Tales from the South Pier

Book excerpt: From the invention of the electric telegraph to the emergence of the Internet, new technology has constantly stimulated our desire for information. Nowhere is that desire more intense than in the world's financial trading community, where survival depends as never before on instant and continuous access to market prices and market- moving news. The creation of that community, by a handful of pioneering information companies, is the subject of this book. Its author spent a lifetime working for three of them, an improbably colorful career that took him from newsroom copy-boy to boardroom chief executive. From Morse to Murdoch, he explores the role of human foibles in the rise and fall of business enterprises within this hugely influential branch of electronic media, delivering along the way riotous anecdotes that include drinking, drugs, fist fights and sexual scandals. In an industry scarcely past its adolescence, multi-billion companies can flourish or founder on the whim of ego. Carefully researched, and peopled with some of the most extraordinary characters to appear outside the realms of fiction, Tales from the South Pier is part history and part autobiography. Above all, it is a riveting read.