But there are local chapters now all over the country. In fact, even all over the world now, chapters have begun.

Yeah, that's one of the things that I'm proudest of is setting these chapters up. We have close to 100 now. And we have them in foreign countries. I think we have six, maybe six or seven foreign chapters. And we have chapters all around the country. And these chapters meet on their own.

And they do basically what we do in the conference. They get together and they talk about things that they're interested in. We do not dictate their meeting frequency or their agendas or anything. They're kind of on their own. But usually, I try to pick a coordinator from the forum.

And the members come from the forum. So it's an extension of the forum, but where people get to meet in person and talk about things that are important to them and find out that there are other people just like them in Sioux Falls, Idaho, or wherever it happens to be.

I think it's really great because it also brings in other people. It brings spouses in. A lot of the conference, a lot of the Bogo Heads local chapter meetings, couples come. And it brings maybe a spouse in that's not really interested in learning about investing. But it's a social event, too.

And they go and they pick up and say, oh, this is interesting. So I think it's a great extension of our forum and our conferences. And it's one of the things that I am most satisfied in the way it turned out. And there are even local chapters overseas in several countries.

And I understand that some of these countries are even starting their own Bogo Heads conferences now. Yes, and some of them, they send me information on these. And some of these things look like they are bigger than our conferences because they don't put a limit on it. And I've seen some of these things in stadium seating that looks like it goes forever.

So that's the United Arab Emirates in Dubai. But we have-- and in one of the conferences, when I was doing book signings at one of our conferences, when I was doing book signings, a guy came up to me and handed me a book. And I didn't recognize the book.

And it turns out that he was giving me the book. He was the chapter leader in Taiwan. So yeah, I mean, we've had people from some of the other countries come over, some of the local chapters come to our conferences. So it's a great thing. I really think that Taylor and I can be really proud of the little seed we planted and the way it's grown, and just so many people that are getting involved, like you and Bill Bernstein and all of the other people.

Jason has been a good friend of the Bogoheads. He's written so many great columns about it. Jonathan Clements has always been a Bogoheads favorite, writing his columns in The Wall Street Journal. And Christine Benz, too, from Morningstar. It's been so great to see all of these people who have large readerships spreading the message, too.

So-- Mel, you mentioned books several times. Can you talk about the different Bogohead books? And you talked about the authors. Can you talk about the authors? Initially, I got a call, and the guy identified himself as Bill Faloon from Lolly Publishing. And he said, I'd like you to do a book.

And I'm thinking, I know there are hundreds of thousands of people who've written books and can't get them published. And I get a guy calling me out of the blue asking me to write a book. I hung up on him. I thought it was a hoax. So he wouldn't take no for an answer.

He kept calling back. And one time, he called back, and he mentioned-- he said, don't hang up, Taylor Larimore. And when he said Taylor, I figured, well, he must know something. Anyway, it was Bill Faloon from Wally Publishing, a legitimate publisher, who wanted us to do a book. And I was leery of doing a book because I told him, there are tons and tons of books out there written by people who are much, much smarter than we are.

And why would you want somebody like us to write a book? I said, the only way I will write a book is if we can assume that people know nothing. And we are going to write at that level because books like Bill Bernstein's first book, with all the math in it, I said, it's a brilliant book.

He's a brilliant guy. But if people can't understand it, they just put the book down. Their eyes glaze over. It goes right over their head. And the book is not useful. So there are plenty of those kinds of books out there for the people who want the high end.

I said, the only way I would consider doing it would be if we could write at a level that assumed people knew nothing. So they agreed to that. So we agreed to do the book. We brought Michael LaBoeuf in as a co-author. And the three of us did the book.

Well, the book was successful in the US. And it started being published in foreign languages. And I was getting books showing up in a box on my porch that I didn't recognize. And it turned out they were the foreign version. So the book has been very successful. And it's been printed in a number of different languages.

And hopefully, our message, Jack Bogle's message, is getting spread around the world. But the book, one of the things that I'm most proud of is when I read the reviews on Amazon where people say that I could understand the book. They didn't talk down to me, which means we were on target because that's exactly the audience that we wanted, people who needed guidance and didn't feel that this was rocket science.

So the first Bogleheads book is still out there. It's now in its second printing, if I'm not mistaken, or its second edition. There was another book. And I know there was another book because I was involved in the other book. You certainly were, you and the queen of the Bogleheads, Laura, and Taylor, and I.

And I thought this was the perfect opportunity to display the talents of the people who were on the Bogleheads forum. So what we did is created the outline. And we had people volunteer to write a chapter. Sometimes it was two or three people work together on a chapter where they had expertise.

So that book is a showcase of the talents that are on the Bogleheads.org forum. Every chapter in there was written by people who are on the forum and give free advice. And our job was to put it all together and make it read like one person wrote it. But each person got credit for the chapters they wrote in the chapter.

So it was a community effort. And I'm very proud of the way that book turned out. So just to clarify for me, if you will, the title of the first book and then the title of the second book. The first book was The Bogleheads Guide to Investing. And the second book was The Bogleheads Guide to Retirement Planning.

There's a third book now, which Taylor put out, which is The Bogleheads Guide to the Three Fund Portfolio. It was his lifelong effort, if you will. So let's continue to move on and talk about how the Bogleheads continues to expand in many different directions. And one, which is incredibly impressive, is the amount of information and content that is available on the Bogleheads wiki site.

Oh, yeah, that's a treasure trove of information. And it is, again, a joint effort by people, knowledgeable people, knowledgeable Bogleheads, who volunteer to write the articles, to edit the articles, to keep them up to date. And this will live on long, long after we're all gone. And hopefully people are making use of it.

We're getting lots of reads and hits on it. And it just continues to expand. And more and more people are becoming wiki editors. And it's just an extension, if you will, of The Bogleheads Guide to Retirement Planning, which showcased a number of authors. This is showcasing the wealth of knowledge that's available on the Bogleheads Forum on a regular, everyday basis.

Not only does it have retirement planning information, but there's 529 plans. There's all kinds of information about the tax efficiency of various Vanguard funds and other ETFs. Just you name it, if you're looking for good quality, unbiased, uncommercial information about low-cost investing, I mean, the Boglehead wiki is just a phenomenal resource.

I just can't get over how much information is there. And it's free. And you can read it at your pace. There's another thing there, too. If you wanted to see the history of the Bogleheads conferences, there's videotapes on there. You can go right through the history of all the conferences and so forth.

In the early days, we had transcripts of what happened, what was said, what Jack talked about, the Q&As and so forth. So there's a wealth of information there, both from a historical standpoint, going back to the first Bogleheads conference, up through today's. So you could spend hours and hours and hours on there and never, ever begin to touch all the information that's available there.

I highly recommend it to people who have time to read and want to study. And sometimes you have to read before you even know what the questions are. So you can read some of that information. And then you can go on the forum and ask a question about it.

And you might be getting an answer from the same person who wrote the wiki article. I also want to add that it's not only in the US now. The wiki has extended internationally. There is a Canadian web ring. There's other countries now that are adding content to the wiki.

It's just phenomenal. We now have a Spanish forum. And we have a United Arab Emirates forum. So these are subforums now on our forum where people come on bogleheads.org from the United Arab Emirates. And they talk to each other. Some people who are in the US wanting to go to the retarded Emirates, they're learning about investing there.

So there are subforums on our main forum for Spain and Canada and the United Arab Emirates now. So yes, our reach is international, both in the chapters, but also on the main forum now. I'd also like to add that I had guests from the UK on the Bogleheads forum last month.

And Robin Powell from the UK is interested in starting a UK forum on the Bogleheads. So hopefully, we can connect that together. Because there's a lot of people in the UK now, especially with all the changes of the laws over there, where indexing and low-cost investing now is just starting to become very popular.

So this Bogleheads phenomenon, the Bogleheads wiki, the bogleheads.org site, the conferences, the local chapters is just growing and growing. I do want to make one plug for something that's on the wiki that's called "Taylor's Gems," which Taylor has spent years collecting, reading books. And maybe you could comment on that.

It's just an incredible collection that Taylor has put together. Taylor used to go to the library-- I think it was every Saturday-- and read books. And he has read so many books over the years. And he picks out key elements, things that strike him as being important. And he makes notes of these.

And they're called "Taylor's Gems." And each book that he reads, he might end up with 20, or 30, or even 50 of "Taylor's Gems." And when he posts these on the forum, they're available now for everybody. And basically, this is Taylor's summary of whatever book it was he read.

So if you want to get the key elements of any particular book, all you have to do is look through "Taylor's Gems." And you'll find something that really strikes your interest. Then you go get the book. I was just on the wiki site. And there's lists of dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of investment books and finance books for individual investors.

And next to it are "Taylor's Gems." So if you want to just read a little bit about what the book's about, you can just click on "Taylor's Gems." And you can read. Because he's already read it. If it's out there, he's read it. And he's taken notes. And he's putting them up there on the bogleheads.org forum.

And also, the people who are putting up content for the wiki have taken his gems and have put them on the wiki. And by the way, the transcripts from these podcasts that I'm doing are also now being put up on the wiki. So everything's up there. These are things that are going to be available for people long after we're gone.

And I'm so thrilled to see all this happening. And your podcasts are-- that's today. Today, people want to listen to podcasts. And it's great. I mean, you're doing a super job. And I'm really thankful for you stepping up and doing this. It's just another tool in our tool belt of educating investors.

Yep, it's people helping people. So Mel, just to be very clear, the Bogleheads are a non-commercial site. And there is no one getting paid. And also, a lot of this is part of the nonprofit organization. So could you talk about those two things? Yeah, the Bogleheads forum, no one gets paid for giving advice.

No one gets paid for commercials. No one in the Bogleheads organization makes any money. No one is paid anything. The same thing is true for the John C. Bogleheads Center for Financial Literacy. It's a nonprofit 501(c)(3) corporation approved by the IRS. We can take donations. And we use our donations to help support the forum.

And for educational purposes, to try to spread the word any way we can. And also, the Bogleheads Center puts on the annual conferences. Mel, you've done a fabulous job. You and Taylor have done a fabulous job getting the Bogleheads up and running and just pushing this thing along for 20 years.

You're to be commended. It's a crusade that Jack started. And it's turned into a freight train that just keeps on picking up boxcars and moving faster and faster down the track. In the 20 plus years I've been involved in it, it went from a really small thing to what I feel now is something that will carry on long after I'm gone.

And we've got people like you and others that are spreading the message. And hopefully, you guys will be carrying it on after we're gone. But you can outlive me, Mel, so I don't have to worry about that. Well, my goal is, Rick-- I know you're a pickleball player. And you're a higher ranked pickleball player than I am.

However, I'm pretty good for my age. And I can hold my own. And there's not many guys my age that can keep up with me. My goal is to be playing pickleball at 100. Well, that would be great. And I'm doing everything I can to stay in shape. I play pickleball a couple hours a day.

I walk four miles on the beach. And I'm doing all I can to reach my goal. I told Taylor, I said, Taylor, I'll make a deal with you. I'll come to your 100th if you come to my 100th. Taylor, of course, we have to clarify, Taylor is 95 or 96 years old?

Yeah, he is, and I'm 81, so. Mel, I really appreciate the time today that you've taken and what you've done to help investors educate themselves and avoid all the biases that take place out there, all the noise that happens out there. And thank you for everything you've done for continuing to spread the word.

And I know you're going to be doing this for a long, long time. Well, Rick, it's been great being with you. And I want to thank you for your service and for everything you've done for the Bogleheads. You're an important part, and I'm looking forward to seeing you in October in Philly.

Thank you, Mel. This concludes the 11th episode of Bogleheads on investing. I'm your host, Rick Ferry. Join us each month to hear a new special guest. In the meantime, visit bogleheads.org and the Bogleheads Wiki. Participate in the forum and help others find the forum. Thanks for listening. (upbeat music)