IB founder. Thomas Peterffy was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1944, in a hospital basement during a Russian air raid.[2][3][4][5] He emigrated to the United States as refugee in 1965 to escape communism. Peterffy abandoned engineering studies when he emigrated.[2][3][4][7] When he first moved to New York City, he did not speak English. Peterffy began his career in the United States as an architectural draftsman working on highway projects for an engineering firm. It was at this firm that he volunteered to program a newly purchased computer, ultimately shaping the course of his future. Of his background in programming Peterffy said, "I think the way a CEO runs his company is a reflection of his background. Business is a collection of processes, and my job is to automate those processes so that they can be done with the greatest amount of efficiency."[2][3] Peterffy abandoned his career designing financial modelling software and bought his own seat on the American Stock Exchange to trade equity options. During his career in finance he has consistently pushed to replace manual processes with more efficient automated ones. Peterffy would write code in his head during the trading day and then apply his ideas to computerized trading models after hours. Peterffy created a major stir among traders by introducing handheld computers onto the trading floor in the early 1980s.[2][3] Peterffy's business related to his AMEX seat eventually developed into Interactive Brokers.[2][3] His net worth is $6.4B I have similar experience with him. I am an immigrant and I was once a software engineer before I started trading. I think he is my hero. set a good role model example for me.
The same holds true for me,but I believe our experience can't be compared to Peterffy's because of problems: the ones he had to face were probably much tougher than ours. For example,my immigration process was a breeze,I don't think his immigration was easy.
Yes a remarkable success story, but maybe as is often the case we only know the story told by the media, and you know how they spin things to sell a good story, keeps the american dream alive and it sells. Now it is my opinion that the gentleman was mistaken with his ads against Obama and "socialism". When you are that succesful you should also recognize the role of luck in your success and that not everybody is so lucky, although I can understand his point, ranting in public against redistribution when you are a billionaire and comparing Obama to the communism and socialsim of Europe must have looked out of place to many . Especially with the then alternative to Obama, a private equity WASP guy part of the 1% from a party that started two wars.
In 2007, the company issued 40,000,000 shares or approximately 10% of the capital of Brokers Group LLC in a public offering, at a price of US$30.01 per share. The company's shares trade on the Nasdaq stock exchange
I don't know Peterffy, but from his interview I understand he is against socialism because he was shocked from what he saw when he was a child. I know people from Eastern Europe that describe socialism as a nightmare. Actually the american dream was built on opposition of the failure of communism in Russia and eastern countries. Even if there may be other ways of applying redistribution, what matters is what you see and what scares you when you're a child.
Socialism is the first stage of communism , which in theory is the perfect system , but can not work , or implemented in real life. Same goes to capitalism , free market economy works , but in the end it gets destroyed by the banking cartels , and interest rate manipulations.
still in shock he even was allowed to run the first time. everything since then is just more downhill.
Lucky? He came from dirt and was unlucky enough to be born in a country that was behind the iron curtain. Maybe, you should check out your surroundings, it's not that bad. You have a better chance just being born in the United States than well over 80% of the world. Literally just being in this country gives you a better chance than most people and you are stuck up, and dumb enough I would guess, to suppose that a person that had to immigrate here with nothing and didn't even speak the language is some how "luckier" than you or anyone else here? Get real, pal. I used to work with a bunch of illegal mexicans. After I got to be pretty good friends with them and they started to trust me enough to let me know they were illegal I asked them about how they get here and what it's like. The stories were harrowing that a few told me. People die to get into this country and you complain about how someone is "luckier" than you. You disgust me.