Familiar But New – Returning to KPCB
Five years ago, I was thrilled to join Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers as an investing partner after spending three years as CTO of a media technology company. Today, I am thrilled to join Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers as an investing partner after spending three years as CTO of a media technology company. Wait, what?
Let’s try that again (pun intended).
I’m excited to return to KPCB this week after my time at Flipboard with Mike McCue and his talented team. I’m proud of everything we accomplished together— growing a world class organization across 3 countries, partnering with hundreds of advertisers and thousands of media publishers, and building a product used and loved by more than a 100 million people worldwide. And I look forward to continuing to support Flipboard on its ambitious journey, now as an investor.
I first began at KPCB in 2010 coming from Hulu, but then left to build a pair of Kleiner-backed companies. Returning after so many years has been both a familiar but new experience at the same time. My email address is still the same, but my phone number has changed. Our main offices are still on Sand Hill Road, but the partnership now spends significant time in our digs in South Park.
Out of all the reasons that brought me back to Kleiner, it was this combination of familiar but new that was the most exciting. We still have many of the world class companies in our portfolio I knew, but we’ve added even more great startups to the family. We still help entrepreneurs build their ideas into businesses, but now offer even more support around product, design, marketing and business development. And most importantly, I’m still in the company of a group of partners I’ve long admired and respected, but also am surrounded by even more incredibly talented and accomplished people I’m eager to collaborate with. Familiar but new in all the best ways.
Five years later since my first day at Kleiner, I still can’t wait to work with great entrepreneurs to move innovation forward. I hope some things will always be familiar.
Eric Feng
In case you’re interested, here are some more thoughts on returning to KPCB, after years away as an entrepreneur and engineer, in a conversation with my partner Randy Komisar: