Name:  Eric Goldberg

Date and place of birth:  Brooklyn, New York, Sept. 1, 1961

Residence:  Gramercy Park, Manhattan

Marital status: Married

Career path:

Musician; 15 years in brokerage firms starting  from the ground floor on up, including tenures as an equity derivatives/portfolio trader at Lehman Bros. and an autonomous branch at O'Connor and Associates.  After that, I headed to the technology side, co-founding Portware in 2000.

Current posts:  CEO / co-founder of Portware

What was your first job?

My first "real" job entailed helping models try on spandex at a store called Natasha's in downtown Manhattan.

Which business leaders do you most admire?

Peter Lynch; Coby Brooks

If you weren't in your current job, which company would you most like to lead?

The Carlyle Group - unbelievably interesting.

Do you read books on management theory? If, so which has influenced you the most?

E-Myth - a great book on organisational structure and internal communications

Which competitors do you benchmark your company's performance against?

One thing I learned as a trader was to benchmark versus my own goals - and have several goals so it's always possible to hit at least one.

What has been your best experience in business?

Defying the odds and achieving things that everyone says are impossible.

What keeps you awake at night?

I'm in the process of quitting smoking, so at the moment Chantix anti-smoking pills are keeping me up at night. One month to go!

How do you relax?

I love playing guitar.

What was the last gadget you bought?

Accucare home acupuncture system and the Digitech GNX4 Guitar Workstation

Favorite Web site: 

Pandora.com and SeekingAlpha.com

Desert island disc/book:  For my disc I would bring the Scorpions Greatest Hits (but who needs discs when you have Pandora?), and for my book I'd go with The Giant Book of Mensa Puzzles.