A letter from The Motley Fool co-founder David Gardner

Where you focus on life matters. The attention you give to your family, to your job, to your hobbies, to investing, is powerful. Because your focus is powerful, it must be intentional.

Much of my job and my life has been choosing actions for you, my foolish companions. It all started in July 1993 when my brother Tom, our buddy Erik and I started the print newsletter The Motley Fool. For more years than I ever imagined (including 19 with Stock market advisor and 16 with Rule breakers) I’ve worked with many talented freaks to give members three picks per month, as well as top 10 now buys per month. Starter stocks every year too! Month after month, year after year.

Like I said, where you focus on life matters, and now I choose to steer away from the stock market and invest time in other businesses. After nearly 30 years of public stock selection, this is not a decision I have taken lightly.

I have love do it, and I loved the companies I recommended. Most of all, I loved the people and their stories: people like you who took a risk, called themselves fools, and became rule breakers with me!

While some things will change here at The Motley Fool, many will remain the same.

In the coming month, I will hand over my title selection responsibilities to some incredibly talented teams who have worked alongside me for years. These are people you already know because they were longtime analysts for The Motley Fool, people who know my approach at least as well as I do. The Rule Breaker philosophy and the framework in place will not change and I expect our team to continue racking up the victories for you.

I remain co-chair of The Motley Fool and Chief Rule Breaker. For life, I wait. I will continue to speak to members and the public, and continue my weekly podcast, Invest to break the rules.

I am also thrilled to be President of the Motley Fool Foundation, our public charity that is beginning to work with you to unlock the financial freedom of so many others. Tom and I want to bring “smarter, happier, richer” not just to those who can afford a Motley Fool membership today, but to ALL.

Now there is one last thing I would like to say about the future of The Motley Fool. Another reason I am inspired to focus on new opportunities is the health of our business.

Thanks to you, our members and the prosperity we co-create, our company is not only the strongest in its history, but it is fast becoming one of the strongest companies in all of global finance. . We are a private company, private by intention, with a still largely unknown history. Thanks to my brother Tom and our management team, we are in a better position than ever to guide individual investors through this incredible new world of possibilities.

I hope your life has been enriched by mine. I hope I made you smarter, happier and richer. And while the next 27 years of my life won’t be so focused on the stock market, for me and for you, the many gains we’ve made together are real and will continue.

So, to close for now, I want to thank you for having suffered this madman with joy for these many years.