Tom Bernard finished undergrad at Berkeley, he holds an MBA from The Wharton School of Business, as well as a Masters in Taxation.
He has spent over 3 decades in finance and has taught personal finance at the City College of San Francisco.
Born and raised in California, Tom lives in San Francisco with his family and is very close to being a free-birder (as opposed to empty nester).
When he’s not talking money, teaching, looking at real estate or advising clients you can find him in the water… an average swimmer, a mediocre sailor and a beginner surfer.
Tom Bernard Vroom Vroom Veer Summary
Jeff sits down with Tom Bernard, author of The Index of America, to talk about why the S&P 500 has become his go-to long-term investment. Tom shares his winding path through personal finance—early speculative bets, real estate headaches, and leveraged funds gone wrong—before settling on a simple “set and forget” approach with index investing.
They dig into the S&P 500's history and eligibility rules (timely given SpaceX's IPO that day), the power of dividends and buybacks, compound growth over decades, and how the 4% retirement withdrawal rule holds up under scrutiny. Tom also shares a case study showing how Nevada's public pension fund thrived using the S&P 500 as its sole U.S. equity holding.
Bottom line: invest in yourself, control your expenses, automate your contributions, and ignore the noise.
Connections
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