Financial History Issue 124 (Winter 2018) | Page 8
THE TICKER MUSEUM NEWS
Words of Wisdom
Excerpts from the Remarks
Delivered at the 2018 Museum Gala
At the 2018 Museum of American Finance Gala on February 6, the Museum honored Ken Griffin
with the Charles Schwab Financial Innovation Award and Timothy Geithner with the Whitehead Award
for Distinguished Public Service and Financial Leadership. Excerpts from the remarks delivered
that evening are published below in the order in which they were presented.
JOE RICKETTS
Founder, Former CEO and Former Chairman
TD Ameritrade
Tonight it’s my privilege to introduce Ken
Griffin. And I think most of you, if not all
of you, know that Ken is really a bright
guy. He’s a talented leader, and he is a
great entrepreneur. And his innovative
approach to investments has fundamen-
tally changed the financial sector. Now,
he’s done a lot of things in his life, and I’m
not going to go into a long list of accom-
plishments that Ken has achieved, but I’d
like to tell you about a couple of items.
He was raised in Boca Raton, Florida,
where IBM had a plant and was building
their first personal computer. IBM hired
a lot of people from the city, and there
was a lot of buzz about what personal
computers were going to do to change our
lives. And when Ken was 14, his parents
offered him a choice. He could go to high
school at a private, exclusive school, or he
could go to the public school and have a
personal computer. He chose the personal
computer. I think that tells a lot about his
character.
Not too many years later, at age 19, while
he was a student at Harvard, in 1987, he
was trading stocks in his dorm room. 1987
is many, many years ago — technology was
not where it is today — so he had to go to
the building manager and make arrange-
ments to put a dish up on the roof, run
the wires down through the elevator shaft,
and then down the hall to his room. And
I’m going to tell you, probably — prob-
ably — he used Ameritrade to make his
trades. I’m sure that he used Schwab and
Scott Trade sometimes, but I’ll bet it was
Ameritrade most of the time.
At age 22, Ken started Citadel, and
he had some clear thoughts about the
combination of trading and technology,
and he put them into an idea around air-
planes. And quants designed the airplane.
The technology people built the airplane.
The portfolio managers flew the airplane.
And the operation area was the air traffic
control. So with those fixed ideas in mind
and the efficiency that came with the
management, Citadel became a place with
very clear data, a better risk management
system and more precise models, which
gave them a competitive edge.
Now, permit me a minute to get on my
6 FINANCIAL HISTORY | Winter 2018 | www.MoAF.org
soapbox. The world needs entrepreneurs.
These are the people who take risks. These
are the people who bring innovation to
the market. And these are the people who
create jobs. And, as I’ve said, Ken is a great
entrepreneur. He’s created great value,
and he has brought many, many benefits
to society. On behalf of myself and my
family, it’s my pleasure and my joy to
introduce Ken Griffin.
KEN GRIFFIN
Founder and CEO, Citadel
Founder, Citadel Securities
Joe, thank you for your very kind intro-
duction. I am honored and humbled to
follow in your footsteps in receiving the
Charles Schwab Financial Innovation
Award.