A great post about the history of Intercontinental Exchange and its founder Jeffery Sprecher. Its success was based on a few factors.
(1) “Sprecher gave away 80% of the company to his customers as an incentive for them to trade at his venue.”
(2) “the company had a lucky break when Enron went bust.”
(3) Lots of deals meant diversification especially into oil trading and clearing. 20 deals in the past 15 years. Three criteria drove these – enhance network, new content, turnarounds.
It also comes down to three insights – analogue to digital, using regulation as an opportunity and the power of data.
