The Motley Fool is a private financial and investing advice company headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia. Founded in July 1993 by brothers David Gardner and Tom Gardner together with Todd Etter and Erik Rydholm, the company has grown from a one-page newsletter mailed from a backyard shed into a multimedia financial-services business that reaches millions of people each month through its website at fool.com, books, a syndicated newspaper column, radio programming, television appearances, podcasts, and a family of subscription newsletter services. Describing itself as a company dedicated to building the world’s greatest investment community, it champions shareholder values and advocates for the individual investor, and its flagship Stock Advisor service is one of the longest-running retail stock recommendation products in the United States.
Origins in a backyard shed
The company’s origin story is one of the most repeated in American personal finance media. The original Fool headquarters was an eight-by-twelve-foot shed in David Gardner’s backyard at 630 South Pitt Street in Alexandria, Virginia, whose previous tenants were a family of alley cats. From those humble beginnings, Tom and David Gardner, along with Tom’s college friend Erik Rydholm, set out to share their enthusiasm for investing. Their mission statement declared: “We are Fools, and we’re writing for fools, and we’re doing as motley a job of it as we can.” The founders assembled a mailing list from friends, family members, and a cousin’s wedding invitation list and mailed 1,000 copies of their first newsletter with a request to subscribe; 37 people signed up. The newsletter survived for a year and eventually served more than 300 readers, each paying 48 dollars for an annual subscription. Tom Gardner was 25 and David Gardner 23 when they started the company, shortly after graduating from college.
The meaning of the name
The name “Motley Fool” is taken from Shakespeare’s comedy As You Like It. It refers to the one character, the court jester, who could speak the truth to the Duke without having his head lopped off. The founders adopted the image of the wise fool who instructs and amuses while telling uncomfortable truths as the company’s guiding metaphor: a publisher that could speak plainly to ordinary investors about Wall Street, without deference to the industry’s conventions.
Early growth and the dot-com era
The company’s original online launch drew widespread press attention, including coverage in The Wall Street Journal and The New Yorker, and it struck a partnership with then-booming America Online. It prospered through the 1990s internet boom, but like many businesses of that era it suffered significant losses in the fallout from the dot-com market collapse in 2001. In the years that followed, the company found its footing again, expanding beyond its subscription newsletters into its own public blog, podcast network, and video content, while continuing to operate its paid advisory services. The Gardner brothers have remained at the company’s helm as co-chairmen, still running it from its headquarters in the Alexandria area near Washington, D.C.
The operating companies
Today The Motley Fool Holdings, Inc. operates through several businesses. The Motley Fool, LLC and its international subsidiaries provide free and premium investing advice and commentary. Motley Fool Asset Management, LLC advises the Motley Fool family of mutual funds and exchange-traded funds. Motley Fool Wealth Management, LLC provides personal investment advice and managed accounts to its clients. And Motley Fool Ventures is a member-based venture capital fund focused on early-stage private companies. The company employs more than 300 people worldwide, with some company profiles placing the figure above 360 employees, all colloquially known as “Fools.”
Stock Advisor and subscription services
The company’s best-known product is Stock Advisor, the subscription service through which its analysts publish stock recommendations each month. The service has been reviewed as suitable for investors with portfolios of at least 25,000 dollars and centers on a steady cadence of monthly stock picks supported by research write-ups and an active online investment community where subscribers discuss strategies and the official recommendations. The company’s subscription ladder builds upward from Stock Advisor: the Epic tier adds Rule Breakers, Hidden Gems, and Dividend Investor recommendations; Epic Plus adds further services; and the higher-priced Fool Portfolios and Fool One tiers include additional recommendation services and real-money portfolios, with options trading coverage at the upper tiers. The Motley Fool maintains a formal disclosure policy setting out its employees’ and the company’s positions in the stocks it covers.
Media presence
Beyond its paid services, The Motley Fool is a multimedia publisher. Its reach each month runs through its website, books, a syndicated newspaper column, a radio show, frequent television appearances by its analysts, and its subscription newsletters. The company’s podcast network includes Motley Fool Money and related investing shows, and its free online articles on stock analysis and personal finance draw one of the largest retail investing audiences on the web. This combination of free content and premium advice has defined the company’s funnel for three decades: educational investing journalism that leads interested readers toward the subscription services.
Investment philosophy
The company’s editorial stance is built around the individual investor. It champions shareholder values and advocates for ordinary shareholders against the interests of entrenched management and intermediaries, and its advice consistently favors long-term, buy-and-hold investing over frequent trading. Tom Gardner has summarized the philosophy in homespun maxims: don’t sell when you should be buying, don’t believe what you should have doubted, don’t shout while you should be learning, and don’t trade when you should be investing. The company describes its mission in broad terms as making the world smarter, happier, and richer, and it is a member of Conscious Capitalism, Inc., reflecting its founders’ positioning of the business as a values-driven enterprise.
International operations
The company serves readers in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Germany, Japan, and Hong Kong. Its international subsidiaries extend the Motley Fool brand’s investing advice and commentary to retail investors outside the United States, adapting the company’s long-term stock-picking approach to local markets while the Alexandria headquarters remains the center of the operation.
Ownership and company facts
The Motley Fool is privately held, with The Motley Fool, LLC listed as its owner. Its founders are David Gardner, Tom Gardner, Todd Etter, and Erik Rydholm; the Gardner brothers serve as co-chairmen and Tom Gardner has long held the chief executive role. The company was founded in July 1993 and keeps its headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia. Its website is fool.com, and its company type is classified as a financial advisory services website.
Influence and legacy
Over more than thirty years the Motley Fool has become one of the most recognizable names in American retail investing. Its shed-to-media-company origin story, its Shakespearean name, and its plainspoken stance toward Wall Street have made it a distinctive presence in financial media, and its subscription business model, pairing free educational content with paid stock recommendations, became a template widely copied by later investing publishers. John Mackey, the former chief executive of Whole Foods Market, has served on the company’s board of directors, underscoring the company’s standing within the broader business community it covers.
The Gardner brothers’ leadership
The Gardners still run the company they founded in 1993 from its headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia, in the Washington, D.C. area. David Gardner and Tom Gardner serve as co-chairmen, with Tom Gardner holding the chief executive role for much of the company’s history. Their continued leadership across three decades has kept the company’s founding mission, advocating tirelessly for the individual investor, at the center of its editorial and business decisions.
