Venture Philanthropists: The New Schools Fund

The anxious promoters of a start-up company, wearing their Sears suits and begging for an investment from clench-jawed venture capitalists wearing Brioni: there is a version of this scene in the founding myth of almost every tech firm from Sun Microsystems to eBay. Venture-capital financing is as embedded in the culture of Silicon Valley as integrated circuits and $ 750,000 tract houses. So perhaps it’s not surprising that this form of financing—and its results-oriented assessment of potential investments—has made its way to the nonprofit sector.

John Doerr on education

Conventional wisdom says the only thing rarer in Silicon Valley than political activism is political consensus. In this case, conventional wisdom is correct. Which is why what happened last April 2 was nothing short of extraordinary.

On one coast, at San Jose’s Stonesgate Elementary School, Jim Barksdale spoke for a group of high-technology executives that included Gil Amelio, Eric Benhamou, John Chambers, Bernie Gifford, Andy Grove, Brian Halla, Floyd Kvamme, Scott McNealy, John Morgridge, Les Vadasz, and Jerry Yang.