Benzinga · Jan 11, 2022
EXCLUSIVE: Pico's Jarrod Yuster On Building A Firm Critical To Smooth Functioning Markets
What keeps a 12-year financial markets infrastructure entrepreneur up at night? It’s the fear of complacency and not having the wherewithal to keep up with innovation. “You can never get complacent,” Jarrod Yuster, the chairman, founder and co-CEO of Pico told Benzinga in an exclusive interview regarding a recent acquisition. Pico is the leading provider of technology, data and analytical services for financial markets. The firm started with an idea and has since expanded upon it. Yuster was once responsible for programmed quantitative trading and index arbitrage at Bank of America Corp.-owned (NYSE: BAC) Merrill Lynch. After helping build what was the genesis of electronic trading for equities, options and futures in more than 85 markets globally, the trader took his shot at entrepreneurship and founded Pico. “The role evolves every six months to two years or so,” he said when commenting about how the company was at first a broker-dealer providing technology-driven trading solutions. “That’s a very hard business model, especially for a small company without a significant amount of capital,” he explained. After a year or so of building, Yuster discovered that the firm’s cloud-driven technology, connectivity and data were more valuable than the brokerage. “We realized that the technology business was the real business, and eventually we pivoted.” Fast forward to today and Pico is backed by the subsidiaries of some of the largest institutions such as Goldman Sachs Group Inc (NYSE: GS) and JPMorgan Chase & Co (NYSE: JPM), working ...
