throws off around $9 billion in revenue, making it about as valuable as the N.F.L.

Some trading floors, in fact, resemble primal villages in which the biggest bosses can be identified as the guys with the most terminal screens mounted on their desk. As such, many banks and hedge funds gladly shell out the $21,000 or so per unit. Getting even more reductive, it’s the ball in tennis: it’s hard to imagine the financial industry without it. (Or, if they’re interested, 38,000-word pieces on code.) It’s something like the social register for the global one percent, mixed with the Gutenberg press and a little bit of the iPhone. The Bloomberg provides a staggering array of real-time proprietary data on every single market to the people who value it most it allows its 320,000-some users to connect with one another and share insights or information, or simply network and it pumps a heavy dose of journalism pinpointed to their very interests, whether that’s the Australian iron-ore industry or Ivory Coast cocoa futures. It’s hard to adequately articulate the role of the terminal in the global financial markets. All he wanted, he said, was to reciprocate the favor. Like nearly everyone on Wall Street, he owed an extraordinary debt of gratitude to the device that bears the mogul turned mayor’s signature, the Bloomberg Professional-or simply “the terminal”-the magic data machine that had made his success possible. It was the least he could do, the exec continued. In an instant, the executive told me, he walked over and sheepishly introduced himself and offered to see if he could determine a glitch in his swing. He was surprised, however, when he noticed that the linksman in distress was none other than Michael Bloomberg. Bridge serves as a sanctuary in the middle of the world’s global financial hub-that rare place where you can whack away at a four iron and still make it back to your desk in the event of a crisis in the Asian markets.Īs he thwacked ball after ball into the misty morning, this executive heard the unmistakable calls of a fellow golfer in frustration, a common sound in such a competitive locale. For many on Wall Street, the diminutive island at the foot of the R.F.K. He had risen early one weekend morning, as per usual, and absconded out to Randall’s Island to put in an hour of work on his golf swing. A couple of years ago, a veteran Wall Street executive recounted an unusually personal story to me.

Bloomberg terminal alternative