People

John Doerr

John Doerr

Formal First Name
John
Dates
6/29/1951 - present
Location

John Doerr is the Chairman of Kleiner Perkins, a venture capital firm based in Menlo Park, California. He is committed to encouraging leaders to reimagine the future, from transforming healthcare to advancing applications of machine learning. An acclaimed engineer and venture capitalist, Doerr was one of the pioneers in investing in breakthrough clean technologies. He has deployed more than a billion dollars towards more efficient solar cells, better batteries, biofuels, lower-carbon cement, alternate proteins, and electric vehicles.

Professional Experience


Academic History

CAREER

  • Doerr joined Intel in 1974 just as they invented the legendary 8080 8-bit microprocessor. 
  • He held various engineering, marketing, and management roles at Intel, and was one of their top-ranked sales executives. 
  • He joined Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers in 1980 and sponsored a series of investments including Compaq, Cypress, Intuit, Netscape, Lotus, Millennium Pharmaceuticals, S3, Sun Microsystems, Amazon.com, Symantec, and Google.
  • Together with KPCB’s partners, he has backed many of America’s best entrepreneurial leaders, including Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Eric Schmidt, Jeff Bezos, Scott Cook, Bill Campbell, Andy Bechtolsheim, Scott McNealy, Bill Joy, and Vinod Khosla.
  • He soon started Silicon Compilers, VLSI CAD software company, and @Home, the first broadband cable Internet service.


PHILANTHROPY

  • Doerr is personally involved in the improvement of K-12 public education, global poverty/health, and public policy.
  • He helped advocate the creation of the $1 Billion BARDA program to strengthen national preparedness against pandemic flu.
  • He led a delegation of entrepreneurs to advocate the passage of California's landmark AB32: Global Warming Solutions Act.


OTHERS

  • Doerr was born in St. Louis, Missouri
  • He is the only investor to appear on Forbes' Midas List of top venture capitalists every year for the past two decades.
  • He has helped create more than a million jobs and some of the world's most valuable companies. 
  • He works with social entrepreneurs for change in public education, the climate crisis, and global poverty. 
  • He holds patents for computer memory devices he invented as a design engineer at Monsanto. 
  • He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Amazon.com, Google, and ONE.org.