Michael Bloomberg was born on Valentines Day, February 14, 1942 near Boston, Massachusetts.
He grew up in a middle class home in Medford, MA.
His father worked seven days a week as an accountant at a local dairy to to provide for his family of four.
Bloomberg graduated from Johns Hopkins University in 1964 with a degree in electrical engineering.
After graduating from Johns Hopkins, he received his MBA from Harvard Business School.
Two years later in 1966, during the height of the Vietnam war, he applied to the Officer Candidate School of the US Armed Forces, but was rejected for having flat feet.
Source: encyclopedia.com
In 1966, Bloomberg was hired by Salomon Brothers in New York.
His starting salary at Salomon was $9,000/year.
Source: nyc.gov, nytimes.com
From the book Bloomberg on Bloomberg:
"We slaved in our underwear, in an un-air-conditioned bank vault, with an occasional six pack of beer to make it more bearable. Every afternoon, we counted out billions of dollars of actual bond and stock certificates to be messengered to banks as collateral for overnight loans. By the 1980s such practices would be as quaint as the horse-drawn carriage."
Source: encyclopedia.com
After starting at the bottom, Bloomberg worked his way up, and eventually became a bond trader and was made partner by 1972.
He worked 12 hour days, six days per week.
Source: encyclopedia.com, nymag.com
By 1976, Bloomberg was a general partner at Salomon Brothers and held the glamorous position, head of equity trading and sales.
In 1976, he married his first wife, Susan Brown. Together, they had two children, Emma and Georgina. The couple divorced in 1993.
Source: encyclopedia.com, nytimes.com
In 1979, the CEO of Salomon Brothers, John Gutfreund, and Billy Salomon, asked Bloomberg to leave his powerful position in sales and trading and to head the young and emerging computer systems area.
This was seen as a demotion. But, Bloomberg would later be thankful for the experience.
Source: nytimes.com
On Friday July 31, 1981, things changed at Salomon Brothers.
That night, the partners were called to a meeting, and it was announced that the private Salomon Brothers would be merging with the publicly traded, commodity trading firm, Phibro Corporation.
Many of the partners became very wealthy from the merger, and on that night, they ate steaks and partied like fraternity brothers.
Source: encyclopedia.com, nytimes.com
The next day, Saturday August 1, 1981, the partners met with management.
Bloomberg met with CEO John Gutfreund and Henry Kaufman. He, along with a handful of the other partners, were asked to leave the firm.
For leaving the firm, 39 year old Bloomberg received $10 million in cash and convertible bonds.
Source: nytimes.com
Bloomberg's final day at Salomon was September 30, 1981.
The next day, he was self employed, and went to work on his own information technology company.
Bloomberg wanted to bring transparency and efficiency to the sellers and buyers of financial instruments.
Source: nytimes.com, nyc.gov
In a 10 foot by 10 foot rented room, Bloomberg put his Johns Hopkins University electrical engineering degree to work.
He invested $4 million of his $10 million Salomon Brothers severance package into his start-up.
His company was originally called Innovative Market Solutions, and consisted of four others, who collaborated to create and program a computer terminal that let traders stay informed about the Treasury bond market.
Source: nytimes.com, encylopedia.com
In 1982, Bloomberg's first customer, Merrill Lynch ordered and installed 22 of Bloomberg's MarketMaster terminals.
Also, Merrill Lynch gave Bloomberg $30 million in exchange for a 30% position in his company.
Bloomberg's current offices in New York, feature 22 fish tanks, symbolizing the firm's initial sale of 22 terminals.
Source: Bloomberg.com, Forbes
In 1986, the company's name changed from Innovative Market Systems to Bloomberg L.P.
Bloomberg's company also moved to 499 Park Ave in New York.
In 1987, Bloomberg sold its 5,000th terminal and launched its trading systems platform.
In 1989, Bloomberg bought back 1/3 of Merrill Lynch's 30% stake for $200 million. With that valuation, Bloomberg's company was worth $2 billion only eight years after its launch.
Source: Bloomberg
Bloomberg launched Bloomberg Business News, Bloomberg Radio, Bloomberg TV and Bloomberg Markets Magazine during the early 1990s.
Source: Bloomberg, encyclopedia.com
The 100,000th Bloomberg Terminal was installed in 1998. Charging around $1,500/month per terminal, Bloomberg's privately held company became hugely profitable.
Source: Bloomberg, encyclopedia.com
Today, Bloomberg L.P. has over 310,000 subscriptions to its financial news and information service. Bloomberg now employs more than 15,000 people throughout its several offices around the world.
In late 2000, Michael Bloomberg decided that he wanted to run for mayor of New York. He switched from the Democratic party to the Republican party, because he thought he had a better chance of standing out among the Republican candidates.
Few considered him to be a serious contender in the mayoral race.
At the time, New Yorkers registering for the Democratic party outnumbered the Republicans five to one.
Source: encyclopedia.com, nytimes.com
The primaries for the mayoral race took place on 9/11/2001, but were postponed after the attacks. He later beat the Republican challenger in the rescheduled primary.
Bloomberg set a new campaign spending record for the mayoral race in New York City, when he spent $74 million. He eventually won over the traumatized New York City population, and took the mayoral race in late 2001 by a margin of 2%.
Bloomberg stepped down as CEO of his company, and appointed Lex Stanwick as the new CEO.
He was inaugurated mayor in January of 2002, accepting just a salary of just $1/year.
Source: encyclopedia.com, nyc.gov, Bloomberg
Following the 9/11 attacks, many thought that New York would fall apart, crime would rise, businesses would leave and it might take several years to revive. Since taking office in 2002, Mayor Bloomberg has done the following:
During his first term as Mayor of New York, he saw his approval ratings fall as low as 24%. But, they rebounded and Bloomberg, with his $85 million campaign, was re-elected mayor in 2005.
In 2007, during his second term, Bloomberg decided to leave the Republican party and declared himself a political independent.
Source: encyclopedia.com, nytimes.com
During the difficult economic times of 2008 and 2009, Bloomberg decided that he needed to run for a third term. To do that, he had to change the City's rules on term limits through City Council.
That almost lost him the race against former NYC Comptroller, Bill Thompson.
Bloomberg contributed $90 million to the race and was became only the fourth NYC Mayor to serve a third term in the last century.
From a Marist poll on the Mayor's popularity taken last month:
64% of registered voters want the next mayor to move the city in a different direction while 31% want him to continue Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s policies. Six percent are unsure. There has been little change since NBC 4 New York/Wall Street Journal/Marist’s October survey. At that time, 66% wanted a departure from Bloomberg’s policies. 29% reported they thought the city’s current policies should be continued, and 6% were unsure.
According to questions asked in the same Marist poll, it looks like former Public Advocate Bill de Blasio will be NYC's next mayor. (The Public Advocate is the 2nd in line to the Mayor's seat in NYC.)
As of March 2012, Michael Bloomberg was listed by Forbes as the 11th wealthiest person in the United States, with a net worth of $31 billion.
Bloomberg is also believed to be the wealthiest New Yorker.
Source: nytimes.com, Forbes
Michael Bloomberg has donated more than $2.4 billion to philanthropic causes in public health, environment, government innovation, arts and education. In 2011 alone, he donated a total of $330 million.
His philanthropic gifts have placed him in the top five of the Chronicle of Philanthropy's list of America's top 50 philanthropists.
He has also donated to Princeton University, where there is a dorm named Emma B. Bloomberg Hall, after his daughter who graduated from the university in 2001.
Source: mikebloomberg.com
Mayor Bloomberg, who could've lived in the New York mayor's mansion, Gracie Mansion, opted instead to live in his own $17 million Upper East Side townhouse.
He also owns a $10.5 million estate in Bermuda, a $10 million Victorian in London, a $20 million Southampton, NY estate and a $1.5 million condo in Vail. He owns 11 properties in total.
Source: nymag.com, nytimes.com, 27east.com
Michael Bloomberg began training to become a pilot in 1976, at the age of 34.
He has a passion for flying helicopters and rarely gives up the controls to his professional pilot, who primarily takes Bloomberg's $4.5 million six seat Agusta SPA A109s helicopter to its home in New Jersey after dropping off Bloomberg in NYC. He also keeps his private planes at the Morristown Municipal Airport in New Jersey.
Bloomberg has even personally flown friends and businessmen from New York to Albany aboard his helicopter for meetings at the state capital.
He's currently scheduled to receive an AgustaWestland AW609 Tiltrotor in 2016. This aircraft is similar to the military's V-22 Osprey.
Source: nytimes.com
Mayor Bloomberg and his investment banking girlfriend Diana Taylor, are both frequent users of New York's subway system.
Diana Taylor says that she rides the bus to work everyday, and Mayor Bloomberg rides the subway from 59th Street to his office in City Hall.
Source: nydailymail.com, nytimes.com
Bloomberg's activity will extend across the Atlantic too. He's building 'Bloomberg Place', a massive office for his charitable activities, in London.
London's Mayor Boris Johnson loves Bloomberg too, and they seem to have a pretty playful relationship (from the NYT).
When the mayors met for the first time, Mr. Johnson recalled, Mr. Bloomberg kept talking about trans fats.
“I didn’t know what trans fats were,” Mr. Johnson said, a glint in his eye. “I thought it had something to do with transsexuals, obese transsexuals, or something. Anyway, he made a great deal about that.”
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