L. John Doerr was born on June 29, 1951, in St. Louis, Missouri. He is a senior managing partner with Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), one of the most successful venture capital firms in Silicon Valley. He is known for his support of the world’s most remarkable entrepreneurs, and for directing venture capital funding to some of the world’s most successful technology companies. Doerr has an estimated net worth of $3.6B as of May 2015, according to Forbes Magazine, and is listed number 26 in The Midas List, and number 527 in the World Billionaires List.

By 1976, John Doerr completed a Bachelor and Master of Science degrees in electrical engineering from Rice University, as well as a Master of Business Administration degree from Harvard Business School. Doerr began his professional career at Intel Corporation in 1974, which was developing the groundbreaking 8080 8-bit microprocessor at the time. In 1980, he joined KPCB where he came to be one of the world’s most accomplished venture capitalists. Amongst his most successful ventures are his support in companies such as Google, Compaq, Netscape, Symentec, Amazon.com, Drugstore.com, Intuit, Sun Microsystems, and Macromedia. He also led KPCB’s $150M investment in Twitter. Furthermore, Doerr supported notable entrepreneurs including Eric Schimidt, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Jeff Bezos, Scott Cook, Bill Campbell, and Mark Pincus, all of whom have gained global recognition. Due to his outstanding ability to recognize promising entrepreneurs, Doerr came to be known as a ‘king-maker’ in the field of venture capitalism.

In addition to his outstanding work in KPCB, John Doerr is a significant contributor to the field of public education and health. In support of educational initiatives, Doerr backs educational technological startups, such as Coursera and Remind. He also co-founded and is serving on the board of the NewSchool Venture Fund, a nonprofit venture philanthropy firm working to reform public education for low-income children. Doerr also shows support in initiatives that are aimed at improving public health and the environment. Notable examples are TechNet.org, the Climate Reality Project, and ONE.org. The One Campaign, in which John serves as a board member, is a non-profit organization dedicated to fight preventable disease and extreme poverty, particularly in Africa. He also co-chaired California’s proposition 71, which created $3B funding for stem cell therapies research. Overall, ventures sponsored by John are said to have provided over 200,000 new jobs. He is also signed on the Giving Pledge, a donation campaign targeting high-net-worth individuals to donate their fortunes to charitable causes.