Upon returning to the United States, he attended Harvard Business School and studied under professor Georges Doriot, who is often credited with starting the venture capital industry.

During his twenty years as the senior partner of Sutter Hill, Draper helped to organize and finance several hundred high-technology manufacturing companies.

In 1986, he became the head of the world's largest source of multilateral development grant assistance, the United Nations Development Programme, and was instrumental in the leadership of several global initiatives, such as the international Education for All movement (beginning formally with the 1990 Conference in Jomtien, Thailand), the 1995 Beijing Women's' Conference, and the 1995 Social Summit in Copenhagen, Denmark.

[7] In this post, Draper assumed a leadership role in U.S. efforts to sustain world trade in the face of major liquidity problems among the developing countries.

Robert Steven Kaplan, formerly vice-chairman of Goldman Sachs and the thirteenth president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, joined as co-chair in 2010.

[14] The Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation is a global venture philanthropy firm that supports early-stage, high impact social enterprises.

The current DRK portfolio includes organizations working both domestically in the United States and internationally helping to provide critical access to healthcare, education, legal resources, economic empowerment, food security, social justice, water and sanitation, transparency and accountability, and shelter.

Draper formerly served as the Chairman of the World Affairs Council of Northern California, Chairman of the Institute of International Education, as a Trustee of Yale University and as Chairman of the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco; he was a former Board member of Population Action International, the United Nations Association of the United States of America, Hoover Institution, Atlantic Council, George Bush Library Foundation, the Advisory Council of the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and the World Rehabilitation Fund in New York.

In 2005 Draper received the Vision Award from SD Forum and was inducted into the Dow Jones Venture Capital Hall of Fame.