Thomas Stemberg

Harvard alumni Thomas Stemberg started out in the Grocery business in the 1970s. Through Star Market he developed and introduced  generic brand foods. This idea was a first dismissed as out there, but has since proved to be an industry standard. After his success there he joined First National Supermarkets and brought the business back on it feet but was let go when the company sold off his division.

In in the 1980s he and former rival Leo Kahn teamed up to form Staples. The company is now based out of Framingham, Massachusetts and revolutionized the way office supplies are purchased. He envisioned it as a Toys R Us for office supplies.

Stemberg currently is a managing partner at Highland Capital Ventures’ Consumer Fund.  “ Venture Capital is a perfect third act for a guy like me” was what he said in a January 2007 Inc interview.

Ken Olsen

Bridgeport, Connecticut  native Ken Olsen was on an Admiral’s Staff  during World War II in the Navy. After a brief stint at General Electric after the war, he attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge.

There he was involved in MIT’s Whirlwind Computer under Jay Forrester to improve real time information for the United States Military after the Russians set of their first nuclear bomb. He then went on to work with one of the first computers to use transistors.

In 1957 Olsen and Harlan Anderson started Digital Equipment Corporation with money supplied by Georges Doriot’s venture capital. They started out making computers for engineers and scientists and eventually moved into producing computers that would be used by  private industry. He is credited with creating the mini computer and advancing computer networking.

Georges Doriot

The man who is considered the father of the modern venture capital system was a frenchman named Georges Doriot. The former World War One Artillery Officer decided to immigrate to America in the 1920s. He would end up teaching business at Harvard for 40 years.

During the Second World War he was brought into the American Army and made his way to Brigadier General in the Quatermaster Corps. Here he would develop ideas into creating research programs to improve the soldiers quality of life. His dream would finally be implemented when the United States Army opened its research facilities in Natick, Massachusetts.

After the war he would develop the system used now to seed businesses, prior to that point wealthy individuals would supply money to entrepreneurs.

P.P.F. Degrand

The Boston Stock exchange was formed on October 13, 1834 and was originally called the Boston Brokers Board. The original members were the following:

Henry Andrews
Matthew Bolles
Benjamin Brown Jr
J.W. Clark
Samuel Gilbert Jr.
Enoch Martin
Edmund Monroe
Samuel G. Williams
Thomas R. Sewall
John E. Thayer
Geo M. Thatcher
Charles Torrey

P.P.F. Degrand was also a founding member and the Boards 4th President. He was French Protestant immigrant who had lived in Paris,London and New York City before settling into Boston. He started out spending 10 years as a newspaper man in Boston and was a close friend of John Quincy Adams.

Degrand was an advocate of the cross country railroad being developed, and a such was much criticized for having extravagant dreams. When the railroad did go in 25 years later it was how and where he said it would be.

Gustavus Franklin Swift

William Swift of Bocking, England landed in Massachusetts in 1634 with his wife and family, where they would initially settle in Watertown and buy property in Sudbury. Due to financial concerns he would move to the Old Colony area of Sandwich on Cape Cod.

Gustavus F. Swift was a descendant of William Swift and grew up cattle farming on Cape Cod in the mid 1800s. He would eventually become successful enough to move his business to Chicago and help implement refrigerated rail cars to allow his product to be shipped all over the United States.

Swift,Ogden Armour, Edward Morris and the firm of Kuhn, Loeb and Company would eventually form what would become known as the National Packing Company. They would control the market so much that the Supreme Court ordered the group dissolved.

Swift would help found the City of South San Francisco.