BusinessWeek
Spencer E. Ante is the computers department editor for BusinessWeek. Before joining the magazine in February, 2000, he was a staff reporter for TheStreet.com. Prior to that, he was a contributing writer at Wired News, a columnist for Business 2.0, a producer for the Netscape NetCenter, and associate editor of The Web Magazine.
For "Meet the Hackers", a 2006 investigative story about the world's most dangerous cybercriminals, he was the recipient of a 2007 Deadline Club Award from the Society of Professional Journalists. A year earlier, he won a 2006 award from the American Society of Business Publication Editors for "A Hole in Bush's Exit Strategy", a story about the problematic American training of Iraqi security forces.
Ante received a bachelor's degree from Indiana University and a master's from the University of California at Berkeley.
His book, Creative Capital: Georges Doriot and the Birth of Venture Capital will be published by Harvard Business Press in April, 2008. He can be reached at http://creativecapital.wordpress.com.
Related Links: http://www.businessweek.com
Last Updated: Wed, Feb 4, 2009
| Category | Title | Author/Speaker | Organization | Length | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Video | Venture Capital's Historic Home Run | Spencer E. Ante | BusinessWeek | 01:23 | 02/2009 |
| Video | George Doriot and the History of Venture Capital | Spencer E. Ante | BusinessWeek | 02:27 | 02/2009 |
| Video | Silicon Valley: The Capital of Venture Capital | Spencer E. Ante | BusinessWeek | 04:20 | 02/2009 |
| Podcast | A History of Venture Capital | Spencer E. Ante | BusinessWeek | 56:45 | 02/2009 |
From a $70,000 investment, the Digital Equipment Corporation evolved into a multi-million dollar entity, entitling its investors to the fruits of a 70,000 percent ROI. This, says author and BusinessWeek editor Spencer Ante, was the first home run in the field of venture capital, and the first inkling that this sector could earn its own secure financial standing. 
The emergence of modern venture capital dates to the post-WWII era, and, despite Silicon Valley's dominance in the field today, it was born on the East Coast. BusinessWeek editor Spencer Ante offers a history of corporate investment structures. The notion of investing in a business with money obtained beyond one's personal family - the very crux of this high-stakes business segment today - was a demoncratization of the business world hitherto unseen.
How did Silicon Valley come to own the tech industry? BusinessWeek's Spencer Ante offers a historical perspective on the Valley's success positioning and usurping of the East Coast's market dominance. Ante credits a number of factors for the shift westward, including Frederick Terman, a greater acceptance of ethnic diversity, and abundant higher education. Venture firms that arose in the 1960's and 1970's, including Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia Capital, are still among the nation's most successful today.