| Tim Draper | |
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| Born | California |
| Occupation | Founder and Managing Director, Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ) |
| Spouse(s) | Melissa Parker Draper (Melissa Lee Parker) |
| Children | Billy Draper, Adam Draper, Eleanor Draper, and Jesse Draper |
| Parents | William Henry Draper III and Phyllis Draper |
| Website Profile at Draper Fisher Jurvetson |
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Timothy Cook Draper[1] is the founder of the global venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson.
Draper is third in a line of venture capitalists. His father, William Henry Draper III (Bill Draper), founded Draper & Johnson Investment Company in 1962, Sutter Hill Ventures in 1968, Draper International India in 1996, and Draper Richards in 2001. His grandfather William Henry Draper Jr., the first Silicon Valley venture capitalist founded Draper, Gaither and Anderson in 1959.
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Career
Tim Draper is the widely recognized creator of "viral marketing." His original suggestion to use "viral marketing" in web-based e-mail to geometrically spread an Internet product to its market was instrumental to the successes of Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail, and has been adopted as a standard marketing technique to hundreds of businesses. Although Draper coined the term, "viral marketing," various viral campaigns preceded this invention (see MCI's Friends & Family Plan launched in 1991, a full 5 years prior to Hotmail's launch [1]). Draper invested in and contributed to the development of Skype (acquired by eBay), Baidu, Overture (acquired by Yahoo!), Parametric Technology, Hotmail (acquired by Microsoft), Tumbleweed Communications, PLX Technologies, Digidesign (acquired by Avid), Preview Travel (acquired by Travelocity), Four11 (acquired by Yahoo!), Combinet (acquired by Cisco), and Redgate (acquired by AOL), among others.
Draper launched the DFJ Global Network, an international network of venture capital funds with offices in more than thirty cities around the globe. He founded or co-founded Wasatch Ventures (Salt Lake City), Zone Ventures (LA), Draper Atlantic (Reston), Draper Triangle (Pittsburgh), Timberline Ventures (Woodland, WA), DFJ EPlanet (global), Polaris Fund (Anchorage), Draper Fisher Jurvetson Gotham (NYC), DFJ Frontier (Sacramento and Santa Barbara), and DFJ Dragon (Shanghai). Draper is featured as a keynote speaker in entrepreneurial conferences worldwide.
Draper is Founder and current Chairman of the Board for The BizWorld Foundation that develops programs that teach children about business, entrepreneurship and finance in the US and around the world.
He served on the California State Board of Education in 1998–99. He launched a statewide cyber-initiative on school choice for the November 2000 California General Election.
Draper has a BS in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University, and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Draper is also in The Naked Brothers Band: The Movie and TV series on Nickelodeon as the Amigos Elementary School's principal Joe Schmoke. Polly Draper, Tim's sister, created, wrote, directed and executive produced the film and TV series starring her two sons Nat and Alex Wolff. His children also have starring roles in the project: Eleanor Draper as Tessy (Jesse's show-and-real-life sister); Adam Draper as Donnie Timmerman, Billy Draper as Billy Timmerman, and Jesse Draper as Jesse Cook.
Draper is also a global board member of Endeavor (non-profit) and member of the board of directors of Wigix, Inc.
Personal life
Draper is the son of venture capitalist William Henry Draper III and Peace Corps Administrator Phyllis. Draper's sister is Becky Draper. His other sister is actress/screenwriter Polly Draper (from the 1980s TV show thirtysomething).[2] Draper is married to Melissa Draper and their children are: Jesse Draper, Eleanor Draper, Adam Draper, and Billy Draper.[3]
References
See also
- William Henry Draper, Jr., grandfather and founder of Draper, Gaither and Anderson
- William Henry Draper III, father and founder of Sutter Hill Ventures
External links
- Tim Draper's biography at the Draper Fisher Jurvetson Official Site
- Tim Draper profiled in The Venture Capital Journal
- Tim Draper speaks at Stanford
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