Fidelity's Lynch on Ned Johnson
The Boston Globe writes about the recent news of Fidelity Investments Chairman Edward "Ned" Johnson retiring and Johnson's invention of check-writing for money market funds in a piece entitled, "Fidelity's Peter Lynch reflects on Ned Johnson." The article says, "On Johnson's 1974 decision to let Fidelity customers write checks from their money market mutual funds, a convenience that eventually became an industry standard; previously, customers had to go through a more complicated "redemption" process to access that money. It also paved the way for Fidelity to expand beyond asset management and into other financial services. "I remember so vividly that we all thought it was scary. I remember saying to Ned, 'People told me we can lose tens of millions of dollars on this [due to the cost of setting up the untested business],' and Ned said, 'You're right. We could lose lots of money on this, and everyone else has the same opinion, so they're not going to get into it. But if it works we could make lots of money. We have a huge potential winner here and it's worth it.' Everyone, including people in the company, were second-guessing him, and everybody else was afraid to do it and said it was a big mistake. And he said, 'That's true,' but still did it." See also, The Boston Globe's "'Ned' Johnson stepping down as Fidelity chairman."
