I thought it was an excellent read, and I think it has some great points for anyone looking to do something with their money long term.
As I worked my way through the book, something tweaked a little neurone in my head, along with his own advice in the book, of having a healthy curiosity or even scepticism when someone is possibly getting something in return for pointing a customer in a certain direction.The reason I say this is because I started to see a constant name coming up.Namely vanguard! It cropped up so often i was beginning to take his own advice, and become a little sceptical. Hopefully in a healthy way.After all it is our money we are investing.
I am not saying the author Andrew Hallam is in anyway getting something from vanguard, but I took his advice, along with the voice from my nursing professor to always check your research for author Bias, because i was beginning to think maybe it was a Vanguard publication or some sort of collaboration.
Anyway, I wondered why vanguard constantly kept cropping up, as there are other passive funds which track the S&P 500 too.
So
I decided to look at the book a bit deeper, maybe I missed something.( yep, that meant reading the boring bits 
) and I noticed he gives credit to a person called John S Woerth who works at vanguard for providing the charts. So I typed his name into a search engine and he came up. His job responsibility is to lead the U.S. "Public Relations" and "Strategic Communications" section at Vanguard Ofcourse I expect Andrew Hallem to do research, contact people, and give credit to others, reference his sources when doing a piece in the world of finance and thankfully he does that. He discloses the relationship with John S Woerth at vanguard in the acknowledgment section as a person who provided charts ( hopefully not cherry picked) but that's all.
So I have to question,A) was this a collaboration between the author with some sort of encouragement from vanguard or B) was this the authors work alone, and he subsequently confirmed his findings by reaching out to vanguard himself with no financial benefits?
Anyway I believe the authors advice is sound, he doesn't say we should join vanguard at all, but the name is constantly dropped in, and I think it shows, according to Andrew Hallam, just to be a bit wary of person who keeps dropping a certain group/brand/product.
Because non of the other groups are listed.
Fidelity ZERO Large Cap Index
SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust
iShares Core S&P 500 ETF
Schwab S&P 500 Index Fund
I am certainly not in a position to know if vanguard is the best performer, compared to all the other funds there are, and maybe someone can confirm if they are. After all, he points out some groups will rise and some will fall.However I think it is certainly financially healthy to consider, if there is any possible conflict of interest, between the author, and reader that appears to drop a groups name in a publication more times than I care to mention.
Books/and financial papers don't have to go through the same rigorous peer review of say a scientific/medical publication or double blind research to offset any placebo/author, patient bias effect and declare if they have a conflict of interest.
I still liked the book, learnt some good things from it, and he does disclose the person who provided the charts works for vanguard, but as with any piece of research, always question who the author is, and consider if there is any "possible" author bias.
I enjoyed the book, easy to read, but it was interesting that this kept coming up in my mind, after all he didn't need to keep mentioning a brand per sae.
before the endowment, pension,PPI, etc etc.
