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. In 1980, Doerr was offered a job with Kleiner Perkins. Intel president
Andrew Grove told him, "John, venture capital, that's not a real job. It's like being a real estate agent." He joined
Kleiner Perkins that year, and since then has directed the distribution of venture capital funding to technology companies including
Compaq,
Netscape,
Symantec,
Sun Microsystems,
drugstore.com,
Amazon.com,
Intuit,
Macromedia, and
Google. Doerr introduced the idea of
Objectives and key results (OKRs) to Google. Doerr has backed 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 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
sustainable 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 other iFund members announced an increase in iFund's value by another $100 million, making iFund the world's biggest investment pool in the cell phone application industry. He currently serves on the boards of
Google, Watershed, Amyris Biotech,
Tradesy, ASAPP, and
Zynga. Doerr led Kleiner Perkins's $150 million investment in Twitter in 2012. 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. In 2016, Doerr stepped down from his role leading Kleiner Perkins, ceding leadership to
Ted Schlein. Doerr serves on the board of the Obama Foundation and ONE.org. ==Economic Recovery Advisory Board==