Interview  |  JUN 2002

Interview: Trading Communities On The Web: Doug Fairclough by J. Gopalakrishnan

Trading Communities On The Web: Doug Fairclough by J. Gopalakrishnan Doug Fairclough was in the midst of a two-year stint as database guru at HotWired, the pioneering website of Wired magazine, when he became aware of the possibilities of the Internet technologies, and decided to apply them to the financial arena. He launched financial website ClearStation in 1998, building it up before selling to E*Trade in 2000. What’s he up to these days? As it turns out, more of the same. STOCKS & COMMODITIES Editor Jayanthi Gopalakrishnan spoke with Doug Fairclough via telephone on March 29, 2002, to find out. Q: Are you still involved with ClearStation? A: Yes, I am. I’m a member of the core section of Recommend, an area on the website (my username is “kensey”). I still send recommendations to that, and those go to about 400,000 people. Q: Let’s talk about that a little later. First, though, what inspired you to start something like ClearStation Community — is that what you call it? A: That’s fine. I started it in the summer of 1996. I worked on it for about two years on my own, and then, once I had most of the sections of the website functional, I got an investor, Kris Skrinak, who provided the initial funding to build the company, involved. While I continued to work on the software, Kris pretty much did all the other necessary things to create a company, which is a pretty involved task. He also became the chief executive officer (CEO). I was the chief technology officer (CTO).

by Jayanthi Gopalakrishnan