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JUNE 1, 2005
A Bad Case of Google Envy [Page 2 of 2] Q: How do you like the venture business? A: I like it. I went through about a year and a half to two years of saying, "This will bring sanity back to my life." I thought I'd come to work at nine and go home at five or six, and call entrepreneurs and say, "Hey buddy, how's everything going?" That's not how it works at all. My wife would say I'm not telling you the whole truth on this, but I still say it's a different work schedule than I had at Oracle. At Oracle, I traveled 70% of my time, and I worked a good 16 to 18 hours a day, and I was on call all the time. Here, I do my e-mail and all of that, but I go home. If someone needs to call me on Saturday, he can call me on Saturday, but I don't travel, and I'm not on call. That, to me, is a big, big difference. I've got two young kids, a 6-year-old and a 4-year-old. Q: Any desire to go run a public company? A: In the first year-and-a-half to two years, you get all these calls saying, "You're not serious about venture capital. Why don't you come run this big public company?" I had to get that all out of my system, quite frankly. I had to ask myself: "Can I really say no?" I had to say no to some really outstanding opportunities. I said to myself, "Why am I saying no? Do I really like [venture capital]?" And then I got it. I was always afraid I was entering into a new business, a new career -- venture capital. Well, I have no desire to learn venture capital. But I found that the entrepreneurs weren't looking for venture capitalists. They're looking for venture capital money, but they're looking for people who have operating experience. So I wondered, "Can I really do this business?" Well, yeah, I can, because that's what they really want: Someone who has experience and the contacts and all of that. So yeah, I like it. Q: What made you hesitate when you would say no to CEO jobs? What was pulling you back? A: Ego. It's all about ego. The way I look at it is: If you knew you had five years to live, would you give those five years to shareholders, would you give it to entrepreneurs, or would you give it to kids? How do you want to spend your time? I hope I live another 30 to 40 years, but if not, do I want to work real hard for 5 years? Maybe 10 years from now, when my kids are teenagers and they hate me, then I would consider maybe going back. Q: You mention ego, and I imagine there's a good deal of that being a partner at Kleiner Perkins, too. Would you have joined any other venture firm? A: No. Q: Why not? A: John [Doerr], it's really John. If John weren't here, I'd seriously think about something else to do. [Doerr is a Kleiner Perkins general partner, who funded Sun Microsystems and Amazon (AMZN ), among other companies.] What I want to do now is: I want to have a Google. Virsa is a candidate. Visible Path is a candidate. I have about three or four candidates. I have some that never will be candidates. I want them to have a good transition to something, but it will not be a big, important billion-dollar company. I know that already.
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