Mr. Oster started his career as a professional economist and moved on to become Chief Financial Officer of several companies, taking two of them public, including Oracle Corporation. Since 1987, he has been a private investor working with other private and institutional investors in all phases of the venture investing process from incubation and due diligence through building the management team and sale of the company or initial public offering. He was a first-round investor and Director of LifeUSA Holding, Inc. a life and annuity company that went public and was later merged into Allianz Life of North America. He was a first-round investor and special advisor to Informatica, Inc. (“INFA”), a provider of data integration software. Also, he was a founding investor and director of several search fund companies: Asurion, Inc., a specialty and smartphone insurance company; Pacific Pulmonary Services, (now part of Teijin Holdings) an oxygen and medications company; and Carillon Assisted Living, Raleigh, NC, a private assisted living company.

He is currently a founding investor and director of iNET Interactive, West Chester, OH, a private internet advertising company; Raptor Technology, Houston, TX, a private school visitor management software company; Industrial Water Treatment Services, Chicago, Il, a private industrial water treatment and services company; Discovia, San Francisco, CA, a private e-discovery legal company; and Recruit Military, Dayton, OH, a private company focused on matching veterans and companies for civilian jobs. He’s also a special limited partner for Spring Ridge Ventures, a venture capital partnership focusing on technology in health care, and an investor/advisor for several small private equity funds.

He received a BA in economics from Occidental College in 1963 and an MA and Ph.D. in economics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1965 and 1967, respectively. He is an Overseer of The Hoover Institution at Stanford University and Chairman of Summit Public Schools, a California charter public high school management organization.