Oral History of Thom Weisel

Interviewed by Marguerite Gong Hancock on 2018-12-10 in San Francisco, CA X8870.2019 ©Computer History Museum

Thomas "Thom" Weisel was born in February 1941 in Rochester MN. is an American banker, businessman, and investor. He was one of the pioneers in the development of the high tech industry in Silicon Valley. Weisel is the founder of Montgomery Securities and later Thomas Weisel Partners. In addition, he is passionate about sports and has won medals in skating, cycling, and skiing. He has also been an investor in professional sports teams.

Thom attended Stanford, graduating with a degree in economics in 1963. He earned an MBA from Harvard in 1966. Even while attending Harvard, he had a burning desire to “start something…to build something.” That would have to wait though.

His first job was working as a financial analyst at FMC, the only job he could find on the west coast, which is where he wanted to be. A year later he did join a new investment banking company as a financial analyst. He shortly moved to sales, where the relationships he had built at Harvard turned out to be a real advantage. He was there four years.

However now was the time to join a group to start a new investment banking firm, Robertson Coleman, Siebel & Weisel in 1971. By 1978, the other founders had left and he renamed it Montgomery Securities. He built this firm into a very successful operation, focusing on serving the emerging high tech companies in the area and taking such companies as Applied Materials and Tandem Computer into the public market. Thom tells a number of stories surrounding the companies they worked with and reviewed why he thought the firm was so successful.

He sold the firm to NationsBank in 1997 because he felt the need to grow larger to serve the needs of larger clients. NationsBank was not able to hold up their side of the agreement with him personally, so Thom left a year after the acquisition. He formed Thomas Weisel Partners in 1999, which was later sold to Stifel in 2010. Throughout the interview, he provides details and insights into how he navigated the various peaks and valleys of the larger economy. He also talks about the many exciting companies, he’s involved with as part of Stifel.

Besides his very successful investment banking career, Thom has been active in backing various amateur sports programs and is a very active art collector, with special interest in modern art.

Catalog Number: 102740479
Lot Number: X8870.2019

[sowinski]

I looked at a interview of Weisel from October 2018 & he said Wyatt was alive, yet in THIS interview 2 months after that...he said his child was dead for one year. That is SICK!