Making Waves

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With the financial success of his own company, Perkins left HP in 1972 to become a venture capitalist, teaming up with fellow entrepreneur Eugene Kleiner. The first Kleiner Perkins partnership, funded with $8 million, was at the time the largest venture capital company in the world. Kleiner and Perkins approached investing in a new way, taking a direct management role in the companies in their portfolio. At one point, Perkins chaired 14 of the companies KPCB funded, including three traded on the New York Stock Exchange. "Tom was a pioneer as an activist board member, learning the science and technology of a company, being involved intimately in product development and marketing, and even going out with managers on sales calls," Byers says.

In 34 years, KPCB has made more than 475 investments, generating $90 billion in revenue and creating 275,000 jobs. KPCB funded 167 companies that later went public, including Amazon, AOL, Genentech, Google, and Netscape.

Perkins is especially proud of his work with Genentech, which was founded in 1976 and sparked the development of the biotechnology industry. "The idea for the company started in my office and was cooked up with Bob Swanson '69," Perkins says. "We were both very interested in gene splicing and genetic engineering." The company's groundbreaking discoveries in recombinant-DNA technology include the first genetically engineered human insulin and a series of cancer treatments. Perkins, who served as chairman of Genentech's board for 15 years, says it was the most technically innovative company he has worked with and, since its products save lives, the most personally rewarding.

These days, Perkins spends a lot of time focusing on the technical innovations he's building into the Falcon. He began boating as a boy on Long Island Sound and bought his first sailboat when he moved to San Francisco. After restoring a classic motor yacht and a 135-foot schooner designed by Nathanael Herreshoff (an MIT alum from the class of 1870), he built two other big boats. In the past five years, he's logged countless hours overseeing the construction of the Falcon, in which he hopes to beat the old clipper-ship records for sailing such routes as New York to San Francisco.

Built in Turkey and based in Malta, the boat is the first to employ DynaRig technology, initially developed in Germany in the 1960s, to control the sails. The Falcon's three freestanding 190-foot masts rotate to accommodate the wind angle and are made of carbon fiber to eliminate metal fatigue. ("There's more carbon in Falcon's masts than in a stealth bomber," says Perkins, who had a critical section of a sample mast torque-tested until it broke so he'd know its limits.) The masts hold 25,800 square feet of "canvas" on 15 square sails, which are controlled using 75 electric furling winches mounted aloft. Although the design is complex, the sailing is simple, thanks to a touch-sensitive control panel. Perkins told Yachting magazine he can teach anyone to sail the boat in 30 minutes.