Draper, Timothy
Founder, Draper Associates
Tim Draper founded Draper Associates, the firm generated funds under the name DFJ and the Draper Venture Network, a global network of venture capital funds. The firm’s investments include Skype, Hotmail, Tesla, Baidu, Theranos, Athenahealth, Solar City, Box, TwitchTV, Cruise Automation and Parametric Technology among many others.
He is the innovator behind viral marketing, a marketing method for spreading an application from customer to customer, instrumental to the successes of Hotmail and Skype among others. In promoting entrepreneurship, he created Draper University of Heroes, a residential and online school based in San Mateo, Ca to help extraordinary people accomplish their life missions.
He started Innovate Your State, a non-profit dedicated to crowdsource innovation in government, and BizWorld, a non-profit that teaches young children how business and entrepreneurship work.
He served on the California State Board of Education, and led a movement for Local Choice in schools culminating in becoming proponent for a statewide initiative for School Vouchers. Tim Draper received a Bachelor of Science from Stanford University with a major in electrical engineering and a Master of Business Administration from the Harvard Business School.