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| Crowd gathering on Wall Street after the 1929 crash |
, Wililam H. Draper writes: I was born in 1982, so I was only an infant when these fateful decisions were made. But I gradually became aware that in the Draper household, money was tight. I remember, for example, that throughout my childhood, my father would invariably return the Christmas gifts that my mother bought for him, because he felt that the family needed the cash more than he needed a present. My father was by nature a hard worker, bu in those difficult years, he drove himself at a punishing pace as he struggled to hang on to his investment banking job, in the deepest and darkest economic depression that our country had ever faced.“In 1962, when my partner, [Franklin] "Pitch" Johnson, and I started our first company, Draper & Johnson, we got no action. We would sit around waiting for the phone to ring. It didn't, so we drove out into the fruit orchards—remember, it wasn't Silicon Valley back then. We'd look for companies with names that sounded like they might have something to do with technology or at least like they weren't warehouses for prunes. When we saw a promising sign, we'd knock on the door and ask the receptionist, "Is the president in?" A man would come out—usually our age, early 30s. And he'd ask, "What do you do?" We'd say, "We're in the venture capital business. We buy a minority interest in a private company and help it grow."”
- William H. Draper, author of the book: The Startup Game: Inside the Partnership between Venture Capitalists and Entrepreneurs
“Most of all, I am looking for judgment. Why did he make certain choices in life? For example, I'm not in favor of serial entrepreneurs. If they've changed jobs every two years, I'm suspicious, even if they did a good job running things. I also pay a lot of attention to where they went to college, because it shows whether they took their education seriously. If they went to a top college: good. If they were top of their class at a second-tier college: terrific. It means they worked really hard. I have not had very good luck with Ph.D.'s. But I have had excellent luck with Ph.D. candidates who left early because they wanted to start their companies without waiting the seven years for a degree. Maybe someone with the patience to wait that long is not going to be a very good entrepreneur.”
- William H. Draper, author of the book: The Startup Game: Inside the Partnership between Venture Capitalists and Entrepreneurs
In January 2011, Luke Johnson wrote “Memoir eclipses venture capital textbooks” for the Financial Times. Draper’s story is an unusual one. His father was a pioneer in venture capital, and his son Tim has become a hugely successful venture capitalist too, at Draper Fisher Jurvetson. They must be the only family where three generations have worked as VCs. And it seems one of Tim’s sons might carry on the tradition. The book also reveals an interesting fact: ex-generals helped establish the industry – both General Georges Doriot, the true inventor of the model, and General Anderson, co-founder of Draper Gaither and Anderson, the first Palo Alto VC firm, set up with the author and his father in 1960.
“One of the most passionate and energetic entrepreneurs I know is Jonathan Bush, whom I met in New Hampshire when he was 18 years old and out campaigning for his uncle, George H.W. Bush. Jonathan was everywhere—knocking on doors, working phone banks, driving around on a truck with a megaphone. He really inspired people. Later, he connected with me when he wanted to start Athenahealth, which offers billing, electronic records, and other services for medical providers. We supported him, and I also got the Rockefellers to invest, as well as my son's firm. Athenahealth became a fine, rapidly growing company and had a very successful IPO a few years ago, in which we got back 10 times our investment.”
- William H. Draper, author of the book: The Startup Game: Inside the Partnership between Venture Capitalists and Entrepreneurs
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