July 5, 2011<\/p>\n
To Principals and Veterans:<\/strong><\/p>\n After Sixty Years of Past Service, Looking to the Future<\/strong><\/p>\n I can still remember my first day on the job at our predecessor company (Wellington Management). It was July 5, 1951, as I walked into our offices at 1420 Walnut Street in Philadelphia, where Wellington employed about 60 people. I had the same aspirations and apprehensions that any young person would feel. It was my first full-time job, but I\u2019d been working at part-time jobs year-round since I was about ten years old, and also worked while attending Blair Academy and Princeton University. So I knew what work was all about\u2014doing whatever job I was assigned to the best of my ability; seeking and accepting responsibility; always doing more than was expected of me; and treating those with whom I worked with kindness and trust.<\/p>\n That proved to be a pretty sound framework for my long career, and served me well through times of accomplishment as well as times of failure; of keen perceptions and embarrassing misjudgments; of days of hearty health and days of illness, often severe. But you know most of these vicissitudes, for I\u2019ve written about them all in my voluminous outpouring of essays, speeches, and books. I\u2019m already working on yet another: The Clash of the Cultures: Investment vs. Speculation, continuing my role as Vanguard ambassador and investor advocate, with \u201cCommon Sense\u201d as my theme.<\/p>\n Vanguard at 100<\/strong><\/p>\n But at this 60-year milestone, I\u2019m less interested in looking back than looking forward. In fact, I\u2019m already thinking about Vanguard\u2019s 100th Anniversary, dating back to the founding of our first fund, Wellington Fund, on December 28, 1928. Coincidentally, I recently came across a speech I gave way back in 1992 entitled \u201cVanguard: The First Century.\u201d That was a brassy (maybe even arrogant) theme, for remarkably few companies in the annuals of American business and finance have passed that stern test.<\/p>\n In the near-two-decade span since I gave that speech, virtually all of my predictions for us have been met, as you\u2019ll see. (EXHIBIT A<\/a> includes excerpts from that speech.) I\u2019m confident that\u2014with our strong human values and our simple investment strategies\u2014the (mere!) 17 years that remain before Vanguard\u2019s first century is completed will be an era of continuing growth and service to investors.<\/p>\n IBM At 100<\/strong><\/p>\n