Michael Bloomberg

Interview

• "Personalised information" (Rome, 12/01/96)

Biography

Michael Bloomberg is founder and president of a series of information and business news companies operating in various media: Bloomberg Financial Markets, which supplies dedicated terminals for financial information, Bloomberg Direct, a satellite TV station, Bloomberg News Radio, a local radio station in New York and Bloomberg, a monthly magazine.

Born in 1941, Bloomberg graduated in economics and engineering from Harvard; which allowed him to understand how to generate the data needed by financial operators. In 1966 he was employed at Salomon Brothers, first as head of the bond market, then as head of systems. Shortly after being dismissed by Salomon Brothers, in 1981 Bloomberg moved to Merrill Lynch with the idea of an online share system. Merrill Lynch helped him develop the idea in exchange for 30% of the shares and 20 terminals. Although Merrill Lynch initially agreed not to compete with the service, connections to the service grew rapidly and by 1994 there were 40,000 connections. By comparison Reuters had a base of over 260,000 terminals. In 1993 new television and radio information companies were formed. Many competitors in the field of manipulable data-bases appeared, but Bloomberg became the standard due to the depth of information offered, the historical data and quotations contained, the ease of use, the number of services offered and the size of the potential client base. Bloomberg's ambition is to become like its rivals, Reuters and Dow Jones Telerate, a brand-name in the filed of financial information.