Kleiner Perkins makes major changes

http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2013/10/11/kleiner-perkins-makes-major-changes/

by _pius • 13 years ago

41 14 13 years ago

finance.fortune.cnn.com

Jamurai• 13 years ago

What do you think are the implications (if any) of this change?

rch• 13 years ago

I'd be curious to know more about Bill Joy and how his role has evolved.

selmnoo• 13 years ago

I'm really sad about KPCB and other firms taking the direction they're taking. It hit me hard to hear John Doerr express his desire to focus a lot of his energy on firing up Zynga.

I had a lot of respect for KPCB when they were going all out on cleantech, on stuff that would make a difference. It didn't give them much return, so they're out of that game now. But on a happy note, Khosla and Gates (who's now a limited partner to KV) are the new players there. Let's hope they succeed in some capacity and more follow.

iambateman• 13 years ago

Agreed. It seems like the market has spoken on Zynga, and even 13-year-olds don't like their games.

monsterix• 13 years ago

I am curious about the implications actually. Wondering how much is the impact of crowd-funding / public micro-funding on deal quality and deal flow for these traditional VC firms (Mattermark anything?)? Why are the VCs lowering their fund size so rapidly? I know it's still early on to even ask this, but a discussion went on those lines in one of the hallway conversations recently.

tanzam75• 13 years ago

Wondering how much is the impact of crowd-funding / public micro-funding on deal quality and deal flow for these traditional VC firms (Mattermark anything?)? Why are the VCs lowering their fund size so rapidly?

Crowd-funding is a negligible factor, at least thus far.

Venture capital has simply underperformed the broad stock market. This looks even worse on a risk-adjusted basis, because riskier assets are supposed to outperform safer assets.

As a result, pension funds and university endowments have been cutting back their allocation to venture capital. Less money = smaller VC funds.

The reason VC worked out for Yale was because nobody else knew about VC. When every other university adopted the Yale model, VC stopped outperforming other investments.

jacques_chester2• 13 years ago

In related news, longtime Kleiner Perkins partner John Denniston has resigned to lead a Bay Area nonprofit called the St. Vincent De Paul Society.

Perhaps this was drafted poorly, but it gives the impression that this organisation is local to the Bay Area only.

The Society of St Vincent de Paul is an international charitable organisation. In Australia it is sufficiently famous to be known by the diminutive "St Vinnies".

brianbreslin• 13 years ago

I had never heard of this foundation/charity here in Miami, FL (East coast USA). So I don't think it is a major organization like the red cross or humane society in the US. (I may be completely wrong)

jacques_chester2• 13 years ago

Right, but literally 10 seconds of Googling reveals that it is in a few different places.

paxswill• 13 years ago

They operate thrift shops in some areas of the US. It might be a west-coast mainly thing, but I think they have some locations on the east coast as well.

bmcd• 13 years ago

It's too bad they lost Denniston, I remember listening to him speak at Kleiner a few years ago as a student and thinking to myself, "this is one the most well-spoken, intelligent individuals I've ever encountered." Probably true for most KPCB staff, but a loss nonetheless.

tonyplee• 13 years ago

Worked for KPCB backed startup RGBNetworks a few years back. Loss all of my respect for that VC after that. Install their own CEO - most technologically clueless guy I have ever seen, kicked the 3 founders (extreme smart MIT grad) out of the board/company, went on a hiring spree for a lot of clueless VP, directors (friends of CEO) - turn a company with $40 mil / years revenue into a walking zombie.

peterjancelis• 13 years ago

Honestly I was expecting much worse of a restructuring for Kleiner Perkins. It also would not have surprised me if Doerr would have retired to go into clean tech politics or some related non-profit.

I'd like to see the pitch they used to still be able to raise this fund.

Kleiner Perkins makes major changes

Related Stories