Brook Byers (born

August 2 Events Pre-1600 *338 BC – A Macedonian army led by Philip II defeated the combined forces of Athens and Thebes in the Battle of Chaeronea, securing Macedonian hegemony in Greece and the Aegean. *216 BC – The Carthaginian arm ...

1945 1945 marked the end of World War II and the fall of Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan. It is also the only year in which nuclear weapons have been used in combat. Events Below, the events of World War II have the "WWII" prefix. Januar ...

Belleville, IL Belleville is a city and the county seat of St. Clair County, Illinois, coterminous with the now defunct Belleville Township. It is also the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Belleville and the National Shrine of Our Lady of the Snows. The ...

(

Scott Air Force Base Scott Air Force Base is a United States Air Force base in St. Clair County, Illinois, near Belleville and O'Fallon, east-southeast of downtown St. Louis. Scott Field was one of thirty-two Air Service training camps established after the U ...

))Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley (UCB) - BROOK BYERS: BIOTECHNOLOGY VENTURE CAPITALIST, 1970-2006
/ref> is a senior partner at

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers Kleiner Perkins, formerly Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), is an American venture capital firm which specializes in investing in incubation, early stage and growth companies. Since its founding in 1972, the firm has backed entrepreneurs ...

and the brother of

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

Professor Tom Byers and Atlanta, Georgia engineering entrepreneur Ken Byers.

Early life and education

Raised in

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to the ...

, Byers earned a

bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six ...

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

in 1968 from

Georgia Tech The Georgia Institute of Technology, commonly referred to as Georgia Tech or, in the state of Georgia, as Tech or The Institute, is a public research university and institute of technology in Atlanta, Georgia. Established in 1885, it is part of ...

and an

MBA A Master of Business Administration (MBA; also Master's in Business Administration) is a postgraduate degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration such as accounti ...

from

Career

Brook Byers has been a venture capital investor since

1972 Within the context of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) it was the longest year ever, as two leap seconds were added during this 366-day year, an event which has not since been repeated. (If its start and end are defined using Solar time, me ...

. He has been closely involved with more than fifty new technology based ventures, over half of which have already become public companies. He formed the first Life Sciences practice group in the venture capital profession in 1984 and led KPCB to become a top tier venture capital firm in the medical, healthcare, and biotechnology sectors. KPCB has invested in and helped build over 110 Life Sciences companies which have already developed hundreds of products to treat major underserved medical needs for millions of patients.

Activity in biotechnology

Byers was the founding president and then chairman, of four biotechnology companies which were incubated in KPCB's offices and went on to become public companies with an aggregate market value over $8 Billion. He is often featured on the

Forbes Midas The ''Forbes'' Midas list is the annual ranking by ''Forbes'' magazine of the most influential and best-performing venture capital investors. Described by Kara Swisher as the "Oscars for venture capitalists in tech," the Midas List uses parameter ...

list and is currently on the board of directors of ten companies; ''CardioDX, Crescendo Bioscience, Inc., Genomic Health Incorporated, Five Prime Therapeutics,

OptiMedica The PASCAL Photocoagulator is an integrated semi-automatic pattern scan laser photocoagulation system designed to treat ocular diseases using a single shot or predetermined pattern array. The device is for ophthalmologists, particularly those that ...

, HX Diagnostics, Pacific Biosciences, Inc., Tethys, Veracyte, Inc., and XDx, Inc.'' Previously, he served on the board of directors of Idec Pharmaceuticals (chairman), Athena Neurosciences (chairman), Signal Pharmaceuticals, Arris Pharmaceuticals,

Pharmacopeia A pharmacopoeia, pharmacopeia, or pharmacopoea (from the obsolete typography ''pharmacopœia'', meaning "drug-making"), in its modern technical sense, is a book containing directions for the identification of compound medicines, and published by ...

Ligand Pharmaceuticals Ligand Pharmaceuticals is a biopharmaceutical company located in San Diego, California. Founded in 1987 as Progenix Inc., the company went public in 1992. Initially focused on developing its own drugs, a period of turbulence in the early 2000s cul ...

(chairman),

Hybritech Beckman Coulter Inc. is a Danaher Corporation company that develops, manufactures, and markets products that simplify, automate and innovate complex biomedical testing. It operates in two industries: Diagnostics and Life Sciences. For more than ...

(chairman), Genprobe, Nanogen, and others. These companies have pioneered the medical use of molecular biology, monoclonal antibodies, personalized medicine, molecular diagnostics and genomics.

Other positions

Byers is currently a board member of the University of California at San Francisco Medical Foundation, the New Schools Foundation, Stanford's Bio-X Advisory Council and the Stanford Eye Council. He was co-chair of the five-year, $1.4 billion, UCSF Capital Campaign. In 2007, he was awarded the “UCSF Medal” as their honorary degree equivalent. In 2008, he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2009, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Venture Capital Association. Byers was president and a director of the Western Association of Venture Capitalists and is a contributing author of the book ''Guide to Venture Capital''. He is currently a board member of the

University of California at San Francisco The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is a public land-grant research university in San Francisco, California. It is part of the University of California system and is dedicated entirely to health science and life science. It condu ...

Medical Foundation, the

California Healthcare Institute CHI-California Healthcare Institute is a private, non-profit public policy research and advocacy organization, representing more than 250 universities, academic research centers, biotechnology, and medical device companies. Founded in 1993, and b ...

, the NewSchools Venture Fund, Stanford's Bio-X Advisory Council, the Stanford Eye Council and TechNet. He is co-chair of the

UCSF The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is a public land-grant research university in San Francisco, California. It is part of the University of California system and is dedicated entirely to health science and life science. It condu ...

Capital Campaign. He was formerly a director of the Entrepreneurs Foundation, the California Healthcare Institute, the

Asian Art Museum of San Francisco The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco – Chong-Moon Lee Center for Asian Art and Culture"About"
Asian Art Museum website. ...

, the

Graduate School of Business Advisory Council,

's That Man May See Vision Research Foundation (chairman), and the

Advisory Board, and was a founder of TechNet. Byers is also a member of the

Environmental Defense Fund Environmental Defense Fund or EDF (formerly known as Environmental Defense) is a United States-based nonprofit environmental advocacy group. The group is known for its work on issues including global warming, ecosystem restoration, oceans, and hu ...

References

External links

KPCB: Brook Byers
{{DEFAULTSORT:Byers, Brook Businesspeople from the San Francisco Bay Area American venture capitalists Georgia Tech alumni Stanford Graduate School of Business alumni Stanford University trustees University of California, San Francisco staff Living people Kleiner Perkins people American financial company founders 1945 births