| Notes |
The Draper family venture capital dynasty all started with General William Draper II, who at the end of World War II, oversaw the implementation of the Marshall Plan in Europe. Draper had been an investment banker in the Bay Area before the war, and on his return to the US, he joined with Rowan Gaither and Fred Anderson to form the first venture capital firm on the West Coast in 1958. Silicon Valley was a very different place at the time. As Bill Draper III noted, “Palo Alto was a little town . . . Mountain View and Sunnyvale . . . were mostly orchards . . . very informal.” |