Working Up The Masthead

Matthew Schifrin has had a spectacular career. After completing an internship with the Financial News Network (which later merged into CNBC), Schifrin joined Forbes Magazine as a fact checker.

“I worked my way up the masthead of Forbes as a reporter and as a writer, and then as an editor, mostly focusing on financial topics and investing,” he told Benzinga during a recent interview.

In 1999, Schifrin created an offshoot publication for Forbes called Forbes Best of the Web, “which reviewed thousands of websites and basically came up with a list of what we consider Forbes' favorites.”

Not surprisingly, most of them were financial and investing sites. One of Schifrin's favorites was called Marketocracy. “They had a proposition that they'll give you a million dollars of virtual money, and they want you to run a portfolio,” he said. “They will hold you to the same standards as a real mutual fund manager. Their proposition was that if you do really well, they'll raise real money for you to manage.”

Schifrin said that when he first saw that site one decade ago, he was really intrigued. “I wrote an article, ‘Will The Web Produce The Next Warren Buffett?'”

Ten years later, Schifrin believes that Marketocracy.com and other websites have helped him identify some amazing individual investors. “We're talking 30% on average and more for some of these investors,” he said. “What my book [offers] is profiles of 10 of these great, individual, self-directed investors.”

To hear more from the Forbes VP and Investment Editor – including his doubts about money managers – don't miss Benzinga's full interview with Matthew Schifrin.