Randy Komisar, a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and author of the best-selling book The Monk and the Riddle, talks about how innovation occurs at Kleiner Perkins. Instead of giving projects a thumbs up or thumbs down, the firm uses a set of filters to review and improve these projects. Through this process of iteration, innovation and problem solving occurs between investors and entrepreneurs, he notes.

Transcript



So Randy, the first thought I want is, you're a big believer in big ideas. And we've heard the businesses you've been involved in. And I guess my first thought would be, do you still see big ideas coming? I've always thought that you could be pretty darn successful taking the next incremental step. But where do you get these ideas? And for this group of entrepreneurs, do you see that that still is the most logical path, or at least the one that attracts you? I think there are certainly many different paths to building successful start-up ventures. I think that the exciting one for me and for the firm I now work with, Kleiner Perkins, is to try and find those big ideas that can make big differences. And the way that we tend to do it is that it's a riff that we do with the information that we're always getting feedback on from projects and entrepreneurs that are coming in everyday to show us what they're working on. But unlike a lot of venture capitalists, we don't generally sort of take a look at what they've presented and give it a thumbs up or thumbs down. There's a real sense of applying that against a set of filters that we've already come up with on a rolling annual basis as a partnership, anticipating what we think can be the very significant innovative changes over the course of the next 5 to 10 years. And with that filter in mind, we tend to look at projects and then we tend to tweak them. We tend to work with the entrepreneurs and management to steer them to where we think the big ideas and the big impact is. So it's this process, this constant process of iteration and riffing with what's bubbling up organically and what we see as investors/entrepreneurs ourselves, in looking at the problems we want to solve. What are the big problems that are on the horizon, that innovation can make a difference with?

1. A Venture Capitalist Innovation Process
2. The TiVo Transformation
3. Innovation Advice from George Lucas
4. A Cautionary Word on the Deferred Life Plan
5. Necessity-Driven Entrepreneurship
6. Lessons Learned from Failures
7. A View On Industry Bubbles and Investment Partners
8. Optimizing Career and Life Opportunities
9. Different Entrepreneurs Excel in Various Company Stages
10. Skills Of Great Entrepreneurs
11. The Supportive Silicon Valley Ecosystem

Randy Komisar answer questions on Entrepreneurship for Stanford University students on March 3, 2007. Randy Komisar, a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and author of the best-selling book The Monk and the Riddle, talks about how innovation occurs at Kleiner Perkins. Instead of giving projects a thumbs up or thumbs down, the firm uses a set of filters to review and improve these projects. Through this process of iteration, innovation and problem solving occurs between investors and entrepreneurs, he notes.