Thomas Peterffy
Source of wealth: Discount brokerage
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Biography
A digital trading pioneer, Thomas Peterffy chairs Interactive Brokers, which markets its specialized trading platform to sophisticated investors.
He founded Interactive Brokers in 1993 after originally starting in market-making, and was CEO until December 2019.
In March 2017, he announced part of his market-making operation would phase out. It had been under attack by faster competitors.
Peterffy arrived in America in 1965 at age 21, the penniless descendant of Hungarian aristocrats who lost nearly everything to the Soviets.
He is a major landowner, with more than 560,000 acres, primarily located in his home state of Florida.
Perspective on their fortune
Gold
Everyday luxury
A Thomas Peterffy's fortune is equivalent to 656 of gold, but this may be difficult to value, as we don't usually have a handful of gold bars in our piggy bank.
A standard gold ring typically weighs between 4 and 7 grams. Let's say this one weighs 5 grams. It's usually 18k gold.
Based on today's gold price (not taking into account the jeweler's fee, shipping, or anything else), that gold ring would be worth $556.3
Thomas Peterffy could buy 174,873,557 gold rings. That's a lot of fingers and a lot of gifts!!
And if the number of rings is difficult to visualize, all these rings would need 31 trucks to transport them, But we can be almost certain that Thomas Peterffy will have enough left over to pay for the gas for those trucks.
Health
The price of life
Let's compare Thomas Peterffy's fortune with the healthcare spending of a huge country
Thomas Peterffy could fund the entire healthcare system of DR Congo with a population of over 105,800,000 of inhabitants for approximately 43.8 years.
But even if we compare their fortune to that of a rich country
At the other extreme, Thomas Peterffy could cover the health expenditure of Luxembourg, considered the world's most heavily invested health system, for 19.3 years
Education
Buying the future
Lowest education spending
Thomas Peterffy could assume the entire cost of the education system of Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa, with more than 243,000,000 inhabitants for 28.6 years.
Highest education spending
But not only could he assume the cost of a poor country, Luxembourg is considered the country with the highest per capita investment in education in the world, Thomas Peterffy could pay for it in full for 38.9 years.
Research
The monopoly of progress
Lowest research spending
Thomas Peterffy could fully fund the state research budget of Pakistan, the fifth most populous country in the world with more than 260,000,000 of inhabitants, for 163.8 years.
Highest research spending
But even if we compare the total wealth of Thomas Peterffy with Israel, the country that currently invests the most per capita in research in the world, it could assume the total cost of the system for 3.7 years.
Financial Assets
Monthly wealth history
Fortune comparison
Historical data not available for comparison