Pierre R Lamond (born September 12, 1930) is a

venture capitalist Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which ha ...

Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical areas San Mateo Coun ...

, who has specialized in semiconductors, systems and cleantech. He was a partner at Sequoia Capital based in

Menlo Park, California Menlo Park is a city at the eastern edge of San Mateo County within the San Francisco Bay Area of California in the United States. It is bordered by San Francisco Bay on the north and east; East Palo Alto, Palo Alto, and Stanford to the south ...

from 1981 until he left to join Vinod Khosla's

Khosla Ventures Khosla Ventures is an American venture capital firm founded by Vinod Khosla, focused on early-stage companies in the Internet, computing, mobile, financial services, agriculture, healthcare and clean technology sectors. Some of its most successf ...

as General Partner in March 2009. He left Khosla Ventures in 2014 and joined Eclipse Ventures as a Partner in 2015.

Career

Lamond was born in France and studied Electrical Engineering at the

University of Toulouse The University of Toulouse (french: Université de Toulouse) was a university in the French city of Toulouse that was established by papal bull in 1229, making it one of the earliest universities to emerge in Europe. Suppressed during the Frenc ...

as an undergraduate, where he also received a master's degree in Physics. He then gained another master's degree in Electrical Engineering from Northeastern University. His first job was an engineer with Transitron Electronics in 1957. In January 1962, he joined

Gordon Moore Gordon Earle Moore (born January 3, 1929) is an American businessman, engineer, and the co-founder and chairman emeritus of Intel Corporation. He is also the original proponent of Moore's law. As of March 2021, Moore's net worth is repor ...

's Fairchild Semiconductor, before he left in 1967 to run the company's spin-off,

National Semiconductor National Semiconductor was an American semiconductor manufacturer which specialized in analog devices and subsystems, formerly with headquarters in Santa Clara, California. The company produced power management integrated circuits, display dr ...

, with Charles E. Sporck and

Bob Widlar Robert John Widlar (pronounced ''wide-lar''; November 30, 1937 – February 27, 1991) was an American electronics engineer and a designer of linear integrated circuits (ICs). Early years Widlar was born November 30, 1937 in Cleveland to par ...

. At National Semiconductor they made the-then bold move of assembling all their semiconductor components outside the US, in Hong Kong and Singapore. He has also been an executive at Coherent Radiation, where he was CEO until January 1976, and Advent Corp., a home-entertainment equipment company, where he was CEO from March 1976 until May 1977. During his tenure at Sequoia Capital, Lamond was chairman at Cypress Semiconductor, Microchip Semiconductor, Vitesse Semiconductor, Redback Networks, Plumtree Software, Verisity and a Director of a number of other companies. While at Sequoia he acted as a mentor for the founders of

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...

. Despite being an early investor in several social network startups, he said in 2007 that "We're in Web 2.0 bubble in my opinion." In 2009, Sequoia acrimoniously split with Lamond after he had made personal investments from his family office and referred deals to his son. He is a past president of the Western Association of Venture Capitalists. He had intended to retire in 2009, but instead joined Khosla, who specialise in energy-related companies, after being impressed with their focus on investing in research-based ventures. At Khosla Ventures, Lamond was on the Board of Seeo, Soladigm, Cogenra, Seamicro (sold to AMD), Point Source Power, Skybox. In 2015, Lamond joined Lior Susan, who was to lead Formation 8's hardware fund before the firm's split. Instead they founded Eclipse Ventures where he is currently Partner Emeritus. At Eclipse, Lamond is on the Boards of Light Lab, Kindred, Diassess, Cerebras, Flex Logix, Visible, and Oxide Computer Company.

Personal life

Lamond is married. His son David is President of Lamond Capital Partners. Lamond has two other children Patricia and Philip.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lamond, Pierre American venture capitalists Silicon Valley people French businesspeople Northeastern University alumni 1930 births University of Toulouse alumni Living people