David Booth

An American businessman, philanthropist, and investor, David Gilbert Booth is the co-founder of Dimensional Fund Advisors, which he started with colleague Rex Sinquefield in 1981. He currently resides as the company’s chairman, and has several other career highlights of note.

Meant for Investing

Beginning his higher education at the University of Kansas, he received his B.A. in economics in 1968 and his M.S. in business in 1969. Following those achievements, he then went to the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, where he would stay until 1971 when he left with his M.B.A. degree. He said of this educational journey, “The University of Chicago basically plucked me out of Kansas and put me on this trajectory ...Sometimes I wonder, why me? But it happened.”

During his time here, he crossed paths with two notable individuals. The first is someone we’ve written about before: Eugene Fama, who he was a research assistant to. The second was his future business partner, Rex Sinquefield.

Notable Achievements and Dates

When discussing David Booth’s achievements, it’s difficult not to mention his key role in creating Dimensional Fund Advisors, a privately held company that has seen major success since its inception over four decades ago. However, he has plenty of other achievements to his name.

• Published multiple research articles, the most notable being a Graham and Dodd Award of Excellence winner: Diversification Returns and Asset Contributions
• Served on several institutional boards
  • Becker Friedman Institute Advisory Board
  • Hoover Institution Board of Overseers
  • Triple Aught Foundation Board of Directors
  • Georgetown University Board of Directors
• Net worth of $2 billion as of August 2021

In addition to his career positions, Booth is well-known for his philanthropic efforts, many of which served to aid educational institutions. In 2014, he supported the Booth Center for Special Collections at Georgetown's Lauinger Library with a $3 million donation. In 2017, he donated over $50 million to the renovation of the football stadium at the University of Kansas. Then, in 2019, Booth gifted $10 million to the University of Texas at Austin to aid in the construction of the Giant Magellan Telescope.

We could go on and on, but suffice it to say the achievements and contributions of David Booth go far beyond Dimensional Fund Advisors.