Burton Malkiel, the Princeton economist and author of “A Random Walk Down Wall Street,” says: “Index funds are so popular now that it’s easy to forget how courageous and tenacious Jack Bogle was in starting them. They were called Bogle’s Folly because all they did was replicate the returns of the market. But, of course, that’s a great deal. In the academic world many people saw the wisdom of this — but Jack is the guy who actually made it happen.”

Vanguard is really an inspiring company, which is all the more remarkable because of the industry they're in.

Apart from pioneering index funds, and from their strategy of observing a Nader-esque duty of loyalty to their customers, Vanguard is also unique because of its ownership structure, which is upside-down from what every other big mutual fund company uses: the funds themselves own The Vanguard Group (the company, which provides services to the funds), which mitigates an obvious principal/agent problem at financial firms.