Soon after graduation at the age of 22, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities was born. That is when Bernie Madoff began investing money. Madoff being the risk-taker he is joined the ranks of Wall Street with only $5000 he had saved from being a lifeguard and from his sprinkler business. He originally started trading penny stocks, but of course, that wasn't enough for the greedy, money hungry Madoff. He had come up with a plan. Madoff discovered he wanted to invest money for wealthy individuals. That's when Carl Shapiro came into the picture. The two met in November 1960, at the beginning of Bernie's financial career. A friend of Shapiro's insisted he give Madoff some business and believe in him. Carl did just that because he was attracted to Bernie's street smarts and determination. Shapiro's first job for Madoff was to execute an arbitrage deal, which was to find the price difference in markets and profit from those differences. Typically, this wouldn't be something a new to the game kind of guy would get. Shapiro recalled, "In those days it took three weeks to complete a sale, this kid stood in front of me and said ˜I can do it in three days.' And he did it " (41). This led to Shapiro handing over $100,000 to Madoff to invest for him which made both men very rich. Although Madoff claims he ran a legitimate business until the early ˜90s, Shapiro's investment to Madoff was what started the gears to turn in Madoff's head. That single investment by Shapiro led to the biggest Ponzi scheme in US history. .
Bernie played a significant role in NASDAQ, people loved him, and members on Wall Street turned to him for advice. Madoff served three one-year terms as head of NASDAQ. "He is a man with a good idea who was also a terrific salesman, " says Charles V. Doherty, the former president of the Midwest Stock Exchange. "He was ahead of everyone " (qtd. in Creswell and Thomas). Bernie learned early on that the more involved he was with regulators, the more he could shape regulation.
