Why Google's Multitude of Multimillionaires Stay Rich

This afternoon I came across a fascinating story relating to my earlier post about all the new wealth at Google.

The best investment advice you'll never get appeared in last December's San Francisco magazine:

As Google’s historic August 2004 IPO approached, the company’s senior vice president, Jonathan Rosenberg, realized he was about to spawn hundreds of impetuous young multimillionaires. They would, he feared, become the prey of Wall Street brokers, financial advisers, and wealth managers, all offering their own get-even-richer investment schemes. Scores of them from firms like J.P. Morgan Chase, UBS, Morgan Stanley, and Presidio Financial Partners were already circling company headquarters in Mountain View with hopes of presenting their wares to some soon-to-be-very-wealthy new clients.

Rosenberg didn’t turn the suitors away; he simply placed them in a holding pattern. Then, to protect Google’s staff, he proposed a series of in-house investment teach-ins, to be held before the investment counselors were given a green light to land.

The teachers were among the greatest investment thinkers and scholars:
Nobel Laureate Bill Sharpe
Random Walker Burton Malkiel
And, of course, "Saint Jack," the Old Tiger himself, John Bogle.

Those poor brokers, private bankers and assorted wealth managers waiting in the wings! They must have had tough sledding when they finally got to make their sales pitches.