EARLY APPLE INVESTOR: Why My Team Went With Our Gut Feeling To Give Steve Jobs $300,000 In 1979

Peter Crisp, a former managing partner at venture firm Venrock Associates, was one of the first investors to take a chance on Steve Jobs before he was Steve Jobs back in 1979.

Seems like a great idea now, but hindsight is 20/20. At that time, Crisp was taking a risk.

He tells his story to OneWire, an online recruitment platform that connects leading employers and finance professionals. The company recently launched an awesome video series featuring leading executives, both on and off Wall Street called Open Door. Crisp's candid interview is the latest installment.

Before you check it out below, here's a rundown of what you'll see from OneWire:

Can't imagine a world without Apple? Apple as we know it today may not have existed without the initial support of Venrock Associates, the venture capital arm of the Rockefeller family.

In the latest installment of Open Door, an exclusive new interview series featuring leading executives, Peter Crisp, Founder and Managing Partner of Venrock, discusses how he and his colleagues decided to back Apple at its genesis.

Crisp recalls, “[The Apple team] came to New York. They arrived at the 56 th floor of 30 Rockefeller Plaza, and they asked the receptionist…where the men’s room was, because they were wearing their dungarees. And they came out about five minutes later with suits that they’d bought to come to New York to present to us.”

Crisp goes on to divulge how he and his colleagues at Venrock decided to support Apple based mostly on gut feeling.

“…We talked to them—we had nothing to go on, other than knowing that they were honest and smart. So we adjourned after about an hour and a half of talking to them—went out into the corridor…we looked at each other, shrugged our shoulders and said, let’s do it. So we ended up buying ten percent of [Apple] in 1979 for $300,000.”

Crisp, a pioneer in the venture capital space, also recalls what it was like to work directly with the Rockefeller family and recounts his long, eventful career in venture capital investing.

The interview is conducted by Skiddy von Stade, CEO of OneWire. Peter Crisp’s interview is the most recent in the Open Door series, but there are plenty more exciting names to come, including Glenn Hutchins, co-founder of Silver Lake Partners and Edith Hunt, Chief Diversity Officer and former Head of Talent Management at Goldman Sachs.

Check out Peter Crisp’s video below or visit OneWire to watch the Open Door series.

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