Eugene Kleiner

Eugene Kleiner was an Austrian-born American engineer and pioneering venture capitalist whose work was foundational to the development of Silicon Valley. He was a key member of the Traitorous Eight, the group of engineers who left Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory to found the seminal Fairchild Semiconductor, which became the incubator for the modern microelectronics industry. Later, with Tom Perkins, he co-founded the legendary venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins, which provided early funding for transformative companies like Genentech, Tandem Computers, and Amazon.com, thereby shaping the technology landscape for decades.

Early life and education

Born into a Jewish family in Vienna, he fled the rise of the Nazis following the Anschluss in 1938, eventually immigrating to the United States. He settled in New York City, where he worked in a machine shop while attending night school. Kleiner earned both his Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in mechanical engineering from the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute. His early professional experience included work at the Western Electric company, where he gained practical knowledge in manufacturing and industrial processes that would later inform his investment philosophy.

Career at Shockley Semiconductor

In 1956, Kleiner responded to a newspaper advertisement placed by Nobel Prize-winning physicist William Shockley, who was recruiting talent for his new Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in Palo Alto, California. Kleiner joined the lab, which was funded by Beckman Instruments and aimed to develop commercial semiconductor devices. However, Shockley's increasingly erratic management style and focus on the technically challenging four-layer diode created severe internal tensions. Kleiner, along with seven other colleagues—including Gordon Moore, Robert Noyce, and Julius Blank—became profoundly dissatisfied with the direction of the research and the autocratic work environment.

Founding of Fairchild Semiconductor and Kleiner Perkins

Frustrated at Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory, Kleiner took the decisive step of writing a letter to the Hayden, Stone & Co. investment bank seeking alternative employment or backing. This letter ultimately led to a meeting with Arthur Rock, a financier at the firm, who helped secure funding from the Fairchild Camera and Instrument corporation. In 1957, Kleiner and his seven colleagues, famously dubbed the Traitorous Eight, resigned en masse to found Fairchild Semiconductor. The company pioneered the planar process for manufacturing integrated circuits, becoming a cornerstone of Silicon Valley and spawning numerous spin-offs. In 1972, after a successful career as an engineer and entrepreneur, Kleiner partnered with Tom Perkins to establish the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, initially operating from Perkins's apartment in San Francisco.

Venture capital philosophy and legacy

Kleiner helped establish the modern template for venture capital in Silicon Valley, emphasizing rigorous due diligence, hands-on mentorship, and a focus on building management teams. He was known for his cautious, analytical approach, famously encapsulated in "Kleiner's Law": "Make sure the dog wants to eat the dog food." The firm's early investments, guided by this philosophy, were extraordinarily influential, providing crucial seed funding for Genentech in the biotechnology sector, Tandem Computers in fault-tolerant computing, and later, during the dot-com boom, for Amazon.com, Google, and Sun Microsystems. His work created a blueprint that connected technological innovation with disciplined capital, fostering entire new industries and cementing the venture capital model as an engine of economic growth.

Personal life and death

He married Rose Kleiner, and the couple had three children. Known for his modesty and intellectual rigor, he was an avid supporter of educational and philanthropic causes. Kleiner died at his home in Los Altos Hills, California in 2003 from heart failure. His legacy endures not only through the continued success of Kleiner Perkins but also through the Eugene Kleiner Center for Innovative Philanthropy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His life story, from refugee to architect of the technological revolution, remains a quintessential narrative of American ingenuity and the spirit of Silicon Valley.

Category:American venture capitalists Category:American engineers Category:People from Vienna Category:2003 deaths