William Hambrecht

Bill Hambrecht (born 1935) is an American investment banker and chairman of W.R. Hambrecht + Co. which he founded in 1998. 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. Some of the companies he has helped have an IPO like this include Overstock.com, Ravenswood winery and Salon.com.

Hambrecht is also credited as one of the first major investors 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. The firm was bought by Chase Manhattan in 1999. In 1997, he sponsored the foundation of BOOM Securities (H.K.) Limited.

In 2007 he was in the news for planning a professional football league, the United Football League, to compete with the National Football League. Along with AOL CEO Tim Armstrong, Hambrecht pledged $2 million to start the league up, and lured its first owner, billionaire Mark Cuban. In the 1980s Hambrecht was a minority investor in the Oakland Invaders, a charter member of the failed United States Football League.

He is a 1957 graduate of Princeton University. He has been listed as one of the top political donors in the country, giving mostly to Democratic candidates, and credits Nancy Pelosi, whom he met in the 1970s, with inspiring him to get involved in politics.

William Hambrecht is on the Board of Trustees of the American University of Beirut, Lebanon. He was also on the AOL Inc. Board of Directors from Dec. 2010 to Feb. 2010.

United Football League
Hambrecht invested in the upstart United Football League. It was announced on August 11, 2009 that Hambrecht was stepping forward to be the owner of the Las Vegas Locomotives franchise.