BrownHEN interviewed Randy Komisar, Brown '76, Partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Portola Valley, CA.
1. Randy, what is the biggest difference between being a partner in Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and working at a startup? What do you miss most about having operational responsibilities?
The great thing about being a partner at Kleiner Perkins is that I am surrounded by a tremendous amount of talent—my fellow partners, the founders and CEOs of our many ventures, the impressive management teams with whom I am privileged to work, as well as the many experts who work with our firm and make us smarter.
What I miss is the single-minded dedication to one team’s mission; the daily camaraderie amongst entrepreneurial team members who work together in the trenches, and the success of the team’s vision and passion, which serve to tie the individuals together.
2. How did an Economics concentrator at Brown and a law graduate from Harvard gain the technological background you obviously have? What advice do you have for aspiring entrepreneurs about learning pertinent technology?
The Brown Curriculum allowed me to branch out and acquire a passable competency as a technologist. Brown’s freewheeling academic environment enabled me to take classes in computer science, biology, engineering, mathematics, and other technical and science-oriented courses that I would not have taken if I were merely focused on acquiring the highest GPA. I was able to broaden my knowledge base and education.
My advice for entrepreneurs would be to obtain a generalist background first. Many universities focus on a very narrow, restrictive curriculum. Brown is an exception; Brown focuses on and excels in undergraduate liberal arts education. At Brown, I discovered how to engage my curiosity and how to learn. The methods and processes I learned at Brown have served me well, including in my current role. Every day I go out and learn something completely new and I tap into expertise from various fields to augment my own understanding.
3. What advice do you have for entrepreneurs writing business plans to secure funding?
In a startup environment based upon taking an innovative leap of faith, all experience will be secondary and tertiary, deduced from markets and the experience of other companies. By definition, you do not have sufficient first-hand experience with the leap of faith to develop a foolproof operating plan. But you do need to put something together in order to aim the venture and to gather the money and talent you will need for the journey.
The notion of a business plan for a startup is necessary but not sufficient. The business plan needs to demonstrate to the investors and team that the founders understand the nature of the challenge they are undertaking. But the team will have to refine and of course correct along the way as assumptions based upon secondary information are tested against primary data from the marketplace.
4. When you are evaluating a particular investment what role does the social contribution, for example, to the environment or to economic justice, play?
It does play a large role, but interestingly, it is not necessarily altruistic, because our role is to create commercial value. We do ask the question, “How will this company provide significant value for others?” If you look at our firm and its investments, whether it’s Genentech, Sun, Netscape, Google or Amazon; all these companies created significant social value that lead to their creation of impressive financial value.
This significant value can be utilitarian: with Google one can find anything at anytime; with Amazon one can shop and buy anything at one’s convenience; with Netscape, one could browse something called the internet and explore an entirely new digital world. These companies did not just create social value; they revolutionized our society.
A few years ago, appreciating the threat of pandemics in a global society, we raised a fund and brought in experts to focus on investing in innovations that promise to detect, treat and prevent pandemics. Aligning our economic interests with a huge public threat is good business.
We currently have a strong investment thesis related to the environment; half of our investments focus on companies that are in the green tech—clean teach area. Al Gore just joined us as a partner to help accelerate our global efforts in this regard. Addressing a big problem, like global warming, by definition provides the prospects of creating great value for all the various constituencies.
5. Can New England, Providence in particular, hope to become an entrepreneurial center similar to Silicon Valley? What is needed?
To create an entrepreneurial center like Silicon Valley, Rhode Island needs to develop a cluster of people with relevant domain know how and a culture that reinforces entrepreneurship. Boston already has a robust entrepreneurial center.
I’ve spent time in Japan, India, Taiwan, Chile, and other entrepreneurial hot spots around the world. The question is always asked, “Why is one location more successful than another?”
What I have noted to be particularly unique about Silicon Valley is the following combination of factors: a highly educated group of entrepreneurs and scientists, a great university, and a robust business infrastructure that supports startup ventures, including attractive working and living environments, a lot of available risk capital, and access to quality legal, consulting and financial services.
But Silicon Valley is more than just a combination of its parts. Its entrepreneurial culture has taken more than 80 years to develop. Silicon Valley attracts certain personalities, which are reinforced over time. What people don’t quite grasp is that the culture is very dynamic and it is reflected at every level. People who decided to come and stay invest themselves in the local entrepreneurial culture.
The secret ingredient is how a place like Silicon Valley deals with, “failure.”
Silicon Valley doesn’t punish or brand those who fail. If you have acquired experience and you are passionate about your mission, you are given other opportunities. Silicon Valley recycles and reinvests in the entrepreneurial spirit, something that most other business cultures do not do. Successful people also reinvest in innovation; they want to be a part of the next big thing; they want to help mentor, guide and support aspiring entrepreneurs. This reinvestment is probably the most significant reason Silicon Valley is so prolific in terms of innovations.
6. How can subjects like leadership and entrepreneurship, which seem to be based on personal attributes, be taught?
I have been teaching entrepreneurship at Stanford for seven years now. Great leaders and entrepreneurs are determined by an individual’s experience and, more important, character. What a teacher or mentor can do is reinforce aspects that are aligned with leadership qualities and provide insights and tools to leaders-in training.
In business, leaders are too often judged by the immediate results posted by their companies. Over a short term, a lot of people appear to be good leaders. Great leaders should be evaluated over a longer period of time on their sustainable successes.
7. What are the top qualities you would ascribe to a leader, an entrepreneur?
• Integrity
• Intellectual honesty
• Empathy
• Good self-knowledge — who you are and what you care about
• Passion and complete absorption in one’s mission
• Perseverance
8. Would you speak about fear as a motivation or hindrance toward accomplishment? How has that played a factor in your path, if any?
I believe fear is a negative emotion and do not find it useful. A lot of people think that if you are paranoid, it keeps you vigilant. But I do not find it beneficial to indulge in fear or to act out of fear.
9. As you know, the entrepreneur’s path is filled with trials and errors, and also failures. What’s a valuable insight for entrepreneurs to keep in mind when they’re experiencing setbacks?
Failure is not personal if you acted with integrity and have given it your best shot. In Silicon Valley, the only real failures are the people who have fallen short because they were lazy, stupid or corrupt. The inability to achieve results does not make you a failure; it can ultimately lead to positive experience that can result in success.
Most leaders with great successes have had moments of personal doubt, and have endured failures along the way.
10. Do you have a mentor who has helped you in career path / personal development?
I have many mentors. The most significant one is Bill Campbell. I worked with Bill at Claris and Go Corporation in the ‘80s and early ‘90s. We met at Apple more than 20 years ago. He is a terrific mentor. I also learn from my colleagues and associates as well as the many young entrepreneurs I work with.
Most important is that a mentor invests in your success, reinforces your abilities to succeed, extends himself/herself to you, and helps provide what you need for your own personal success, however you define that. While a teacher gives you tools to achieve an existing definition of success, a mentor helps make you a better you.
11. What motivated you to write the very well respected, “The Monk and the Riddle?”
The book started as a rant. It expressed the disgust that I felt during the middle of the dot.com boom. I feared that entrepreneurship was losing its meaning and purpose. It was being co-opted by the carpet baggers and the get-rich-quick crowd who were no longer pursuing entrepreneurship with passion and purpose, heart and soul. The book came out just in time, a month before the crash. To some extent it is gratifying that it is still so well received and used at numerous universities around the world, but its continual success reflects the fact that the base excesses of the boom are never far away.
12. Since the book was written, sometimes it seems like people are being less kind to one another than they had been. What hope do you have for the world?
That is a big question. The human condition is one where we are challenged and tempted by ego, greed, self-interest; many celebrated role models for success are aggressive, brutal and uncaring. It is hard for most people to rise above that and discover that it is the love and support for others that ultimately determine one’s level of satisfaction and fulfillment. Until we rise to that level of kindness, hope will be in short supply. But I am at heart an optimist and believe that people truly want to be kind, so I will hope for that.
13. What is the latest insight (about life, work, play) that you picked up and would like to share with BrownHEN?
To live a satisfying and purposeful life, you have to make a contribution. I find it very useful to live a life of integrity in a literal sense—to be integral—to incorporate my principles and values in my livelihood, to express my values in my daily life genuinely and authentically, and to engage empathetically with the host of wonderful people with whom I am privileged to cross paths every day.
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