Wall Street Once Banned the Internet. AI in Similar Spot

Hey, it's Matt. Welcome back to AI Street—I cut through the hype to break down what's really happening in AI + finance, with analysis you can use.

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When Wall Street Banned the Internet

Imagine you aren’t allowed to use the internet at work.

That was the reality on Wall Street in the early 1990s, Pete Harris, a seasoned technology expert and former journalist, tells me.

"Companies would say, 'We're very interested in this internet thing, but we would never, ever use the public internet.'"

AI, Pete says, is following the same path the internet once did—an enormous change initially met with a lot of resistance.

Pete has spent four decades bridging the worlds of technology and finance. In 1988, he launched Dealing with Technology, a monthly newsletter on tech and trading, which Waters Information Services (now WatersTechnology) acquired in 1990. He joined Waters post-acquisition, rising to Editor-in-Chief and then President. After Waters was sold in 1999, he left the following yea…