Meet the Harvard professor who seeded venture capitalism
Between 1970 and 2005, U.S. venture-backed companies created 10 million jobs and produced almost 17 percent of the country's GNP, and according to BusinessWeek editor Spencer Ante, one man is largely responsible for all of that. He is former Harvard Business School professor and "founder of the modern VC industry" Georges Doriot, the subject of Ante's new book Creative Capital. "[Doriot] was the first one to believe there was a future in financing entrepreneurs in an organized way," Lehman Brothers banker Arnold Kroll told Ante. Doriot's disciples went on to found or help run Greylock Partners, Fidelity Ventures and Kleiner Perkins. So now we know whom to blame. Photos from the Creative Capital book launch party held in New York last night, below.
