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John Doerr    

Venture Capitalist at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

John Doerr is an American venture capitalist at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. He also served on the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board during the Obama administration. In 2017, Forbes ranked Doerr as 105th richest person in the United States and the 303rd richest person in the world.

Doerr joined Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers in 1980 and has since backed some of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs, including Larry Page, Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt of Google; Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com, and Scott Cook and Bill Campbell of Intuit. John’s passion is helping entrepreneurs create the “Next Big Thing” in mobile and social networks, greentech innovation, education and economic development. Ventures sponsored by Doerr have created more than 300,000 new jobs. John serves on the boards of Amyris, Google, and Zynga, as well as several private technology ventures. He also led KPCB’s investment in Twitter.

Doerr’s technology career began in 1974 at Intel, just as the chipmaker was inventing the groundbreaking 8080 microprocessor. During his Intel years, he held roles in engineering, marketing, management, and sales. He also learned about operating excellence from Intel co-founder Andy Grove — insight that he continues to share with entrepreneurs today. Later, Doerr founded Silicon Compilers, a VLSI CAD software company, and co-founded @Home, the nationwide broadband cable Internet service.

Outside of KPCB, Doerr supports entrepreneurs focused on the environment, public education and alleviating global poverty. These include NewSchools.org, TechNet.org, the Climate Reality Project and ONE.org. John earned B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering from Rice University and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School. He also holds several patents for computer memory devices. Doerr is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

News


Who's Been On The Midas List More Than Anyone?
FORBES first published the Midas List of the world’s smartest tech investors two and a half bubbles ago. Many of the people on that inaugural list of 2001 we once knew and loved are now either semi-retired (Bob Kagle, Dick Kramlich) or no longer playing the game at the level they once did (you know who you are). Gone also are the non-VCs we used to include to acknowledge the company-building contributions of power lawyers like Larry Sonsini and Jim Gaither, or tech bankers such as Michael Grimes, Brad Koenig (now a startup CEO) and Frank Quattrone. Midas became a pure VC list by 2006.
John Doerr On Zynga: 'We Have To Get Zynga's Stock Price To ...
When all else fails for your company, look to the heavens. Zynga -- the social gaming company that has in the last several months changed its CEO, laid people..
Want money? Investor legend John Doerr names his top 3 verticals ...
SAN FRANCISCO — When one of the biggest names in venture capital says, “ The largest new opportunities in technologies are in … ,” you listen. John Doerr of ...
John Doerr Takes On His Critics And Talks Up Kleiner's Prospects ...
VideoJohn Doerr is ready to talk. After years of criticisms about his clean tech flops and being called out for the investments he missed in the early days of the ...

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