But in the process he did what no other institution had done. Single-hand-edly and in an entrepreneurial fashion he and Drexel “made finance more competitive and less monopolistic, opening the gates, as it were, and freeing thousands of companies from dependence on banks and insurance companies. They also bypassed the snooty Wall Street firms that existed to serve the Blue Chips.”
In the end however, the system, upset by his democratization of the financing system, and deprived of huge profits, worked against him. Even though virtually all his deals were sound and did help hundreds of high-tech firms to expand, Milken was tried in the press, taken to court and forced to plead guilty. He served two years for what many regarded as trival crimes. In comparing Milken, (a turn-of-the-century financier who is often characterized as the role model in the Monopoly game) it has been observed that J.P. Morgan ‘s manipulations were far and away more injurious than anything Milken ever did.