Herman Fialkov was born in 1922 and grew up in Brooklyn, New York. Herman attended City College of New York, studying engineering. He left college to take a job with Emerson Radio Corporation attending night school at New York University, where he took a degree in administrative engineering, the "administrative" part laying the foundation for his entrepreneurship. From there he went to Radio Receptor Corporation. Seeing a market for transistors he founded General Transistor Corporation, whose first major customer was UNIVAC. In 1960 General Transistor Corporation merged with General Instrument Corporation and began making integrated circuits. Then Fialkov started a microelectronics division, which was eventually spun off into Microchip Technology, Inc. He next ventured into cable television, convincing General Instrument to purchase Jerrold Electronics. Jerrold, through several incarnations, has evolved into Comcast.

Fialkov invested in venture capital firm, Rock and Davis, and became intrigued by venture capital. He founded his own venture capital firm, Geiger and Fialkov, with Richard Geiger, and specialized in startup companies. He ended that firm and set up Aleph Null and PolyVentures. In the last fifty years his personal and venture capital investments have financed the startup or early development of many important companies, including Intel; Teledyne; Electroglas, Inc.; Standard Microsystems; General Signal; Globecomm Systems; and several Israeli companies.