Masters in Business · Friday, September 4, 2026
Former Vanguard CEO Bill McNabb attributed his career trajectory to luck and strong mentors, rather than innate brilliance. He shared that his initial attraction to Vanguard was based on gut feeling and shared values, despite then-CEO Jack Bogle's frank assessment of the firm's limited growth prospects at the time.
“So there's an old saying that it's better to be lucky than smart.”
“And that really did apply. I got very lucky, Barry, in terms of just opportunities that happened to come across, come my way. And I had incredible mentors who sort of helped take those opportunities and make more of them than maybe they would have been otherwise. And one thing led to another.”
“So I did it really based on gut and intuition. At the time, and so when I interviewed with Jack Bogle, the funny story was he had data, pulled out a bunch of stuff, and he's like, we just crossed $ 15 billion under management, and I have no idea how we're going to get to 20. So I don't know why you would come here. You're doing big things on Wall Street. And I didn't even really have a response.”