Artifact Details

Title

Perkins, Thomas J. oral history

Catalog Number

102714336

Type

Document

Description

Thomas J. Perkins co-founded the legendary Silicon Valley venture capital firm of Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers (KPCB) with Eugene Kleiner in 1973 after a decade-long career at Hewlett-Packard. Together with his KPCB partners, Perkins led one of the most successful long-term venture investing strategies in the history of Silicon Valley. Two of the earliest venture investments that Perkins led—Tandem Computers and Genentech—went on to be game-changing developers of technology in the earliest days of system and high-performance computing.

A number of oral histories of Perkins are available on the Internet, including a long interview done by the University of California at Berkeley. This three-hour oral history conducted in 2011 focuses on Perkins’ upbringing, education, mentors, early professional experience at Hewlett-Packard and transition to venture investing. It also covers his investment philosophy and a number of personal stories of entrepreneurs with whom he had particularly close business relationships.

Date

2011-07-22

Contributor

Dennis, Eric, Videographer
Hollar, John C., Interviewer
Perkins, Thomas J., Interviewee

Publisher

Computer History Museum

Place of Publication

San Francisco, California

Extent

23 p.

Copyright Holder

Computer History Museum

Category

Transcription

Subject

Kleiner Perkins; Caufield; Byers, Tom; Venture Capital; Tandem Computer; Genentech; Hewlett-Packard; HP; Sand Hill Road

Collection Title

Oral history collection

Lot Number

X6219.2012

Related Records

102714335 Perkins, Thomas J. oral history