Reuters
How Paul Julius Reuter strapped stock prices to carrier pigeons to beat the telegraph and built an empire on the principle that speed is everything.
In eighteen fifty, Paul Julius Reuter had a problem: stock prices moved slowly. Telegraph lines existed, but they were congested. So Reuter tried something that sounds absurd: he strapped stock price quotes to the legs of carrier pigeons. The pigeons flew faster than the telegraph on certain routes. Speed was the entire business model. The pigeons became legendary. Competitors couldn't match the velocity. Reuter's network expanded across Europe, then globally. By the twentieth century, Reuters had terminals in every major trading floor. These weren't just machines — they were workflows. Traders built their entire operation around the Reuters terminal. Switching meant restructuring the entire business.
Watch the full reel free on MoonReelz — moonreelz.com