Something Ventured Page #2

rockets and spacecraft,

paving the way

for the high-tech age.

In time, the fruit orchards

surrounding Fairchild...

would give way

to electronics companies,

and the area would become famous

as the Silicon Valley.

If they hadn't stayed together and

formed Fairchild Semiconductor,

probably there'd be

no silicon in Silicon Valley.

Arthur Rock had gotten a taste

of something exciting and significant.

But as it Tuns out,

he wasn't the only one...

trying to figure out

how to fund young companies.

Just up the road from Fairchild,

a handful of businessmen...

were experimenting with their own

version of venture capital...

together, around a lunch table

in San Francisco.

The best things in life

are free

But you can give them

to the birds and bees

I need money

In the '50s and '60s,

there were a group of us in San Francisco

that used to get interested...

in small, high-tech companies

down the peninsula.

There were, I think, five of us

in our group.

We all had jobs, but we had

other time on our hands too,

and we decided we just would put

a little investment club together.

We were just a bunch of

young men in San Francisco...

who knew each other

and respected each other.

What it was like was

a very close fraternity.

I guess I can use

that word carefully.

We'd have a table

of six or eight for lunch.

None of us had enough money to do an investment

by ourselves, so we had to have help.

If one of us ran across

an entrepreneur...

who was trying to start a company,

we would invite him up for lunch.

And after lunch, we would ask him to step

out onto the street corner for a while.

Give us 10 minutes, and we would make

up our mind as to whether we wanted...

to invest in his company or not.

I don't remember that.

We didn't do that.

We were too classy to do that.

That's a little bit quick, I think.

If the guy's a real nut'

why, you'd say good-bye to him...

without asking him

to go get a cup of coffee.

Two members of the group

wanted to do even more...

than gather around

a lunch table every six weeks.

In 1962,

Pitch Johnson and Bill Draper...

put up all their personal savings,

quit their day jobs...

to form a partnership,

and hit the streets.

Pitch and I each got a Pontiac leased,

and went around

and knocked on doors.

And if it sounded

like ABC Electronics,

then we'd go in, ask the president to

sit down and tell us, "What do you do?"

You know.

"Well, what do you do?"

"Well, venture capital."

"What's that?"

My kids would go to school.

"What does your dad do?"

"My dad's a policeman."

"My dad's a fireman." "My dad's a banker."

"And what does your dad do?"

"Oh, he's a venture capitalist."

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