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Venture Capital

Who Should Be on the Mt. Rushmore of Venture Capital? Vote

By
Jeff John Roberts
Jeff John Roberts
Editor, Finance and Crypto
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By
Jeff John Roberts
Jeff John Roberts
Editor, Finance and Crypto
Down Arrow Button Icon
December 13, 2017, 8:00 PM ET
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers Co-Founder Tom Perkins Portraits
Tom Perkins, co-founder of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, sits for a photograph in his home in San Francisco, California, U.S., on January 31, 2014. Perkins, a venture capital pioneer, apologized for comparing todays treatment of wealthy Americans to the persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany, though he said he stood by his message around class warfare. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty ImagesDavid Paul Morris—Bloomberg—Getty Images

Georges Doriot, a Harvard professor and World War II military quartermaster, founded the country’s first venture capital firm in Boston in 1946. Doriot may have been first, but he is not the most famous.

While researching a recent feature about longtime VC Alan Patricof and his firm Greycroft, Fortune asked venture capitalists and founders who they would put on the “Mount Rushmore of Venture Capital.”

The four most common responses in this very informal survey are listed below. But we thought it would be fun to ask Fortune readers to weigh in too: Do you agree with these choices? Or would you replace one of them with someone else? Scroll down to the polls below and have your say.

Vinod Khosla, Khosla Ventures

The Indian-born billionaire cofounded Sun Microsystems in 1982 before starting his eponymous venture fund in 2004. He’s famed for his clean-energy initiatives and philanthropic work, but also for an unsuccessful legal battle to block public access to a beach near his home in Half Moon Bay, Calif.

Marc Andreessen, Andreessen Horowitz

The 46-year-old Andreessen, who invented the seminal web browser Netscape, runs what’s arguably today’s most widely-watched VC firm. The company, which insiders call a16z, uses its outsize funds to bet on tech like cyber-defense and blockchains, and maintains a high profile in the press.

Tom Perkins, Kleiner Perkins

An engineer and laser-technology inventor, the late Perkins worked for Hewlett-Packard before founding his iconic firm with Eugene Kleiner. He is known for enormously lucrative bets on Genentech and Google, and for a personal life that included high-stakes yacht races and a stormy marriage to author Danielle Steel.

John Doerr, Kleiner Perkins

Doerr made his name as a top salesman at Intel in the 1970s before joining Kleiner Perkins. There, he became an early backer of founders like Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Google’s Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Doerr is also an outspoken advocate for expanding stem-cell research and fighting climate change.

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About the Author
By Jeff John RobertsEditor, Finance and Crypto
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Jeff John Roberts is the Finance and Crypto editor at Fortune, overseeing coverage of the blockchain and how technology is changing finance.

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