William H. Janeway

William Hall (Bill) Janeway
Born	(1943-05-03) May 3, 1943 New York City, USA
Nationality	American
Alma mater	Princeton University University of Cambridge
Occupation	Venture capitalist Economist
Spouse(s)	Weslie Janeway

William Hall (Bill) Janeway is an American venture capitalist and economist. His work on the innovation economy emphasizes the strategic role played by the state and by financial speculators—sources of investment unconcerned with economic value—in overcoming fundamental uncertainty and driving the development and deployment of transformational technologies.

Early life and academic career

Bill Janeway was born on May 3, 1943 in Manhattan, the second son of Elizabeth Janeway, author and critic, and Eliot Janeway, political economy columnist. He attended Trinity School in New York, from which he graduated as valedictorian of the class of 1961, and Princeton University, from which he graduated as valedictorian of the class of 1965. He received a Marshall Scholarship to the University of Cambridge, where he received a Ph.D. in economics in 1971. His doctoral thesis on "The Economic Policies of the Labour Government of 1929-1931" was supervised by Professor Lord Kahn.^[1]

Investment career

Investment banking:

In 1970, Janeway joined F. Eberstadt & Co., Inc., the investment-banking firm that was founded by Ferdinand Eberstadt. In 1979, he became director of corporate finance. In 1985, F. Eberstadt was acquired by Robert Fleming & Co., the London merchant bank and investment management firm. Janeway served as director of corporate finance of the resulting American subsidiary, Eberstadt Fleming & Co., Inc., until 1988.^[2]

Venture capital:

Janeway joined Warburg Pincus, the private equity firm, in 1988 as head of its high technology investment team.^[2] The firm’s high-tech investments through the 1990s centered on information and communications technology, and, after 1991, increasingly focused on enterprise software.

In 1992, the firm funded the launch of OpenVision Technologies, which subsequently merged with VERITAS Software in 1996.^[3] In 1999, Warburg Pincus also was the founder and sole investor in BEA Systems.^[4] Warburg Pincus eventually distributed its positions in both companies to its limited partners, realizing total returns of $750 million in VERITAS shares and $6.5 billion in BEA shares on investments in each of approximately $50 million.^[5]

In 2006, Janeway retired as a Vice Chairman of Warburg Pincus. He remains a senior advisor.^[2]

Recent research

In collaboration with Professor Michael McKenzie of the University of Sydney, Janeway conducted research on venture capital returns.^[6] He served as a teaching visitor at Princeton University’s economics department in 2012 and is a visiting scholar on the economics faculty of the University of Cambridge.

Work on innovation

Janeway re-engaged with academic economics through a friendship with Hyman Minsky that began in the mid-1980s.^[7] Janeway’s article, "Doing Capitalism: Notes on the Practice of Venture Capitalism," presented at the annual meeting of The Association for Evolutionary Economics in December 1985,^[8] was written at Minsky’s behest.

Current positions

Janeway is a director of Magnet Systems, Nuance Communications, and O'Reilly Media, and is a member of the board of managers of Roubini Global Economics. He also is a member of the board of directors of the U.S. Social Science Research Council.^[9] He joined the governing board of the Institute for New Economic Thinking in 2010 and became a co-founder in 2012.

Philanthropic work

Janeway and his wife, Weslie Janeway, established the Cambridge Endowment for Research in Finance in 2001^[10][11] and funded the annual Princeton-Cambridge Finance Seminars in 2004.

Honors

In September 2012, Janeway was granted the honorary honor of Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) "for services to education in support of Cambridge University and to UK/US relations".^[12]

Janeway's book Doing Capitalism was included in Foreign Affairs' 2012 list "Best Books on Economic, Social, and Environmental Subjects", as well as the Financial Times' "Best books of 2012".^[13][14]

Publications

• W. H. Janeway, Doing Capitalism in the Innovation Economy: Markets, Speculation and the State (Cambridge University Press, 2012)
• M. D. McKenzie, and Janeway, W., "Venture Capital Funds as an Alternative Class of Investment" in Asset Management: Tools and Strategies, June, (London: Bloomsbury Publishing Company, 2011)
• W. H. Janeway, "Doing Capitalism, revised and extended" in W. Drechsler, Kattel, R. and Reinert. E.S. (eds.), Techno-Economic Paradigms: Essays in Honour of Carlota Perez, (London: Anthem Press, 2009)
• W. H. Janeway, Introduction, in N. R. Lamoreaux and Sokoloff, K. L. (eds), Financing Innovation in the United States, 1870 to the present. (Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 2007)
• W. H. Janeway, "Technology and Value", Social Research. 64 (3) 1327-1331 (1997)
• W. H. Janeway, "The 1931 sterling crisis and the independence of the Bank of England", Journal of Post-Keynesian Economics. 18 (2) 251-268 (Winter 1995-1996)

References