Top 10 Richest People In California (USA) Right Now

Top 10 Richest People In California

Despite a purported tech exodus, the Golden State is home to more billionaires than ever. California's 83 technology titans alone outnumber the total count of billionaires in any other state except New York's 126. High profile departures such as Oracle’s Larry Ellison and Tesla’s Elon Musk—both companies and Musk moved to Texas, while Ellison personally relocated to Hawaii—have not dampened the prominence of Silicon Valley on the list. More than half of the 35 Californian newcomers became billionaires thanks to a growth in tech industry assets, according to Forbes.

Take a look at these10 richest people living in California.

List of top 10 richest people in California, USD Today

1.Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook co-founder, Meta CEO)

2.Larry Page (Google co-founder)

3.Sergey Brin (Google co-founder)

4.Dustin Moskovitz (Facebook co-founder)

5.Eric Schmidt (former Google CEO and chairman of Alphabet)

6.Laurene Powell Jobs and family (philanthropist, widow to Steve Jobs)

7.Jensen Huang (CEO of Nvidia)

8.Robert Pera (founder of Ubiquiti Networks)

9.Donald Bren (real estate developer)

10. John Doerr (venture capitalist)

Who are the richest people in California?

1. Mark Zuckerberg

Photo: Getty Images

Net worth: 67.3 billion USD

Mark Elliot Zuckerberg is an internet entrepreneur and philanthropist from America. He co-founded Facebook and serves as its current chairman and chief executive officer. A New York native, Zuckerberg studied psychology and computer science at Harvard University. During this period, he and his college roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes, launched Facebook from their dormitory. Initially meant to be for select college campuses, the site witnessed exponential growth in the following few years and became the world’s biggest social media platform. As of the third quarter of 2018, Facebook had amassed over 2.27 billion monthly active users. Zuckerberg has also been involved with several other projects, including Wirehog, a file-sharing program, and Internet.org, a conglomerate of several companies attempting to bring affordable access to selected internet services in less developed countries. Over the course of his professional career, Zuckerberg has encountered a number of legal controversies. In April 2018, he appeared before the United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation to testify on Facebook’s use of personal data in relation to the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data breach. Since 2010, he has been listed among the 100 wealthiest and most influential people by ‘Time’ magazine as part of its Person of the Year issue. In 2016, Forbes named him the 10th most powerful person in the world.

In 2004, during his sophomore year, Mark Zuckerberg dropped out of Harvard and subsequently relocated to Silicon Valley. He, Moskovitz, and some of their friends rented a house in Palo Alto which became their office.

By mid-2004, they had already found several investors and moved their base of operation to an actual office. However, they repeatedly thwarted attempts by major corporations to purchase their fledgling company. As Zuckerberg later stated, the mission of Facebook is to make the world open; it was never about the money.

In July 2010, Zuckerberg announced that the number of active users on the app has reached 500 million. That year, he ranked first on Vanity Fair’s list of the Top 100 "most influential people of the Information Age”. In October 2012, they reached the one billion-user milestone. In June 2017, Zuckerberg reported that Facebook has garnered two billion users.

In August 2004, Zuckerberg, Andrew McCollum, Adam D'Angelo, and Sean Parker founded Wirehog, a peer-to-peer file sharing service. However, compared to its biggest competitor, i2hub, it garnered much less traction and was eventually shut down.

In May 2007, he launched Facebook Platform, an initiative that encourages third-party developers to create applications for Facebook. The present version of Facebook Platform was introduced in 2010.

In 2012, Facebook acquired the photo and video sharing social media platform, Instagram. Two years later, the company acquired the mobile messaging app, WhatsApp.

In August 2013, Facebook, Samsung, Ericsson, MediaTek, Opera Software, Nokia and Qualcomm launched a project called Internet.org to usher in better and more affordable access to selected internet services in under-developed and developing countries.

Zuckerberg has met world leaders, such as Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss the technology infrastructure in those countries. While Facebook is banned in China, the people of the country hold Zuckerberg in high regard.

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2. Larry Page

Photo: Getty Images

Net worth: 107.9 billion USD

Larry Page, born as Lawrence Page, is an American entrepreneur and computer scientist who, along with Sergey Brin, co-founded Google Inc., the search engine giant that offers a wide range of internet products and services. Google began as an online search firm and gradually expanded its operations to other internet related areas. As the son of computer professionals, Page’s fascination with computers began at an early age. As a child, he showed keen interest in technology, business and innovation. While studying Computer Science at Stanford University, he met Sergey Brin with whose assistance he created a search engine that returned results based on relevancy. Page and Brin launched the company under the name ‘Google Inc’ in 1998. They both served as the co-presidents until 2001 when Eric Schmidt was appointed as Chairman and CEO of Google. In 2011, Page officially became the CEO of Google while Schmidt continues to serve as executive chairman. Page is also a member of the Board of Directors of the company. He has an interest in renewable energy technology and philanthropy. Google.org, the philanthropic branch of the company, was set up in 2004. It basically deals with issues of climate change and renewable energy.

Founding and Growth of Google

During his PhD at Stanford, he met fellow researcher Sergey Brin while working on a research project in 1995. By 1996 they had built a search engine - initially called ‘BackRub’. It was operated on Stanford servers for many months.

Page and Brin decided to incorporate their project as a company. Sun Microsystems co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim played a major role in financing the company as he wrote a check for $100,000 to the entity that had not even come into existence as yet.

In September 1998, the project, now renamed as ‘Google’, was officially incorporated as a company. Eric Schmidt was appointed as the CEO in 2001 while Page and Brin became the presidents of products and technology, respectively.

In 2004, Google launched Orkut, a social networking site, and introduced Google Desktop search. The same year, Google held its Initial Public Offering (IPO) which made Page and Brin millionaires. The philanthropic wing of Google, Google.org was formed to contribute towards social issues and causes.

The year 2005 was quite productive for Google. Google Maps, Blogger Mobile, Google Reader, and iGoogle were released that year. The next year, Google acquired Youtube and introduced the chat feature in Gmail.

Google entered into a partnership with China Mobile and Salesforce.com in 2007. The company also signed partnerships to make Google Apps for Education freely available to thousands of students in Kenya and Rwanda.

In 2008, Google launched Google Sites and a new version of Google Earth. Google Health, a personal health information centralization service, was also released in the same year, but the service was discontinued in 2011 when it was unable to achieve the desired impact.

Picasa for Mac was launched in January 2009 followed by Google Latitude and the latest version of Google Earth. Google Ventures, a venture capital fund for supporting new technology companies, was also introduced the same year.

In 2010, Google acquired Aardvark and Picnik. The Google Apps Marketplace, a new online store for integrated business applications, was launched to enable customers to easily manage cloud applications.

In January 2011, Larry Page was made the CEO. Eric Schmidt, the former CEO, continues to serve the company as Executive Chairman. Google acquired Admeld and Zagat with a view to provide improvised services to its clients.

3. Sergey Brin

Photo: Business Insider

Net worth: 104 billion USD

Sergey Brin is an American computer scientist and internet entrepreneur, who, along with Larry Page, co-founded Google Inc in 1998. Brin migrated to the U.S from the Soviet Union, at a young age. He studied mathematics and computer science in college before going to the Stanford University to pursue a PhD in computer science. As a research scholar, his areas of interests included extraction of information from unstructured sources, search engines, and data mining of large collections of data. He met fellow research scholar Larry page with whom he worked on a research project. The two men connected on the intellectual level and started experimenting with their new designs of search engines in the university computers. Initially, their project was called ‘BackRub’, and it was funded through the National Science Foundation. Together Brin and Page developed the PageRank algorithm, which is used by Google to rank web pages. The successful running of their project for many months on the University computers convinced the duo to start their own company. They both put their doctoral studies on hold and with financial investment in the form of a $100,000 cheque from Sun Microsystems co-founder, Andy Bechtolsheim, formally incorporated their company, Google Inc, in California.

Founding of Google Inc

The idea of Google originated when Sergey Brin was working with Larry Page on a research project for their thesis. Page was interested in exploring the mathematical properties of the World Wide Web, a concept that Brin also found attractive.

They began working together on the research project, called ‘BackRub.’ Initially, a web crawler was used to explore the web from the starting point of page’s Stanford home page.

Brin, along with Page, developed the PageRank algorithm. After analyzing BackRub’s output using this algorithm, they realized that a search engine based on PageRank would produce better results than the existing techniques.

They tested their hypothesis on their university’s computers with very good results. Their project ran on Stanford computers for many months. Originally, the project used the university’s website with the domain google.stanford.edu.

In 1997, they registered the domain google.com. The company was legally incorporated on September 4, 1998 at a friend’s garage in Menlo Park, California.

Andy Bechtolsheim, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, contributed the first funding to Google with a Cheque for $100,000.

By 1999, the company was operating with eight employees and had shifted their office to Palo Alto in California, an area more conducive to its growth. The office complex is known as ‘Googleplex.’

Over the next few years, Google launched many new features, acquired several other internet companies and entered into partnerships with other corporations to become one of the fastest growing internet companies in the world.

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4. Dustin Moskovitz

Photo: FT

Net worth: 12 billion USD

Dustin Moskovitz is an American entrepreneur who co-founded the famous social networking site – Facebook. He left Facebook in 2008 and co-founded Asana, an application that works on the Web and on mobile operating systems like the iOS and the Android and helps teams track their work. He played an important role in the founding of Facebook along with Mark Zuckerberg. He came into contact with Mark as he lived with him along with roommates, Eduardo Saverin, and Chris Hughes. Dustin was the lead programmer in the main team that founded the Facebook. In March 2011, Forbes declared him as the youngest self-made billionaire in history. He supported Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential elections. He lives with his wife, Cali Tuna, who is a former Wall Street journalist.

Career

Dustin’s career started in February 2004, when he, along with roommates, Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, Chris Hughes and friend, Andrew McCollum, started making plans about the launch of Facebook.

Facebook was originally designed to serve as an online database directory for students studying at Harvard as an aid tool to find fellow members. It was named as thefacebook.com.

However, in June 2004, the team took a year off and moved to California to work on the expansion of Facebook worldwide. They hired 8 new employees along with investor, Sean Parker.

Dustin was the lead programmer and the head of the technical department in Facebook.

According to Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, Dustin learnt programming in a few days and joined the team as the programmer. Dustin was the first CTO and VP of Engineering of Facebook.

He played an important role in the growth of Facebook as he watched over the architecture and working of Facebook. Dustin had a 7.6 % shareholding in Facebook.

On 3rd October 2008, he announced that he would be leaving Facebook to co-found Asana, a web application. He successfully co-founded Asana, along with partner, Justin Rosenstein.

In 2011, Asana was successfully launched out of Beta. It is a web based mobile application that helps team collaboration on team projects without the use of e mails.

Dustin is also known for investing in ‘Path’, a mobile photo sharing website, which was created by a former Facebook engineer, David Morin. It is said that Dustin’s advice proved vital in influencing Morin to decline a buyout offer by Google.

He also invested in the Artificial Intelligence Company, Vicarious.

He, along with his wife, Cari Tuna, started the philanthropic organization, Good Ventures. Good Ventures has donated about $100 million for programs that supported Malaria eradication, Schistosomiasis Control Initiative, Deworm the world initiative and GiveDirectly.

He and Cari were the youngest couple to sign the ‘Giving Pledge’ by Warren Buffet and Bill Gates that commits billionaires to donate major part of their wealth to charity.

Dustin is working on a joint collaboration with GiveWell which has led to a new spinoff. This is called the Open Philanthropy Project, with an aim of innovating a way to use large sums of money, starting with the wealth of Dustin himself, for the betterment of society.

5. Eric Schmidt

Photo: Time

Net worth: 21.6 billion USD

Eric Schmidt is an American software engineer who is currently serving as the executive chairman of Alphabet Inc., the holding company created to directly own several companies that were owned by or tied to Google, including a slimmed-down version of Google itself. Before being appointed the executive chairman of Alphabet, Schmidt had served as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Google for a decade and under his leadership the company greatly diversified its product range while fostering a culture of innovation within the senior management. Born to well-educated and ambitious parents, he was groomed to succeed from a young age. Intelligent, curious and determined, Schmidt grew up to be brilliant in not just academics, but also excelled in sports and was a long-distance runner in high school. Initially aspiring to be an architect, he enrolled at the Princeton University. However he soon realized that he was more interested in electrical engineering and changed his major. He furthered his education at the University of California, Berkeley, and then went on to complete his doctoral degree too. He worked in several companies including Sun Microsystems before joining Google in 2001 as the CEO. He has also sat on the boards of trustees for both Carnegie Mellon University and Princeton University.

Career

One of the initial jobs he held was at the Bell Labs. There he worked alongside Mike Lesk to rewrite Lex, a program to generate lexical analyzers for the Unix computer operating system. He worked on a regular-expression description and converted it into an important tool for compiler construction.

He joined Sun Microsystems as its first software manager in 1983. He possessed great technical knowledge and a high degree of business acumen and rose through the ranks in the company. He was appointed director of software engineering before becoming the vice president and general manager of the software products division.

He eventually rose to become the vice president of the general systems group and president of Sun Technology Enterprises.

By the late 1990s he had gained a reputation as a highly efficient business executive. He was appointed the CEO and chairman of the board of Novell in 1997.

In 2001, Schmidt was interviewed by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the founders of Google. Founded in 1998, Google was still a young company and the founders were looking for an experienced person to run the company. Page and Brin found their perfect candidate in Schmidt and appointed him as Google’s CEO in August.

As the CEO, Schmidt initially oversaw the works of the vice presidents and the sales organization, and focused on building the corporate infrastructure needed to maintain Google's rapid growth as a company. Under his leadership the company saw rapid growth and diversification and was soon one of the fastest growing companies in the world.

In 2011, Page replaced Schmidt as the CEO and Schmidt continued as the executive chairman of the company. In this position he was responsible for building partnerships and broader business relationships, and government outreach. He also advised the CEO and senior leadership on business and policy issues.

In 2015 Google underwent a major corporate restructuring that culminated in the creation of Alphabet Inc. as the holding company to directly own several companies that were owned by or tied to Google, including Google itself. Schmidt was named Alphabet’s executive chairman.

In addition to his corporate responsibilities, he is also a member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) in President Barack Obama’s administration.

6. Laurene Powell Jobs and family

Photo: Getty Images

Net worth: $19 BILLION

Laurene Powell Jobs is an American businesswoman who founded Emerson Collective, an organization that advocates for policies in support of education and immigration reform, environmental conservation, and social justice. She is the co-founder of Terravera, a natural foods company, as well. She is also known as the widow of tech-wizard and co-founder of Apple, Steve Jobs. Besides these, she is the co-founder of College Track, a nonprofit organization that offers comprehensive help to disadvantaged high school students – the ones who lack the resources but have the will to attain higher education. Her involvement with all these business and philanthropic ventures has not just made her one of the most successful businesswomen of today, but has also made her a big socialite. Despite being a billionaire, this American personality is known for her kind heart and down to earth nature. As of now, she resides in Palo Alto with her three children. A well-known international figure, she is immensely popular not just because she is a big name in the world of entrepreneurs, but also because of her philanthropic acts that have helped her win the hearts of millions of people.

Career

Laurene Powell Jobs started her career by working at Merrill Lynch Asset Management. She also served as a fixed income trading strategist at Goldman Sachs for three years. She co-founded a natural foods company named ‘Terravera’ that was later sold to the retailers of Northern California. She served as one of the board of directors at ‘Achieva’, a company that helps students to be more efficient at standardized testing through its online tools. Besides this, Laurene Powell Jobs has done a lot to improve the lives of millions of students. She, along with a fellow entrepreneur, Carlos Watson, formed ‘College Track’, a nonprofit organization that helps disadvantaged students to complete their education. Apart from this, the ambitious and philanthropic lady also founded ‘Emerson Collective’. In addition, she serves on the advisory board at ‘Udacity’, a company that offers affordable education to students.

Philanthropic Works

Laurene Powell Jobs is actively involved with several non-profit organizations in addition to her corporate commitments. She serves as a Director at NewSchools Venture Fund’s Investment Arm. She is one of the members of the Board of Directors at Teach for America and is also involved with Stand for Children and Conservation International. Besides this, Laurene serves as a member of the advisory boards at CleanFish, Inc., Center for Community Partnerships at University of Pennsylvania and the Council on Foreign Relations. She also serves as a director at New America Foundation, Global Fund for Women, EdVoice, KQED (PBS), and ODC San Francisco.

In September 2015, Laurene Powell Jobs launched a project ‘Called XQ: The Super School Project’. This project, worth $50 million, aims to create educational institutions with new approaches to education. Its efforts include altering school schedules, technologies, and curricula so as to replace the nation’s old high school education model.

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7. Jensen Huang

Photo: Forbes

Net worth: $20.1 billion

Jen-Hsun "Jensen" Huang (Chinese: 黃仁勳; pinyin: Huáng Rénxūn; born February 17, 1963) is a Taiwanese-American billionaire business magnate, electrical engineer, and co-founder of Nvidia Corporation, where he currently serves as president and CEO.

Huang was born in Tainan, Taiwan. His family emigrated to the United States when he was 9 years old, first living in Oneida, Kentucky, and settling in Oregon. He graduated from Aloha High School, outside Portland.

Huang received his undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from Oregon State University in 1984, and his master's degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University in 1992.

After college he was a director at LSI Logic and a microprocessor designer at Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD). On his 30th birthday in 1993, Huang co-founded Nvidia and is the CEO and president.

He owns 3.6% of Nvidia's stock, which went public in 1999.

He earned $24.6 million as CEO in 2007, ranking him as the 61st highest paid U.S. CEO by Forbes. During the economic downturn, 2008 through 2010, Jensen voluntarily reduced his salary to $1.

As of April 2021, Huang's net worth is US$14.3 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

8. Robert Pera

Photo: Forbes

Net worth: 14.3 billion USD

Robert J. Pera (born March 10, 1978) is the founder of Ubiquiti Networks, Inc. a global communications technology company that Pera took public in 2011. In October 2012, Pera also became the owner of a professional basketball team: The Memphis Grizzlies of the National Basketball Association. At the age of 36, Pera earned a spot on Forbes' list of the 10 youngest billionaires in the world.

Pera established his first computer services company while attending high school. That company provided networking and database services to local businesses. Pera also played on his high school's basketball team until a heart condition, which has long since resolved, kept him home for a year. After high school, Pera attended the University of California, San Diego, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and a B.A. in Japanese Language. He stayed on at UC San Diego and completed his masters in Electrical Engineering with an emphasis on Digital Communications and Circuit Design.

Apple

After graduation, Pera, who admired Steve Jobs, secured a job at Apple Inc., where he tested the company's Wi-Fi devices to ensure compliance with Federal Communications Commission standards for electromagnetic emissions. While working at Apple, Pera noticed that the power sources that Apple's Wi-Fi devices used to throw signals were far below FCC limits. Boosting their power, he reasoned, could increase their transmission range to over dozens of miles, which could facilitate Internet access in areas that telephone and cable companies do not reach. When his bosses at Apple ignored his idea, Pera decided to build his own low-cost, high-performance Wi-Fi module. For the next year, Pera spent his nights and weekends in his apartment testing prototypes. By early 2005 he was ready to start his own business and he left Apple to form Ubiquiti Networks.

Ubiquiti Networks

Pera founded Ubiquiti Networks in March 2005 using only $30,000 of personal savings and credit card debt. Ubiquiti's early products utilized existing Wi-Fi technology to wirelessly deliver the Internet to underserved areas (e.g., rural areas and emerging markets) lacking the infrastructure to access the Internet through traditional avenues such as phone lines and cable lines. The company has since successfully branched out into other product lines such as wireless access points, security cameras and traditional networking equipment (e.g., switches and routers).

Memphis Grizzlies

On June 11, 2012, sources told ESPN.com that Michael Heisley had an agreement in principle to sell the Memphis Grizzlies to Robert Pera. The official sale of the Memphis Grizzlies to Pera was approved on October 25, 2012. The Grizzlies made the NBA playoffs in the two seasons before Pera purchased the team and made the playoffs during the first five seasons of his tenure as owner. In the first year of Pera's ownership, the Grizzlies won a club record 56 games and made its first-ever appearance in the Western Conference Finals. The Grizzlies team won more playoff games during the first two years of Pera's tenure than it did during the team's 17 previous seasons in the NBA.

Pera is a supporter of the Grizzlies Foundation, a sports charity which operates in Memphis.

9. Donald Bren

Photo: Forbes

Net worth: 16.2 billion USD

Donald Leroy Bren (born May 11, 1932) is an American businessman who is chairman and owner of the Irvine Company, a US real estate development company. Bren's net worth is $15.3 billion, making him number 132 on the 2021 Forbes Billionaires List.

Bren is the son of Marion (Newbert) and Milton Bren. His father Milton was a naval officer, talent agent, and successful movie producer while his mother Marion was a prominent civic leader. His mother was of partial Irish descent while his father was of Jewish descent. His parents divorced in 1948. Bren's father remarried in 1948 to Academy Award-winning actress Claire Trevor. His mother remarried in 1953 to steel business man Earle M. Jorgensen.

Bren graduated from the University of Washington where he received a bachelor's degree in business administration and economics. He was a member of Beta Theta Pi. fraternity. He tried out for the 1956 Olympic ski team but did not qualify following an injury. After college, he served as an officer in the United States Marine Corps.

Bren built his first house in Newport Beach with a $10,000 loan in 1958. He began his business career in 1958 when he founded the Bren Company, which built homes in Orange County, California. In 1963, he and two others started the Mission Viejo Company (MVC) and purchased 10,000 acres to plan and develop the city of Mission Viejo, California. Bren was President of MVC from 1963 to 1967. International Paper bought the Bren Co. for $34 million in 1970, then sold it back to Bren for $22 million in 1972 following the recession. Bren took the proceeds and in 1977 joined a group of investors to purchase the 146-year-old Irvine Company. Bren was the largest shareholder of the resulting consortium, owning 34.3% of the company and received the title of Vice-chair of the board. By 1983, he was the majority owner of the firm and was elected chairman of the board. By 1996, he had bought out all outstanding shares to become the sole owner.

By 2005, OC Weekly wrote that Bren "wields more power than Howard Hughes ever did, probably as much as any man in America over a concentrated region—determining not only how people live and shop but who governs them." In 2006 the Los Angeles Times wrote "[s]imply put, Orange County looks like Orange County...because of the influence of [Donald Bren]." In an interview in 2011, Bren summarized his real estate investment strategy: "What I learned was that when you hold property over the long term, you're able to create better values and you have something tangible to show for it." Forbes, in its 2019 edition of "The 400 Richest Americans", ranked Bren as the wealthiest real estate developer in the US and 32nd "Richest American" with an estimated net worth of $17 billion.

It is believed that the Irvine Company owns more than 120,000,000 ft.² of real estate – the majority of which is located in Southern California. The company's holdings include several hotels, marinas, golf courses, 550 office buildings, 125 apartment complexes and more than 40 shopping centers. He currently owns a 97% stake in the Met Life building in Manhattan.

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10. John Doerr

Photo: Wikipedia

Net worth: US$ 12.7 billion

L. John Doerr (born June 29, 1951) is an American venture capitalist at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers in Menlo Park, California, in Silicon Valley. In February 2009, Doerr was appointed a member of the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board to provide the President and his administration with advice and counsel in trying to fix America's economic downturn. As of October 2015, Forbes ranked Doerr as the 135th richest person in the world, with a net worth of US $4.1 billion.

CAREER

Doerr joined Intel Corporation in 1974 just as the firm was developing the 8080 8-bit microprocessor. He eventually became one of Intel's most successful salespeople. He also holds several patents for memory devices.

He joined Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers in 1980 and since then, has directed venture capital funding to some of the most successful technology companies in the world including Compaq, Netscape, Symantec, Sun Microsystems, drugstore.com, Amazon.com, Intuit, Macromedia, and Google.

Doerr has backed some of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs, including Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Eric Schmidt of Google; Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com; and Scott Cook and Bill Campbell of Intuit.

Venture funding

Doerr co-founded and serves on the board of the New Schools Venture Fund, an education reform and charter public schools fund, and TechNet, a policy network of high tech CEOs advocating education and litigation reform, and policies for the innovation economy. Doerr co-chaired California's Proposition 39 which lowered the threshold to approved school bonds, and Proposition 71 which created $3 billion in funding for California research into stem cell therapies. He serves on the board of Bono's ONE campaign to fight global poverty, particularly disease in Africa. His success in venture capital has garnered national attention; he has been and is currently listed on Forbes magazine's exclusive "Midas List" and is widely regarded as one of the top technology venture capitalists in the world.

Doerr advocates innovation in clean energy technologies to combat climate change, and has written and testified on the topic. In a 2007 TED conference he cited his daughter's remark: "your generation created this problem, you better fix it" as a call to fight global warming.

In 2008 he announced with Steve Jobs the Kleiner Perkins $100 million iFund, declaring the iPhone "more important than the personal computer" because "it knows who you are" and "where you are." In April 2010, he along with another iFund members announced an increase in iFund's value by another $100 million, making iFund the worlds biggest investment pool in cell phone application industry. He currently serves on the boards of Google, Amyris Biotech and Zynga. Doerr led Kleiner Perkins's $150 million investment in Twitter.

In 2013 he invested in DreamBox which has been acquired by Charter School Growth Fund. He had also funded the initial investments in Bloom Energy Inc. Doerr is a major backer of the education company, Remind.

Doerr mentored Ellen Pao when she first joined Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Before changing his mind in 2012, he was known for challenging those who gave her negative performance reviews.