According to Komisar, the nature of the work in Kleiner Perkins is very hands on. He meets with companies every week to build their strategies, partnerships and relationships. For this reason, it is no surprise that many companies from around the world move their management teams to Silicon Valley to build the business; the ecosystem in the area is very reinforcing. On the other hand, this is also why it is difficult for a venture capitalist to back and support a company that exists entirely in another country.

Transcript



Well, the nature of ... and again, venture capital is practiced in many different ways. So I can only speak about it from the perspective of what we do at Kleiner Perkins. The nature of what we do is very hands-on in our companies. As I said, I meet with my companies every week, and help them to build their teams and to build their strategies and to build their networks and partnerships. And so the ecosystem which we work in, our own network is really important. And where our network is obviously strongest is right around us, within 60 miles of Silicon Valley. It's not a surprise that even a lot of the companies we backed coming out of Europe, coming out of Israel, coming out of, even today, coming out of countries like India end up with the management teams coming to Silicon Valley to build their businesses because that ecosystem is so reinforcing for them, and because we are then able to bring our core assets to bear in helping them. Now, we've expanded ourselves into areas, recently China, where we've been actually working a while, but we've now announced that we're working there. We've made investments in India for quite a while, much more capital investments rather than the sort of entrepreneurial investments that I'm talking about today. But you would think that the nature of our business is pretty fungible because capital is fungible. But the way that we practice venture capital at Kleiner Perkins, it's not that fungible, because it's very hands on. And so the idea of being able to back or support a company in South America, for instance, would be very very difficult for me, personally. That's not to say that there wouldn't be a partner who ultimately felt like living in South America was something they really wanted to do, and maybe they had a network because they grew up there. Then you could see that as being a possibility. But it would depend upon an individual deciding to do that and having that foundation versus an institution deciding that it's a place that they'd want to target.

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.