![]() He also was a prominent cheerleader for Silicon Valley in the age of the Internet.ĭoerr was so powerful, in fact, that he was able to pivot Kleiner’s entire thrust away from the Internet and toward his latest passion project: renewable energy companies he believed would be the next important wave of tech investing. Doerr scored a string of hits-Netscape, Amazon, and Google-becoming an active and forceful board member at the tech industry’s most exciting companies. A former Intel salesman, Doerr joined Kleiner in 1980 and over time became its de facto leader. The second problem appears to be superstar VC John Doerr’s fondness for renewable energy projects. “The firm’s ablest investor for two decades, though his name wasn’t on the letterhead, was John Doerr. Worse, a class system developed inside Kleiner, evident to the outside world as well, notably among entrepreneurs mulling accepting Kleiner’s money: Team Meeker was a top-tier operation while the venture unit was B-list at best.” Meeker, not the venture capital investing unit, was landing stakes in the era’s most promising companies, including Slack, DocuSign, Spotify, and Uber, breeding resentment over tension points as old as the investing business: Who gets the credit and, more important, who gets paid. Yet Meeker’s investment team outperformed the venture group overseen by longtime Kleiner leader John Doerr and a rotating ensemble of lesser-known investors who joined and left him over the years. Part of the problem seems to be a war going on inside the firm. ““Growth” investing, with its more developed companies, should be somewhat safer than “venture” investing and would also earn commensurately lower returns. Why did Kleiner fail to spot the potential of hot startups like Robinhood which repeatedly came knocking at its door? ![]() ![]() This article originally appeared on the home of rockstar VCs such as Vinod Khosla this Fortune article contends that legendary VC firm, Kleiner Perkins, has lost its way and seeks to understand the roots of its malaise. Just last week, Index shared that it had hired a new venture capitalist, Sarah Cannon, from CapitalG. “If you go outside of Silicon Valley and ask, “Have you heard of venture capital?’” he said, “Kleiner Perkins would be top of mind - and that’s what you get for building that sort of history over 45 years.”įushman, an early executive at Dropbox, will continue to focus on software investments and financial technology at Kleiner as a partner on its venture team. Fushman is Hamid’s first addition to the lineup of general partners, and the firm expects to add at least one more soon.įushman told Recode he was attracted to the brand and legacy of Kleiner, which is famous for its early bets on Google and Amazon. The firm is becoming younger, increasingly organized around Mamoon Hamid, who joined Kleiner last year in a somewhat messy departure from Social Capital. Recruiting him is a sign of strength for Kleiner, which has been undergoing something of a makeover in recent years after John Doerr, one of the best-known and most senior investors in Silicon Valley, stepped back from day-to-day operations. Ilya Fushman, previously a general partner at Index Ventures, is jumping to Kleiner. Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers is adding another general partner to its roster, the latest coming-and-going in a stretch of high turnover at the storied venture capital firm.
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