Industry: Profit-Minded Professor

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Watch & Worry. Once he puts up money to get a company started, Doriot figures that his job is to "watch, push, worry and spread hope." Every year 500 to 1,000 aspiring entrepreneurs beat a path to his Boston office, but Doriot weeds out all but a promising few. He is helped in the selection by seven aides, of whom four are former Doriot students. (His current students are dubbed "Doriot's raiders;" groups of them have earned up to $30,000 by publishing their probing classroom reports on companies.) When investing, Doriot always looks at the man as closely as he looks at the idea. "We haven't made any technical mistakes," he says, "but we have made people mistakes." Unable to resist the professor's penchant for grading, Doriot imposes one rule on his associates: a Grade A man with a Grade B idea is better than a Grade A idea presented by a Grade B man.

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