Big Spenders

These six men oversee more than $120 billion in research and technology investments in the United States.

DON VALENTINE is a partner and the founder of Sequoia Capital, a leading technology venture capital firm in Menlo Park, CA. Sequoia completed 30 investment deals last year, making it one of the most active technology venture capital firms. Valentine founded the firm in 1972 and was an original investor in Apple Computer, Atari, and Oracle.

ANDREW VON ESCHENBACH is the director of the National Cancer Institute, the largest institute within the National Institutes of Health, with a 2005 budget of $4.8 billion. He is a urologic surgeon and a cancer survivor. He has made it a goal of his organization to eliminate suffering and death due to cancer by 2015.

THEODORE POEHLER is the vice provost for research at Johns Hopkins University, whose total research budget this year is about $1.2 billion, the largest among U.S. universities. Trained as an electrical engineer, Poehler has a bachelor’s and a master’s degree and a PhD, all from Johns Hopkins, and has spent almost his entire professional career with the university.

STEVE MCGAW was Cingular Wireless’s head of corporate development and the chief negotiator behind its acquisition of AT&T Wireless last year, in a deal worth $41 billion. This was the largest technology acquisition in the United States last year, and it made Cingular the number one U.S. wireless provider. McGaw is now senior vice president, supply chain, at Cingular.

JOHN LAMATTINA is the president of Pfizer Global Research and Development. Pfizer, headquartered in New York, NY, has the pharmaceutical industry’s largest R&D budget—$7.7 billion last year—and one of the largest among all corporations. Trained as a chemist, LaMattina now oversees more than 12,500 scientists at eight major research campuses and other smaller facilities in five countries. Advertisement			MICHAEL WYNNE is the acting undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology, and logistics at the U.S. Department of Defense. He advises the secretary and deputy secretary of defense on acquisition, R&D, and advanced-technology matters. The military’s budget for R&D and advanced-technology testing and evaluation for fiscal year 2005 is $69 billion. This story is only available to subscribers. Don’t settle for half the story. Get paywall-free access to technology news for the here and now. Subscribe now Already a subscriber? Sign in You’ve read all your free stories. MIT Technology Review provides an intelligent and independent filter for the flood of information about technology. Subscribe now Already a subscriber? Sign in