First of all let me say thank you for this interview. Now, it was written to an entrepreneur, a lot of young entrepreneurs no how hard it can be and how rewarding it can be. So it really offers and encouragement to people to think, if i want to start my own business, i should do it. The other thing, i wanted to do it before i got too old and did not remember everything because looking at this change from when the sec dictated to the New York Stock Exchange to get rid of fixed commissions and going through all the technology was really an Inflection Point in our Financial Service industry and i wanted to tell the story from the inside so people would see a human aspect to it. The title, the harder you work, the luckier you get, is that tongueincheek or do you really believe that . I really did believe that because i happened so many times. I think sam gold wing was the first one that put that phrase together but as i was talking to the people at Simon Schuster said heres a problem and we work so hard, time and time again, the harder you work, the luckier you get, it just came out and sounded like it should be a good title. There was an amazing amount of hard work that you went there, i dont think somebody whos written a lot about the financial industry who worked on wall street for 20 years, myse myself. The story that you tell about building ameritrade and how hard it was was truly gripping. I have written books about the history of Goldman Sachs and i never got the impression in writing those histories of course i did not live through that it was over as tough as you experienced in building ameritrade. How did you do it. One thing that made it tough was lack of capital. We started with almost nothing in back in the 70s we had to send out a Financial Statement every six months to our customers and one of our customers called me and said i think i added tell you you left three zeros off your net worth. No, those are the real figures youre seeing. So we can only grow by the capital that we left in the business from our profits. So we also had to be careful about running the business so within the regulations of calculating our net capital and staying within those regulatio regulations, it was a constant struggle of balancing our income to make sure we had in income and then balancing it in three areas, how much can i put an advertising, how much do i need to make sure that the increase in a business will not exceed our net capital and how much can i put into hiring new employees and buying new equipment for them to use. That was a difficult balance for many, many years. I was going to say, that is what allowed us to grow as well as we did. But even after being in business 20 years when i saw the opportunity for the internet and the opportunity for advertising i said we do not have enough cash or money and we will not make it with internal funds, we will have to go public. That was at the time when i regrettably said if her going to stay in this industry and be a winner will have to have more capital and approval to go the public. Obviously that is a momentous decision and in the companys lifespan. You spoke about the momentousness of the big bang when six commissions went away and what that meant for your business. In my own writing and research on wall street, one of the most important moments in the history of wall street was when firms went public. And they went from being private partnerships of Public Companies covered obviously access to capital a lot easier but how do you feel, it sounds like you had regrets going public but you had to do it for the Capital Access the same thing couldve been said about Goldman Sachs, was something lost when you went public in your mind and how important do you think this idea of wall street going public is the way it changed the culture of wall street . For us, for me it was a very difficult decision because i had always wanted to leave a business for my family to operate after i retire and was gone and i knew if we went public it would be difficult to maintain the atmosphere of a family business. But at the same time, i also knew that we needed access to the capital in order to take advantage of the opportunity ahead, that turned out to be right. I figure we need 100 million for technology and 100 million for advertising. Both of those figures turned out to be low. So we went public at the right time with the right amount of capital to get us in for lack of a better term of the people we will be able to stay in business. At one time we had over 400 competitors but most of the people were weaned out before the late 1990s. A very similar story to the Automobile Industry or any industry. I was aware of that, i knew if we wanted to stay small we were not going to be able to survive and i would not have anything to leave to my children. The time that we went public in the got all the blessings and was able to compete, i knew we would not have the same atmosphere as we did in the past. People really felt close as i described working on ameritrade and it was really kind of a fun environment even though it was very stressful and people had to work hard, everybody seemed to enjoy it. When you go public, you become a different company, for lack of a term more professionals, you lose your personal touch that you feel when youre in a private company. I have a different attitude toward the investment banker, i dont think they shouldve ever gone public, i think they had better control and management of what they were doing as Investment Bankers when they stay private. So i see dealing with the public in retail buying and selling and being an investment banker is two different businesses and need to be thought of separately. I always thought the investment banker should be kept in a partnership and kept it private. On the public site, when youre dealing with customers i think it was okay. We really did well by going public, us personally lost. I certainly agree on balance about the idea that Investment Bankers stay private however, they were getting into so many other businesses so obviously Morgan Stanley had a big Brokerage Firm deem motor and there were so many different businesses maybe it was another level in the capital required worth were not that much different than a retail brokerage business. Did you feel the underwriters that turkey public did a good job . Was that an enjoyable process for you or did not leave something to be desired . It left something to be desired. We had been in business for 20 years and we could not get anybodys interest, we were going to have a small offering until we got to boston and then they did not understand our business and they were not enthusiastic about taking us public, they did because they made money but there was not any special enthusiasm for our stock and after we had been public for a little while and demonstrated to the market what kind of growth we had in the stock price went up they said why didnt you tell us and i said i tried to but you would not listen, you would not buy into it. So it was amazing for 20 years we had been growing at a phenomenal rate and nobody in the Security Industry thought we were anything other than a start up business. That was all a surprise in a shock to me. Is because you were in oklahoma and not in new york or San Francisco . I think even if we were in the money center we wouldve been thought of we are close, we are neighbors. I met nebraska. If we were located in one of the major enter politician areas, i think we wouldve been looked at the same way because the Security Industry did not what to think that we are competitors and doing as well as we were. I think they so consciously ignored us. Omaha also had Warren Buffett so it was not like they were not aware of what was going on in omaha. That is true but Warren Buffett is so much different than what we do that we were both in the Security Industry but completely different. I do not know if foreign buffett phenomenon would wear off on us h the public. Well have the opportunity for questions and answers at the end of the talk. Please come to the microphone at the center aisle to ask your question. Michelle solomon is with us today, courtesy of jim and christina and robert and eileen. She recently retired as director of corporate social innovation and president of the caterpillar foundation. The 46th manufacturing giant caterpillar inc. In addition to her 30 year career holding various leadership positions at the company, she recently transformed the foundation into one of the worlds most influential corporate
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