When Doriot retired from HBS, Nathan Pusey, the president of Harvard, reflected on the professor's careers in education, the military, and industry: "I should like to add a personal word of appreciation in Harvard's name for the simulating role which you have played in our affairs and for the distinction which your fine Army record and vigorous business leadership have brought to our programs over a period of more than forty years. Yours has been an extraordinary record of achievement—widely influential—and to a large extent you have been responsible for a new and adventurous attitude on the part of the business community."⁶⁷

In 1987, Doriot died at the age of 87. From an era of conservative investment and large corporations, the patient visionary and calculated risk taker paved the way for groundbreaking technologies and innovative startups to succeed. "Getting the venture capital field off the ground... was as risky as the new industries it would invest in..." author and analyst Kenneth Fisher argues. "[Doriot] staked both reputation and money in an effort to prove his idea was a viable method of encouraging economic growth and social progress."⁶⁸ Many students from his Manufacturing course went on to assist Doriot during the war, work by his side at ARD, help found INSEAD, hold positions in top corporations, and start the second generation of venture capital firms. Through his symbiotic careers as educator and venture capitalist, Doriot adeptly traversed the worlds of academia and business, educating leaders and building companies that contributed to the realization of the postwar entrepreneurial economy.