From recode:
Mary Meeker, the legendary internet analyst, is leaving Kleiner Perkins
Meeker is leading an exodus in a huge split at one of Silicon Valley’s most famous firms.
Mary Meeker of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, one of the premier Silicon Valley investors at one of its premier venture capital firms, is leaving her position in an abrupt, high-profile splitting of the firm she helped lead.Meeker is leading an exodus of late-stage investors from Kleiner Perkins in its most dramatic shake-up since legendary investor John Doerr stepped back from his role more than two years ago. Meeker’s exit — she, along with three of her partners, will form a new firm — will undoubtedly deal a hard blow to Kleiner Perkins, given her high profile in the business community and her stature as by far the most senior woman in venture capital.Meeker, “the first Wall Street analyst to become a household name” during the dot-com boom, has been most famous in this era for her agenda-setting, unusually thorough “Internet Trends” slide decks, delivered — in memorable, rapid-fire fashion — in recent years at our annual Code Conference. This year’s deck included 294 slides and has been viewed more than a million times; last year’s, with 355 slides, is well past three million views.The departures of Meeker and her colleagues — Mood Rowghani, Noah Knauf and Juliet de Baubigny — are rooted in different visions for the types of deals they would like to do. But like so many disputes in recent years at Kleiner Perkins, there was also persistent friction between the two sides in ways that had little to do with the firm’s core business — over mundane things such as whether to host a holiday party in San Francisco or closer to Sand Hill Road in Silicon Valley — according to people familiar with the situation.Kleiner Perkins is one of tech’s oldest firms and its early investments in Amazon and Google have made it part of Silicon Valley lore. That legacy has helped sustain the firm even as it self-admittedly missed out on a wave of generation-defining startups. Meeker’s new team will lose the connection to that brand, effectively placing a bet on the singular brand of Meeker.
“The way the teams operate are just very different,” Meeker said in an interview with Recode.The principals are naturally downplaying how important a split this is, but this is a massive moment for the firm....MORE
