Born on May 31, 1932, Gilder attended Northfield Mount Hermon School before enrolling in Yale College, graduating in 1954 with a Bachelor in history. He received a Doctor of Humane Letters in 2007 from Yale. He provided $4 million, over half the necessary funding, in honor of his daughter, Virginia Anne, a two-time Olympian, for the recently completed Gilder Boathouse for Yale rowers.The boathouse carries only the Gilder last name to honor three generations of Yale alumni.
The firm"s specialty is trading leveraged stocks and shortselling. After working at the brokerage firm of Attorney - General Becker & Company, Gilder founded the firm now known as Gilder, Gagnon, Howe & Company in 1968. He is chairman of the executive committee at the New-York Historical Society and serves on the executive board of the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture.
He is also a trustee of the Morgan Library and Museum, the American Museum of Natural History, the Central Park Conservancy, and the Thomas Jefferson Foundation.
He has now set up a Doctor of Philosophy. program at the American Museum of Natural History in his own name, the Richard Gilder Graduate School at American Museum of Natural History.
With Lewis Lehrman he is a co-founder (1994) and trustee of the Gilder Lehrman Institute. In 2005 Gilder and Lewis Lehrman received the National Humanities Medal for their work promoting the study of American history. His daughter Virginia Gilder (born 1958), also a Yale graduate, was a member of the American women"s quadruple sculls team that won the silver medal at the 1984 Summer Olympics.
