Early Life and Career
Thomas Peterffy was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1944, in a hospital basement during a Russian air raid. He emigrated to the United States as refugee in 1965 to escape communism. Peterffy abandoned engineering studies when he emigrated. 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."
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. Peterffy's business related to his AMEX seat eventually developed into Interactive Brokers.
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