At Eberstadt, before fleeing from the dual dooms to which the research business was fated, we attempted to escape by moving upstream, incrementally shifting our role from that of investment banking agent to venture capital principal. In 1981, I had hired Jack Lasersohn into our investment banking group. Jack had been top of his class at Yale Law School and was an associate at Cravath, Swaine and Moore when he decided that he needed a more entrepreneurial career path than that available at one of the most prestigious corporate law firms in Wall Street.

Having been an undergraduate student of physics at Yale, Jack was fascinated with computers and computing and was determined to participate more directly in the industry. When we responded as a firm to persistent requests to establish a conventional limited partnership to serve our clients who wanted to be able to make a single decision in committing to our stream of private placements, Jack took the lead in managing Post-Venture Capital, LP, which was chartered to invest broadly in venture opportunities, not just in the deals we originated.