This article examines the representation of venture capitalists on the boards of private firms in their portfolios. If venture capitalists are intensive monitors of managers, their involvement as directors should be more intense when the need for oversight is greater. The authors shows that venture capitalists' representation on the board increases around the time of chief executive officer turnover, while the number of other outsiders remains constant. He also shows that distance to the firm is an important determinant of the board membership of venture capitalists, as might be anticipated if the oversight of local firms is less costly than more distant businesses.

[How do individuals decide to become entrepreneurs and learn to make optimal entrepreneurial decisions? The concentration of entrepreneurs in regions such as Silicon Valley has stimulated research and policy interest into the influence of peers, but the causal effect is hard to identify empirically. We exploit the exogenous assignment of students into business-school sections to identify the causal effect of entrepreneurial peers. We show that, in contrast to prior findings, a higher share of entrepreneurial peers decreases, rather than increases, entrepreneurship. The decrease is driven by a reduction in unsuccessful entrepreneurial ventures; the effect on successful ventures is significantly more positive.]