It all started the year before when Teresa became the host of a free chat room at her new website about stock trading. Pete was one of the first people to arrive. Because we both worked in the investment industry, we did our best to educate people about risk, to remind them that the stock market is an unforgiving Darwinian mechanism that transfers hot money to the smart money. In the long run, most people lose.

The venture was not conceived as a means to make money, but as a way to connect traders from around the world. Mutual funds were hot then. The Dot-com Bubble was inflating fast. It was a time when people dreamed of quitting their jobs to trade, attracted to it by the promise of instant riches.