Creative Capital

INTRODUCTION

Venture capital has existed in one form or another since the earliest days of commercial activity. The Spanish monarchy and Italian investors who financed the transatlantic voyage of Christopher Columbus were, in a sense, venture capitalists. But it wasn’t until the second half of the twentieth century that venture financing became a professional, large-scale industry. And the man who led that transformation was Georges Doriot.

I can’t recall exactly when I first came across the name of General Georges Frederic Doriot (pronounced door-ee-oh) but I do know that in 2002, when I looked into the sparse literature on the history of venture capital, his name kept popping up. I found a bunch of newspaper and magazine profiles, a chapter ...