Venture capitalist (VC) pioneer Alan Patricof, who founded his latest firm, Primetime Partners, in 2020 at age 85, has no intention of quitting anytime soon.

"There are possibilities in every time of life," he tells The Wall Street Journal, in an article about his career and memoir, out this month, "No Red Lights" (Post Hill Press, 2022).

For those currently thinking about retiring, Patricof says: Don't. "You've got the best Rolodex. You know where all the bodies are."

As for his own career, Patricof, the son of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, studied finance at Ohio State, ended up at an investment banking firm on Wall Street and studied nights to earn an M.B.A. in finance from Columbia University in 1957.

Patricof quickly discovered he had an eye for start-ups and energtic, young self-starters.

The key to successful VC investing, he says, is to focus on a earnings and dividends, to look for companies with novel approaches to solving a problem for a large market, and to find a nascent company with a farsighted, agile leader at the helm.

"Building a company from the earliest stages is just so much more satisfying and exciting than owning stock in GM, IBM or International Paper," Patricof says.

Primetime Partners, Patricof's current firm, is a $50 million venture fund that backs start-ups by those 60 and older.

"Listen, this is the fastest-growing part of the population, so we've got to figure out how to keep these people active, motivated, interested and entertained."

Early in his career, Patricof was at an outfit that started New York magazine in 1968. While he was chairman of the publishing company, Rupert Murdoch bought the weekly magazine in a 1976 hostile takeover.

Not long after, at age 35, with VC just getting off the ground, Patricof made early bets on Apple Inc., AOL and Cellular Communications Inc.

Patricof sums up his current goals thus: "I'm going to live until I'm 114. I've got 27 more years to go."