Passage of a VC Giant: Bill Elfers
William ("Bill") Elfers, founder of venture firm Greylock, has died. He was 87. Having worked for General Georges Doriot at the original venture capital firm, American Research & Development, Elfers went on to create Greylock, an innovative firm that emphasized collegiality and partnership over Doriot's more hierarchical approach to running venture investment organizations. A gentleman, and a giant of venture capital's early history, Elfers will be missed:
Among those joining AR&D in 1947 was a returning U.S. Navy veteran named Bill Elfers. Just four years later, he became vice president and was soon the number two man in the firm. By 1965, however, nothing had changed in the AR&D organization chart. After almost twenty years with the general, Elfers, then 47, decided to move on, soon to be joined by Dan Gregory, a former student of Doriot's who had been working for a traditional investment management firm in Boston. When Charlie Waite, who had gone to AR&D in 1960 after a year as Doriot's teaching assistant, came on board in 1966, the triumvirate of the new firm's founding fathers was complete.[Thanks to Dan Primack for pointing out this news.]Greylock--named after the street where Elfers lived in nearby Wellesley Hills--would be anything but traditional. Unlike AR&D, where Doriot ruled alone and which had to issue quarterly reports, it would be a private partnership that would work quietly with fledgling, sometimes fragile enterprises over the long term. "From the beginning, I believed in collegiality," says Elfers. "That would be a crucial element in selecting and developing the general partners and creating the framework for the firm's culture.