After preparing for their careers as classmates at the Harvard Business School, the two authors pursued very different paths. Len Batterson pursued a career in venture capital while Ken Freeman pursued a more traditional career in the consumer products and marketing services industries.

Len has been one of the nation's leading entrepreneurial venture capitalists for over 30 years. Beginning his venture capital career in 1982 as an investment analyst with the Venture Capital Division of the Allstate Insurance Company, he served from 1985 to 1987 as the director of Allstate's Venture Capital Division, then one of the nation's oldest, largest, and most successful venture capital management operations. He was responsible for what was at the time one of the largest pools of venture capital in the United States, with more than $350 million invested or committed for investment.

Len's series of notable successes began while at Allstate, where he played an integral role in the financing and restructuring of Control Video Corporation, which became America Online, Inc. (AOL). On its merger with Time Warner, which remains the largest merger in U.S. business history, AOL was valued at $364 billion. While at Allstate, Len also introduced to the venture capital community Allscripts, which was funded by Allstate after Len left the company, and which also grew to unicorn status and still generates over $1 billion in annual revenues.

After leaving Allstate, Len went on to found or co‐found a number of highly successful entrepreneurial venture capital funds, pioneering venture capital investment for high‐net‐worth individuals. His long‐term success is exceptional. Len has generated investor returns averaging 28%/year over nearly 30 years, with annual gains in the double digits in every decade, even through the 2000 tech bubble as well as the financial crisis of 2008–09. In addition to AOL and initial involvement with Allscripts, his investments that became unicorns include CyberSource and, more recently, Cleversafe, a data storage innovator sold to IBM in late 2015.

Most recently, Len founded VCapital LLC (www.VCapital.com), providing contemporary online access while continuing to focus on early stage, institutional quality, technology investment opportunities for individual accredited investors.

Ken Freeman began his career with consumer products leader Procter & Gamble in brand management. He went on to serve as vice president of marketing for American Cyanamid's Shulton USA Division (whose iconic brands included Old Spice, Breck, and Pine‐Sol) and for the U.S. business of Reckitt & Colman (now Reckitt Benckiser; its vast portfolio of brands included Woolite, Airwick, Easy Off, French's Mustard, and many others) and as vice president, Corporate Marketing Development globally for Nabisco. He subsequently served as president of North American operations for global marketing research leaders NFO (National Family Opinion) and then Taylor Nelson Sofres (TNS).

After leaving TNS in 2006, Ken shifted gears, teaching marketing and corporate finance courses at the undergraduate and graduate school levels at New York's Fashion Institute of Technology. In 2010, he left teaching to join his son in starting up Halston Media, which currently publishes weekly newspapers in four suburban towns in the New York metropolitan area.

Ken caught the venture capital bug in 2014, both as an individual investor and joining with Len to help create VCapital, which he now serves as a strategic advisor. He also serves as nonexecutive chairman of the board of a midsized candy and snack manufacturer and as nonexecutive chairman of his family's newspaper publishing business.