The Rockefeller of the data boom

Michael Bloomberg’s big break came in 1982 when he was booted out of his job and went it alone as a finance data provider. Now his huge empire appears unstoppable.

If data really is the oil of the 21st century, there’s no doubt who’s playing John D. Rockefeller, says the Financial Times. Michael Bloomberg has built a $94bn private fortune from his eponymous financial data empire – “only Warren Buffett has ever made more money out of the business of money”. Indeed, some argue that the Bloomberg behemoth, which has claimed one-third of the roughly $37bn global financial data and analytics market for more than a decade, is “so enmeshed with the financial industry that it may be of greater importance than any single investment group”.

Bloomberg has always prized privacy as a competitive advantage. Yet it’s remarkable how little scrutiny the core business of one of the world’s largest private companies receives. That is now changing. The Bloomberg terminal – still by far the company’s biggest cash cow – and its 81-year-old inventor are both now long in the tooth, and the company itself is “increasingly consumed with the question of Bloomberg after Bloomberg”.

A charismatic charmer

The past few years have been exceptionally good for Mike Bloomberg, financially. He has doubled his private fortune since 2017, according to Forbes (true to form, the founder does not appear in his own Bloomberg Billionaire Index). More to the point for a billionaire preoccupied with his legacy, he can claim “a history of epochal success”, says GQ. Bloomberg arguably invented modern Wall Street, forged three successful terms as mayor of New York City, and got “his name on more buildings than Alexander the Great”. The one thing he fell short of was “the very highest office”. His 2020 attempt to become the Democratic presidential nominee “disappeared like a Manhattan vapour trail”. Pro-choice, pro-immigration and pro-gun control, Bloomberg brought convictions to his politics that went far beyond his wealth. And yet he could not escape it: he assumed having so much money “would make him appear incorruptible”, but critics always maintained he had bought power. “Money defined him, not in the kaleidoscopic carnival way it defines Donald Trump, but as a vast, lifeless stack of bills.”

In person, Bloomberg balances a punishing work ethic and “granite self-confidence and moralism” with a charismatic charm, says New York magazine. On his way up in the 1980s, he bought a five-storey townhouse on East 79th Street where he hosted frequent dinner parties in an effort to become a force in New York’s philanthropic and social circles. “He has a very quirky sense of humour, and he’s very flirtatious,” recalls one guest. And also very driven.

Bloomberg’s grew up in a blue-collar suburb of Boston where “money was always tight”, and went on to graduate from Johns Hopkins University with a degree in electronic engineering. He then took an MBA at Harvard before heading to Salomon Brothers on Wall Street. He rose quickly, and was made partner by 30, but clearly got up the noses of some of those in power. In 1979, he was demoted to head the “unglamorous” IT division, notes GQ. But it was here that he found his niche. Two years later, when Salomon merged with another firm, Bloomberg was booted out. With the $10m he got as compensation, he started his own company, Innovative Market Systems.

The first big break in 1982 was persuading Merrill Lynch to invest in 22 terminals – a coup the company’s New York office continues to mark with a symbolic 22 fish tanks. Bloomberg went on “to ride the wave of digitisation breaking on markets around the world”, says GQ. His “money-making machine turned him into a money-making machine”, leading to rapid expansion into new fields and securing his “canonisation as a saint of capitalism”.

“Only Warren Buffet has made more money out of the business of money”

Bloomberg after Bloomberg

What next? Those close to Bloomberg suggest he’s likely to transfer ownership of his empire to a philanthropic trust, says the FT. But he plans on going nowhere yet, often pointing out that his mother lived to 102 – “a record he hopes to beat”. Having spent a lifetime seeing off rivals, notably Thomson Reuters, Bloomberg is now so dominant that no one talks of “Bloomberg killers” any more. That makes it vulnerable. “We went against giants, and giants are usually easy to beat,” says Bloomberg. Today, his firm is the biggest giant of all.