8 pearls from the grandfathers (not godfathers) of VC
- Cromwell Schubarth
- Senior Technology Reporter- Silicon Valley Business Journal
- Email | Twitter | Google+
If there is one thing Sequoia Capital founder Don Valentine wanted to make
clear at TechCrunch Disrupt on Wednesday, it is this: He isn't The Godfather of
venture capital.
"I did not come a thousand miles
to be here from Montana only to be identified with a major criminal," Valentine
said early in a wide-ranging interview of him and Tom Perkins, co-founder of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. "The godfather
is not an image that I hope my grandchildren recognize."
OK. So he's the "grandfather of
venture capital," not The Godfather. Francis Ford Coppola
take note, in case you want to make a movie about where the bodies are buried on
Sand Hill Road.
Both started their highly influential venture firms in 1972. Some of
Sequoia's big hits since then have been Apple, Atari and Cisco. Kleiner Perkins
big investments include Genentech, AOL, Google and Amazon.Much like a chat with your grandfather, the discussion with Perkins and Valentine covered many topics in no particular order, with the following interesting nuggets of history emerging:
— Kleiner Perkins didn't do so well at the start: "We made some really funny, but stupid, investments," Perkins said of the early work by him and co-founder Eugene Kleiner. "I will confess the worst one we did was an idea to convert a motorcycle into a snowmobile. It was called, I’m not making this up, Snow-Job. I spent a couple days on it up in the Sierras and I thought it was just terrific. But the customers didn’t jump for it."
— No. 1 in Kleiner Perkins' anti-portfolio? Passing on Apple: "Kleiner and I had looked at about three kit computer companies," Perkins said. "We were very unimpressed. We very foolishly didn’t even look at Steve (Jobs) and (Steve) Wozniak. Big mistake."
Cromwell Schubarth is the Senior Technology Reporter at the Business Journal. His phone number is 408.299.1823.
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