| Net Worth: | $600 Million |
|---|---|
| Date of Birth: | June 11, 1958 (66 years old) |
| Gender: | Male |
| Height: | 6 ft 4 in |
| Profession: | Television producer, Actor, Film Producer, and Entrepreneur |
| Nationality: | United States of America |
What is Tim Draper’s Net Worth?
Tim Draper is an American TV Producer and Venture capital investor who has a net worth of $600 million. The former executive of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, a venture capital firm, is Tim Draper. He also invests in bitcoin very successfully.
When US Marshalls seized 30,000 bitcoins from Ross Ulbricht, the former owner of Silk Road, in 2014, Tim Draper made headlines by paying merely $19 million for them.
That 30,000 coins, valued at around $2 billion in a few years (with a high BTC price of $60,000), grew in value. Bitcoins have a value of around $500 million at $16,000 per coin.
He signed a petition at the beginning of 2014, which California Secretary of State Debra Bowen accepted, to gather signatures to split California into six smaller states, claiming that California is “increasingly ungovernable” as a single state.
Supporters declared that they had gathered enough signatures on July 15, 2014, to have the initiative placed on the 2016 ballot.
Several detractors have asserted that the planned initiative is an attempt to increase Republican representation in California.
Early Life
Tim Draper was born in California on June 11, 1958. His father, William Henry Draper III, created the Draper & Johnson Investment Company in 1962 and served as chairman and president of the Export-Import Bank of the United States.
He is the third in a line of venture capitalists. In 1958, Draper, Gaither, and Anderson were formed by his grandfather, William Henry Draper Jr. Early investors in Skype, which later sold to eBay for $4.1 billion, included Draper’s father.
Following his graduation from Stanford University in 1980 with a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering, Tim attended Phillips Academy Andover before continuing his education there.
In 1984, he received his MBA from Harvard Business School.
Career
At the start of his career, Tim worked at an investment bank. Amazon Brown & Sons. Tim established a venture capital firm on his own in 1985.
When John Fisher joined the company as a partner in 1991, he joined his old coworker. In 1994, Steve Jurvetson, who later joined him, was added to the company as a partner. Draper Fisher Jurvetson, or DFJ, was the company’s new name.
Tim has made numerous well-known investments throughout his career. He contributed early funding to Hotmail, the business founded by Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith.
Through his investment in the company, which grew greatly during this time, he contributed to the creation of the term “viral marketing.”
Through the international fund, DFJ ePlanet, Draper was also the first venture capitalist from Silicon Valley to invest in China. He convinced the CEO of Baidu to sell 28% of the business to ePlanet for $9 million in 2001.
In 2004, DFJ made a similar investment in Skype. Since his father had invested in the business early on, Draper was already familiar with it.
When Skype was sold to eBay for approximately $4 billion in 2005, DFJ owned 10% of the company. In Tesla’s Series C venture round in 2006, DFJ made an investment.
They once more participated in Tesla’s Series D investment round through Draper Associates the following year.
Tim Draper spent almost $19 million in June 2014 to buy roughly 30,000 bitcoins. The US Marshals department had taken the bitcoins from the Silk Road and was now auctioning them off to the general public.
He forecasted that one bitcoin will be worth $10,000 in three years in a statement to Fox Business in September of that year. In November 2017, the cost of a bitcoin actually surpassed the $10,000 mark.
Also, he made an investment in the streaming service Twitch. Twitch, which was subsequently sold to Amazon for $1 billion, was made possible thanks to Draper’s investment.
Kyle Vogt, the company’s creator, gave Draper a ride in a self-driving car after Draper made an investment in Twitch. Draper was impressed by the trip even though they nearly crashed. He made the decision to invest in Cruise, which was ultimately sold to General Motors for $1 billion.
More contentiously, Tim also served as one of the company’s original investors. Theranos was created by Elizabeth Holmes and offers blood testing services.
He continued to stand up for Holmes even after she was eventually accused by the SEC of perpetrating a significant fraud and made the bullying argument. Robinhood, Coinbase, Tezos, eShares, and OpenGov are just a few of the businesses Tim has invested in.
Tim’s more recent investments have mainly been in businesses that operate in the government, financial, and healthcare sectors and make use of new technology like artificial intelligence.
The venture capitalist Tim Draper’s political philosophy has also been influenced by his career. He has advocated for free markets and entrepreneurship in the past.
He has openly declared his opposition to the Sarbanes-Oxley regulations, which set forth specific standards for financial record keeping and disclosure.
According to Tim, these laws make it harder to list companies on the stock market.
Also, he submitted a petition to the Secretary of State of California in 2014, enabling him to start gathering signatures for a petition that called for the division of California into six smaller states.
The number of signatures it collected, though, was not enough to get it on the 2016 ballot. In April 2018, he reintroduced this proposal, although this time he merely sought to split the state into three smaller ones.
A significant number of people signed the petition, making it eligible to be considered as an initiative in the general election of 2018.
The proposition, however, was stopped by the California Supreme Court the day before the ballots were sent to print, therefore it did not appear on the November 2018 ballot.
Together with business, Draper has dabbled in education. He began offering Draper University of Heroes in 2013. Entrepreneurship classes are offered at the institution, which also hosts eminent business and entrepreneurial speakers. A residential program is available through the institution, and it is located in San Mateo, California.
How to be the Startup Hero: A Guide and Textbook for Entrepreneurs and Prospective Entrepreneurs, by Draper, was published in 2017.
“When a Venture Capitalist Enters California’s Political Matrix: Innovation Meets the Status Quo” was the next thing he published.
Personal Life
Melissa Lee Parker and Tim Draper got married in 1982 in the Burlingame, California, First Presbyterian Church.
Jesse, Adam, Bill, and Eleanor are the four children that the couple has together. While the other kids have pursued acting professions, a few of his kids work in venture capitalism as well.
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