In this success post, we are going to share the story of Thomas Peterffy, a Hungarian born American billionaire businessman. He is the chairman, founder, and largest shareholder of Interactive Brokers.
Thomas Peterffy worked as an architectural draftsman after immigrating to the US and later became a computer programmer. In the year 1977, Thomas purchased a seat on the American Stock Exchange and played a major role in developing the first economic trading platform for the brokers and securities.
According to Forbes, he is the richest Hungarian and the richest person in entire Florida.
Thomas Peterffy Personal life
He is divorced with three children. But he is an avid equestrian. He lives in Palm Beach, Florida. In 2015 it was reported that he had listed his 80-acre Connecticut estate for $65 million, but it eventually sold for $21m.
Thomas Peterffy Early life and career
Thomas Peterffy was born in Budapest, Hungary, on the 30th of September 1944, in a hospital basement at the time of a Russian air raid. His father immigrated to the US after the failure of the Hungarian Revolution in the year 1956. Thomas , who went to Peterffy Tamas at the time, left his engineering studies in Hungary and immigrated to the US to rendezvous with his father in New York in the year 1965. When his father, who was living with his second wife, did not have room to accommodate his son, he gave Tamas $100 and told him to make something of himself. There began that would make a multi-billionaire out of a penniless refugee.
When he moved to New York City, he did not speak English. Peterffy begins his career in the US as an architectural draftsman working on highway projects for an engineering firm.
Peterffy left his career designing financial modelling software after a few months and bought a 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 and effective automated ones. He would write code in his head at the time of 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. His business-related to his AMEX seat eventually developed into interactive Brokers. He stepped down from the CEO in the year 2019.
Thomas Peterffy Net worth
Peterffy owns around 80% of the interactive brokers, and his net worth is around $20 billion as of January 2020.
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