Timothy Cook Draper, born on the 11th June 1958, is an American businessman who became a well-known venture capital investor as the co-founder of Draper Fisher Jurvetson.
So how much is Draper’s net worth? As of mid 2016, it is reported by authoritative sources to be $1 billion, acquired from his years as a venture capital investor.
Tim Draper Net Worth $1 Billion
Born in California, Draper came from a long line of businessmen. His father William Henry Draper III is the founder of Draper & Johnson Investment Company, and his grandfather William Henry Draper Jr. is the founder of Draper, Gaiter and Anderson, so it’s no surprise that he became a businessman as well. Although he took up electrical engineering in his undergraduate studies in Stanford University, he later pursued an MBA through Harvard Business School.
Draper started his career working in Alex, Brown & Sons; even though his employment started his rise in wealth, Draper didn’t stay long and decided to start his own company. In 1985, along with friends John H.N. Fisher and Steve Jurvetson, he started the venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson. The firm invests in various early-stage enterprises and start-up companies and assists them until they are on a strong footing. Some of the well-known companies that Draper Fisher Jurvetson has invested on include Tesla, Solar City, Skype, AngelList, Redfin and Box. The success of these companies has meant the same for the firm, and so also tremendously increasing Draper’s net worth.
Draper also created his own venture capital firm – Draper Associates – in 1985. It’s a seed-stage venture capital firm that focuses on businesses in the fields of consumer technology, financial technology, healthcare, education government tech and manufacturing. Although the company is solely Draper’s, it still succeeded and his wealth increased along with his investments.
Draper is credited as the creator of the term ‘viral marketing’ in 1996. Draper and his partner Jurvetson are also said to have had the idea of attaching a brief advertisement at the end of an email, which led to the success of Hotmail and Yahoomail. The technique is now being used by many businesses to promote their products.
In 2012, Draper founded his own business school, Draper University located in San Mateo, California. The school helps aspiring entrepreneurs through providing education designed by Draper himself.
In recent years, Draper has made headlines by buying a huge amount of bit coins. In 2014, he invested in 30,000 bit coins believing that it would be the top level value for investors.
That same year he also petitioned for California to be separated into six smaller states because he deemed that California as a whole was becoming hard to govern. Unfortunately he failed to collect the needed signatures to push his petition through.
In terms of his personal life, Draper is married to Melissa and together they have four children.
