Chapter 4: The Universe of Investment
Private equity isn’t just one thing. It’s a whole universe that follows a company from its very first day until it’s a giant corporation.
Venture capital
Chapter 1: Christopher Columbus Was the First VC
If you think venture capital is a modern invention from Silicon Valley, think again. It’s actually hundreds of years old. In fact, Cyril Demaria argues that Christopher Columbus was one of the first great venture capitalists.
Chapter 4 Part 1: Venture Capital and Growth Capital - Funding the Next Big Thing
Chapter 4 is where Demaria gets into the actual strategies private equity funds use to make money. He starts with the one everyone has heard of: venture capital. The stuff that turns garage projects into billion-dollar companies. Or, more often, burns through cash and produces nothing.
Chapter 2 Part 1: How the USA Built the Private Equity Machine
Chapter 2 of Demaria’s book opens with a fun question: is modern private equity a French invention? The word “entrepreneur” is French. The guy who basically created modern venture capital, Georges Doriot, was French. But he did it in America. At Harvard, not in Paris. That tells you something about where the conditions were right.
Chapter 1: The Wild Origins of Private Equity - From Columbus to Modern Finance
Chapter 1 of Cyril Demaria’s book opens with a story you probably did not expect in a finance textbook. Christopher Columbus. Yep, the guy with the ships.