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Textbook Economics from Ameritrade’s Joe Ricketts

This article reviews the history of Ameritrade founded and developed by Joe Ricketts into a spectacularly successful discount brokerage enterprise. It, as such, represents another example of a risk-taking innovator who achieves success by filling a need in a free-enterprise market. The main takeaway is that free-enterprise works best from the bottom-up, that is, when individuals or individual companies ‘creatively destruct’ existing markets or generate new markets for goods or services through the implementation of innovative ideas and technology. The article also delineates the workings of the free-enterprise market by pointing out how familiar textbook economic principles are illustrated in the Ameritrade experience. JEL Classifications: A10, D01, E02, G10