Georges Doriot, a Harvard professor and World War II military quartermaster, founded the country’s first venture capital firm in Boston in 1946. Doriot may have been first, but he is not the most famous.
While researching a recent feature about longtime VC Alan Patricof and his firm Greycroft, Coins2Day asked venture capitalists and founders who they would put on the “Mount Rushmore of Venture Capital.”
The four most common responses in this very informal survey are listed below. But we thought it would be fun to ask Coins2Day readers to weigh in too: Do you agree with these choices? Or would you replace one of them with someone else? Scroll down to the polls below and have your say.
Vinod Khosla, Khosla Ventures
The Indian-born billionaire cofounded Sun Microsystems in 1982 before starting his eponymous venture fund in 2004. He’s famed for his clean-energy initiatives and philanthropic work, but also for an unsuccessful legal battle to block public access to a beach near his home in Half Moon Bay, Calif.
Marc Andreessen, Andreessen Horowitz
The 46-year-old Andreessen, who invented the seminal web browser Netscape, runs what’s arguably today’s most widely-watched VC firm. The company, which insiders call a16z, uses its outsize funds to bet on tech like cyber-defense and blockchains, and maintains a high profile in the press.
Tom Perkins, Kleiner Perkins
An engineer and laser-technology inventor, the late Perkins worked for Hewlett-Packard before founding his iconic firm with Eugene Kleiner. He is known for enormously lucrative bets on Genentech and Google, and for a personal life that included high-stakes yacht races and a stormy marriage to author Danielle Steel.
John Doerr, Kleiner Perkins
Doerr made his name as a top salesman at Intel in the 1970s before joining Kleiner Perkins. There, he became an early backer of founders like Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Google’s Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Doerr is also an outspoken advocate for expanding stem-cell research and fighting climate change.
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