Writing on the birth of Venture Capital

Berkeley, April 21—I’m here today on the campus of the University of California to attend a workshop on how journalists can write history.

One speaker is Spencer Ante of BusinessWeek, who’s writing a biography of Georges Doriot and the birth of the venture capital industry. Doriot is considered to be the father of the U.S. entrepreneurial economy, working mostly in the pivotal post-war era.

Born in France, Doriot came to the U.S. to get an MBA and extended his stay, working for an investment bank and teaching at Harvard Business School. A popular course was one on starting a business.
Over a 40-year teaching career, he would influence thousands of top students, including the founder of FedEx, Fred Smith.
His book will be published later this year by the Harvard Business School Press.

His tips for retelling major business events? Find photos, find correspondence, and don’t overlook libraries like presidential libraries and the Library of Congress that store original documents.
Also, go for tours of the homes in where they lived.

“Go to the places – absorb the light and ambience,” he says. He also got great help and wonderful stories from Doriot family.

What else did he find? That Doriot was an inventor himself, conducing experiments at home as a young student. He appreciated the imagination of others, and sought to fund them.
--Marty Steffens