A first-generation American reared in a tough patch of Oklahoma City, Philip Erdoes has never met anyone he couldn’t do business with — provided he’s so inclined. Here’s how he built his mini-empire from the ground up.

“I grew up in an economically depressed area, and though my dad was a research doctor, we were poor,” Erdoes says. “Because we lived in an ethnically diverse area and I was a minority in my high school, I learned pretty fast how to get along with just about anyone.”

That comes in handy now that the former track star juggles a similarly diverse range of startup companies with hundreds of employees as part of a budding $50 million portfolio at New York venture-capital firm Bear Ventures (no connection to Bear Stearns), of which he is the founding CEO.

Shirking what he calls the “portfolio betting” of larger, deeper-pocketed venture-capital firms that “chase a bunch of deals in hopes of scoring a few home runs,” Erdoes, 44, instead sinks funds (sourced from a small group of private investors, institutions and his own burgeoning war chest) into what he considers high-growth companies generating strong, long-term returns.

Once a corporate M&A lawyer for Houston’s prestigious Andrews & Kurth, he decided to move across the table, earning his MBA from Harvard in 1993 before launching a series of successful health-care startups.

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