Bill Hambrecht
He helped persuade Google to use an Internet-based auction for their initial public offering (IPO) in 2004, instead of a more traditional method using banks and other financial companies to find buyers.He is credited with popularizing this "OpenIPO" model, using Dutch auctions to allow anyone, not just investing insiders, to buy stock in an IPO, potentially raising more money for startups.[1][2] Hambrecht is also credited as one of the first major investment bankers to recognize the value of technology and biotech companies, helping to take Apple Computer, Genentech, and Adobe Systems public in the 1980s with his earlier San Francisco-based company Hambrecht & Quist, which he founded in 1968 and which also backed the IPOs of Netscape, MP3.com, and Amazon.com.[8] In the 1980s Hambrecht was a minority investor in the Oakland Invaders, a charter member of the failed United States Football League.Along with AOL CEO Tim Armstrong, Hambrecht pledged $2 million to start the league up and arranged its original owners.