President and CEO, E*Trade Securities NET WORTH $40 million AGE 50 ADDRESSwww.etrade.com BIO Log on to Cotsakos' website, and
you can order a free book punnily called Boot Your Broker. But
the eliminate-the-middleman advice dispensed therein is hardly
amusing to Old Guard stock brokers. "I certainly don't encourage
my daughter to go into the brokerage business," Cotsakos has
said. He believes that his site's low-cost stock trades and
wealth of information will make brick-and-mortar brokerages a
thing of the past. A decorated Vietnam vet, Cotsakos has the
pluck to take on larger online rivals like Charles Schwab and the
rest of the more established brokerages. 1998 POWER PLAY On the
Internet, brand means business. To get a higher profile for his,
Cotsakos inked agreements with two of the biggest and best known
web sites this summer--Yahoo! and ZDNet. A $400 million investment
from silicon sugar-daddy Masayoshi Son also gave E*Trade the cash
to invest in three Internet-services sites in July; they add
crucial chat, infrastructure and community pieces to the
brokerage's "Destination E*Trade" Web portal, which was unveiled
in September. PLACE YOUR BETS Web portals are the hot thing right
now, and you can be assured that Cotsakos wishes the stock market
would value his company as such. E*Trade was hammered in the late
summer sell-off. Analysts believe this may be a good time to get
in at bargain prices.
