Bernstein, William J. 1949(?)-

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Bernstein, William J. 1949(?)-

PERSONAL: Born c. 1949, in Philadelphia, PA; married; children: three children. Education: University of California, Berkeley, Ph.D.; University of California, San Francisco, M.D.

ADDRESSES: Office—Efficient Frontier Advisors LLC, P.O. Box 237, Eastford, CT 06242; fax: 541-756-3774.

CAREER: Financial advisor and neurologist. Practiced medicine in Oregon for twenty-five years; Efficient Frontier (Web site), founder; Efficient Frontier Advisors LLC, Eastford, CT, co-founder with Susan F. Sharin, and principal.

WRITINGS:

The Intelligent Asset Allocator: How to Build Your Portfolio to Maximize Returns and Minimize Risk, McGraw Hill (New York, NY), 2000.

The Four Pillars of Investing: Lessons for Building a Winning Portfolio, McGraw Hill (New York, NY), 2002.

The Birth of Plenty: How the Prosperity of the Modern World Was Created, McGraw Hill (New York, NY), 2004.

SIDELIGHTS: William J. Bernstein became a financial advisor after practicing medicine for eighteen years as a neurologist. He told Money magazine contributor Aravind Adiga that eighty-hour weeks treating patients, including many he lost to Parkinson's disease or Alzheimer's, burned him out. Then Bernstein took in a partner, cut his hours, and began to do more with his family. His new schedule also gave him more time to learn how to invest his savings, and after five years of studying finance, he wrote his first book, The Intelligent Asset Allocator: How to Build Your Portfolio to Maximize Returns and Minimize Risk. Because there was no interest in publishing a book on finance penned by a physician, in 1996 Bernstein created the Web site Efficient Frontier, and posted the book online. He attracted a following that included investors and finance professors, and in 2000, McGraw Hill published his work.

As Adiga explained, "showing the dazzling intellectual versatility that's made Efficient Frontier a must-click website for finance connoisseurs, Bernstein's articles explore such topics as why value stocks outperform growth stocks, the importance of concrete to financial progress and how to clean up the ethical cesspool of Wall Street." Adiga added that Bernstein "can talk of things that will make your heart stop: Why your retirement portfolio could be in worse trouble than you think. Why the people we're relying on to fix our problems—the financial services industry—are unlikely to get us out of this mess. Finally, why we are our own worst enemies as investors, and what we can do about it."

Bernstein's The Four Pillars of Investing: Lessons for Building a Winning Portfolio was published in 2002. Called "a solid review" by Library Journal critic Susan C. Awe, the book discusses the four pillars that include the theory, history, psychology, and business of investing.

Bernstein's third book, The Birth of Plenty: How the Prosperity of the Modern World Was Created, is a historical look at how property rights, scientific rationalism, capital markets, and modern transporta-tion and communication create prosperity and human progress. Bernstein profiles countries that have been successful, including Japan and Holland, and considers why others, such as those in Latin America and Africa, have not. He notes that from the beginning of recorded history until 1820, the standard of living for nearly all humans changed very little. It was with the invention of the locomotive and the telegraph, shipbuilding, and the creation of currencies that lives became changed.

A Publishers Weekly contributor called The Birth of Plenty "a vital, living text—a cogent, timely journey through the economic history of the modern world," and concluded: "Bernstein's book is an authoritative economic history, accessible and thoroughly entertaining."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, April 15, 2004, David Siegfried, review of The Birth of Plenty: How the Prosperity of the Modern World Was Created, p. 1408.

Business Week, July 19, 1999, "Doctor's Orders," p. 140; August 12, 2002, Robert Barker, review of The Four Pillars of Investing: Lessons for Building a Winning Portfolio, p. 110.

Library Journal, March 15, 2003, Susan C. Awe, review of The Four Pillars of Investing, p. 64; May 15, 2004, Stacy Marien, review of The Birth of Plenty, p. 97.

Money, September 1, 2003, Aravind Adiga, "The Man Who Knows Too Much: Neurologist William Bernstein Has Some Unorthodox Ideas about What It Takes to Be a Good Investor," p. 94.

Publishers Weekly, April 5, 2004, review of The Birth of Plenty, p. 52.