Interview with General Manager of TradingView, Pierce Crosby

Pierce Crosby: Before my time at TradingView, I was running revenue strategy for a company called StockTwits, also based in New York City. I joined there as the first New York employee of what would become a 40 person office at its peak. The opportunity to join a startup in its infancy was a great opportunity, and I had previously no background in the industry other than being a financial markets researcher for Reuters Breakingviews. I went to Columbia University for my master's, and went to the University of California for my bachelor's, both in unrelated fields! Journalism and Political Science to be specific.

Pierce Crosby: Scale is the biggest advantage we have. We don't provide a niche research product, we provide a mass-market product used by millions of investors every day. We have people in Hong Kong, South Africa, Brazil, and the USA, all basing their investment decisions on what research and market data we provide them through our platform. We today license and consume over 100 unique datasets, which cover in total... around 700,000 different financial assets. Everything from rare earths and precious metals to synthetic fixed income derivatives. Real traders need access to global markets, so our approach is to provide them with a global menu at their fingertips. We have four different plans: Basic, Pro, Pro+, and Premium. The cost varies depending on the level of membership. Pricing starts at $10.50 a month for Pro. However, most of our features are completely free.

Pierce Crosby: FXCM is a reputable and well-known player within the Forex markets in Europe and Asia. We've been longtime fans of the team and have always been looking to bring people access to more trading markets.

Pierce Crosby: We're constantly listening to our audience and expanding the platform. We're looking to revamp a lot of our traditional tools and make them easier to use. We're also integrating new brokerages and partnering with the latest and greatest companies to offer our users the best overall experience.

Pierce Crosby: The pandemic specifically hasn't "changed" anything structurally in capital markets, but rather, has accelerated the current evolution by at least 3 years. There have been larger macro trends taking place for some time now, and this is simply a moment when many consumers "break" their habits, switch to new products, and global adoption really scales up. But even before the pandemic, we've been seeing the barriers to investing falling one after the other. Zero commission investing was just a starting point, and now there are tons of new products coming to market to not only make investing "cheap" per-se, but actually beneficial long-term to the individual investor.

Pierce Crosby: If you're reading this it's too late! Just kidding. It's never too late to start investing. The laws of compounding over time are really unavoidable. One thing I would give as advice is; don't sell yourself short or think you cannot achieve greatness. Put it this way, one of the most successful people I know today, found his first breakthrough job on Craigslist! There is literally no limit to your potential, you just have to constantly be putting yourself out there. Time in markets determines winners.