Founded in 1971 by the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD), the NASDAQ Stock Market came into being to modernize the way stocks were traded. The idea sparked when financial regulators and industry leaders realized that the old method of trading "over-the-counter" stocks—which involved shouting over telephones and using paper lists—was inefficient and unfair. They decided to create the world's first electronic stock market to make price quotes instant and visible to everyone. Today, the exchange is owned by Nasdaq, Inc., a publicly traded company led by CEO Adena Friedman. Today, NASDAQ and its website are run by a massive team of financial experts and data analysts and are mainly focused on business news, stock market trends, and technology. They are based in New York City, famously located in Times Square. They serve as a major source of information for investors, covering the financial performance of the world's biggest tech companies like Apple, Microsoft, and Google. One interesting fact: A unique fact about NASDAQ is that unlike the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), it does not have a physical "trading floor" where people yell and ring bells to buy and sell stocks. Since its founding, it has been completely electronic; the famous glass building you see on TV in Times Square is actually just a broadcast studio for media, not a place where actual trading happens.