Background and early life

Draper is the third in a line of venture capitalists. He is the son of Phyllis (Culbertson) and William Henry Draper III, who founded the Draper & Johnson Investment Company in 1962 and was chairman and president of the Export-Import Bank of the United States. His grandfather, William Henry Draper Jr., founded Draper, Gaither and Anderson in 1958.

He has a degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University, and an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1984.

Financial career

In 1985, Draper left the bank Alex, Brown & Sons to start his own venture capital firm; former officemate John H.N. Fisher became a partner in 1991, and business student Steve Jurvetson became the third partner in the firm.

Hotmail and viral marketing

Although the history of the term is not fully clear, it is commonly argued that Draper and Jurvetson "invented viral marketing" in 1996, due to their idea of automatically attaching a brief advertising message to the bottom of outgoing Hotmail emails, though the neologism itself is documented as early as a 1989 edition of PC User.

Skype

Tim Draper's father, Bill Draper, was an earlier investor in Skype, and DFJ came to back Skype in 2004. The company owned 10% of Skype in 2005 when it was sold to eBay for US$4.1 billion.

Bitcoin auction

On June 27, 2014, Draper purchased for an undisclosed price nearly 30,000 bitcoins which had been seized by the US Marshals service and auctioned to the public. The accumulation of bitcoins has been valued at US$19 million.

On January 27, 2015, Tim Draper wagered about $400,000 (which is 2000 bitcoins with $200 price) that the bitcoin will rebound from its recent plunge.

Politics

Draper has spoken out against Sarbanes-Oxley regulations, stating that they limit the viability of taking companies public.

In 2000, Draper spent $20 million on a failed measure to support school vouchers.

Six Californias

In early 2014, Draper filed a petition which was accepted by California's Secretary of State Debra Bowen to begin collecting signatures to divide California into six smaller states, arguing that California is "increasingly ungovernable" as one state. However, on September 12, 2014, it was announced the plan fell short of the required amount of valid signatures to land it on the 2016 ballot. Draper spent in excess of $5 million to try to qualify the proposition for the ballot, with nearly $450,000 just for political consultants.

Educational program

In 2013, Draper launched Draper University of Heroes, an educational program that offers a crash course in entrepreneurship. The university's residential program is based in San Mateo, California, and the curriculum is designed by Draper.

[ Source: Wikipedia ]