Shares in the company, founded in October 1997, were introduced at $17 and quickly shot up to $97. While the price has fluctuated, Kramer still owns 2 percent of an organization capitalized at around $1 billion.
Like most young journalists, money was not the motivation for Mr. Kramer when he joined the San Francisco Examiner as a cub reporter in 1974, nor later as a financial reporter for The Washington Post, nor in editorial posts at both papers. His own reporting has earned Loeb, AP and National Press Club awards, and he's guided his staffs to the Pulitzer and other distinguished honors.
His career took an entrepreneurial bent only in 1991, when, at 40, he left the post of executive editor of the Examiner to start DataSport Inc., which offered a hand-held sports information monitor. The company was acquired in 1994 by Data Broadcasting Corp., which asked Kramer to run a sports and news division.
There he came up with the idea for MarketWatch and proposed the joint venture to CBS. The rest, as they say, is money in the bank.
"The joint venture was the biggest story on Wall Street, and we couldn't cover it," said the now-CEO, restrained by SEC regulations. "It was extremely frustrating."