Steve Anderson, for example, did a four-year stint in the early 2000s. Many constitute the next generation of leadership in the venture capital world-but not at Kleiner.
#Kleiner perkins full
Kleiner also became known as a firm full of highly pedigreed young investors who stayed for a number of years but left without being given a shot at ascending to the top ranks. The third challenge seems to be a loss of talent as smart VC left Kleiner since they felt they could not get the top job. “Vinod Khosla, another Sun cofounder and the closest Doerr had to an investing peer, jumped ship in 2004 to set up his own shop, a formidable power on Sand Hill Road today.
The firm’s heart may have been in the right place, but its investments flopped.” Between 20, the firm had invested $630 million across 54 “clean tech” companies, and 12 of its 22 partners spent some or all of their time on so-called green investments. Doerr was a prominent Democratic fundraiser and pal of former Vice President Al Gore, whom Doerr made a Kleiner partner. 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? Once 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.
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