I am not sure if you noticed, but Canarsie has placed a short summary of the original history of FlyerTalk in the wikipost at the top of this thread. IB is a large, faceless corporation whose main goal is to make money for their shareholders, but the history of FlyerTalk is a bit of a more colorful story about one guy. Check out the info above and then start Googling the name "Randy Petersen."