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John Doerr
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venture capital
No, Kleiner Perkins won't give your Web 2.0 startup money
In the latest issue of Fortune, a feature about venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins pointed out that the company has yet to make any investments in Web 2.0. The firm which was an early investor in Google has not been so bullish on the likes of Facebook. (The investment in Friendster couldn't have helped.) Instead, it has continued to focus on biotech on the one hand and changed focus to cleantech on the other. Reporter Adam Lashinsky noted that KP didn't even send a representative to the Wall Street Journal's D: All Things Digital conference this year, and relays the bad buzz from Carlsbad: More »
quotable
Jeff Bezos to remind John Doerr he's not a virgin
Speaking to young graduates, including eight new Amazon.com hires, at Carnegie Mellon University's commencement ceremonies on Sunday, Jeff Bezos admitted that he's a nerd who does "a mean interpretation of Captain Picard," but is not a sexless monk. That classification was suggested by Amazon board member John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins. Citing Bezos as an example, Doerr said the perfect founder "is undistracted because he has no sex life." Bezos intends to remind the sex-negative venture capitalist of his many children at Amazon's next board meeting. John, if you need a retort, just exclaim how "resourceful" Mackenzie Bezos is.
venture capital
Sequoia's Michael Moritz: VCs need to stop with the "hot air and arrogance"
After reading our take on VC blogger Fred Wilson's advice that entrepreneurs need to learn how to "ask for the order," Persai cofounder Ted Dziuba commented: "Methinks Fred Wilson doth blog too much." We disagree, if only because Wilson is such a fruitful source. But at a venture capital conference in San Francisco last week, Sequoia Capital's Michael Moritz seemed to second the notion. "There's a lot of hot air and arrogance in the business that we all would be better off without," Moritz told the conference crowd. Moritz said he disapproved of "useless pontificating in front of entrepreneurs working harder than we are." Kleiner Perkins VC John Doerr concurred: "At Kleiner, we're trying to watch our language." This from the guy who said the Internet was underhyped — and then invested in Friendster. (Photo by b_d_solis)
once you're lucky, twice you're good
F is for Fitzpatrick, and "hookers and blow"
LiveJournal founder Brad Fitzpatrick is a prankster, as evidenced by his Halloween costume last year, when the new Googler dressed up as Facebook to mock his coworkers' fears of the social network. I'm told that in Once You're Lucky, Twice You're Good, Sarah Lacy's new book about Web 2.0, there's an anecdote about Fitzpatrick submitting an expense report — successfully! — for "hookers and blow" when he worked at blog software startup Six Apart. That was likely a reference to the early days of LiveJournal, when users made ridiculous accusations that Fitzpatrick was spending money meant for servers and bandwidth on "hookers and blow." We'd love to hear more, but alas, Fitzpatrick only got 8 out of 294 pages, according to the book's index. Here's the page for "D" through "F": More »
failanthropy
John Doerr gives daughter's private school $1 million
The Castilleja School, a posh private prep school for girls in Palo Alto with an annual tuition of $29,305, received a $1 million from the Benificus foundation, which lists John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins as president and his wife, Ann Howland Doerr, as vice president and secretary. The gift was part of the school's fundraising efforts, and granted the foundation the right to name the program chair of the math department after the couple. In what I'm sure is just a coincidence, the Doerr's daughter, Mary Doerr, is set to graduate with the class of 2009. Don't work too hard, young Mary — our tipster figures you'll do quite well on your report cards, as long as you don't take leadership lessons from Jimmy Wales, who recently lectured at the school. For parents a little harder on their luck, the cost to rename the computer lab is a mere $200,000.
Kleiner Perkins closes $500 million green growth fund
John Doerr has closed a half-billion dollars in capital for the new Kleiner Perkins cleantech growth fund, with buddy Al Gore kicking in some dough from his Generation Investment deal. [CNet] (Photo by AP/Paul Sakuma)
cleantech
Al Gore has another $683 million to spend on climate projects
Former U.S. vice president Al Gore will chair a new $683 million Climate Solutions Fund from Generation Investment Management. The money will be used to seed public and private companies in long-term investments in carbon markets, renewable energy and cleaner fossil fuel use. Generation includes Gore's BFF John Doerr, the Kleiner Perkins venture capitalist, on its advisory board, and has partnered with Doerr's firm in the past. Doerr and Gore are currently raising another $400 million late-stage investment fund for Kleiner. Preaching climate-change end-times sermons can get the creative-capitalist congregation to dig deep when the collection plate comes around.
cleantech
Al Gore, Kleiner Perkins raising $400 million green fund
John Doerr and Al Gore have been taking their pitch for a new $400 million environment-friendly venture fund to prospective limited partners, and have already hired a veteran investment manager from Goldman Sachs to run it. This fund, which would invest in late-stage — that is, larger — clean energy and carbon reduction projects, comes in addition to the money already reserved for cleantech in KP's $600 million early-stage investment warchest. Helping to scale electric car manufacturing comes to mind — KP just threw some money at Norway's Think Global. And existing ethanol distillers could also benefit. After all, that kind of money would certainly buy a whole lot of Brazilian slave labor. (Photo by AP/Graham Hughes)
iphone
At Apple's iPhone SDK announcement today, Steve Jobs had "one more thing..." to reveal. Venture capitalist John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins came onstage to announce a $100,000,000 "iFund" to help "young developers with funding." This is a huge amount of money for developers, but no details on how it will be invested or allocated. Compare this to the $10 million Android programming contest that Google introduced with its Android mobile phone platform. Thanks to the dedicated gadget-hounds at Gizmodo for the pic and info.
More »
Apple and Kleiner Perkins launching $100 million iFund for iPhone Developers
At Apple's iPhone SDK announcement today, Steve Jobs had "one more thing..." to reveal. Venture capitalist John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins came onstage to announce a $100,000,000 "iFund" to help "young developers with funding." This is a huge amount of money for developers, but no details on how it will be invested or allocated. Compare this to the $10 million Android programming contest that Google introduced with its Android mobile phone platform. Thanks to the dedicated gadget-hounds at Gizmodo for the pic and info.
More »
venture capital
Why East Coast VCs lack the Midas touch
Forbes has released its Midas List of top venture capitalists. New York-based investors make up 2 percent of the list, and that has the writers at Silicon Alley Insider confused. But since it's the same confusion that led Henry Blodget, the disgraced tech-stock analyst, to found the tech blog in the first place, one can hardly blame them. More »
10:00 AM on Mon Jan 28 2008
By Owen Thomas
1,080 views,
Comment
hires
Al Gore gets a real job, if being a VC counts
Anyone remember "Gore and Doerr"? That was Silicon Valley's dream presidential ticket in the late '90s, long before the Supreme Court nixed Al Gore's presidential career and John Doerr, the Kleiner Perkins VC, torpedoed his own golden reputation by missing out on all the hot Internet companies of this millennium. Gore and Doerr are teaming up again, with Gore joining Kleiner Perkins as a partner specializing in greentech startups. Finally, he has a real excuse for buying that condo in San Francisco's St. Regis tower: His previous Valley gigs, as an Apple board member and a senior advisor to Google, were thoroughly part-time, if incredibly lucrative.
web 2.0 summit
Web 2.0 Summit returns to Web 1.9 roots
Can you believe that last week's Web 2.0 Summit was the fourth such conference? Its humble beginnings were barely in evidence, as venture capitalists, corporate biz-dev types, and M&A scouts seemed to outnumber the startup founders they were trying to hunt down. Friday afternoon was a return to the old school, however, with Flickr cofounder Stewart Butterfield and LiveJournal founder Brad Fitzpatrick among the presenters. Sadly, John Doerr, the expert inflater of the first dotcom bubble, did not cry. Check the photo gallery for the conference's final, terrifying orgy of schmoozing. Some participants were so exhausted that, by the closing cocktail party, they were making deals with their eyes closed.
john doerr
Google board member hates party animals
WEB 2.0 SUMMIT — Kleiner Perkins partner John Doerr is on stage, getting interviewed by conference organizer John Battelle. His explanation for why he invested in Google? Larry and Sergey were "really nerdy" and had no social lives. There's something to that. Does that mean Doerr will start selling his still-extensive Google holdings, now that Sergey seems to be comfortable taking the night off? We can only imagine what he thinks about anyone prone to playing the John Doerr drinking game. More »
geeks gone wild
The John Doerr drinking game
WEB 2.0 SUMMIT — Kleiner Perkins venture capitalist John Doerr is the last scheduled speaker of the Web 2.0 Summit. He starts in 45 minutes. 5:05 on a Friday? Who stuck him with that slot? Anyway, it's just in time for happy hour, we say. Make his lecture fun by printing out this page and playing along with our John Doerr drinking game. Before you head into the hall and take your seat, fill your flask and bring a box of Kleenex. That and our cheat sheet will help you power through the end of the conference. More »
venture capital
Kleiner searches for a little Google magic
VC blogger Paul Kedrosky points out that famed venture-capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers has revamped its website to highlight a search box squarely on its front page. This, of course, a mere eight years after it invested in Google. Kedrosky notes that there are no results returned for "business plan" — good luck searching your way into Kleiner's portfolio — but we noticed something else that struck us as amusing. While searching for mentions of Kleiner partner John Doerr's infamous, tear-drenched appearance at this year's TED conference, the result was topped off with a sponsored ad for Ted, United Airlines' low-cost carrier. Well, that's one way to boost the value of Kleiner's Google holdings.
rumormonger
An offer Facebook developers can't refuse
Bay Partners, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm, is cutting small checks to startups developing apps on Facebook's F8 platform, VentureBeat reports. Sure, Bay is opportunistically trying to ride on top of the frenzy for apps written specifically for Facebook's user base of 29 million. But Bay's initiative, called AppFactory, is small potatoes compared to what we think Facebook backer Jim Breyer, managing partner at venture capital firm Accel Partners, might be up to. More »
11:32 AM on Tue Jul 10 2007
By Owen Thomas
4,197 views,
2 comments
Latest by Nicholas Carlson: Talked to Facebook spokesperson Brandee Barker today. She said the platform's growth has been much greater than expected since its more »
john doerr
