John O’Farrell is an Irish

venture capitalist Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in terms of number ...

at the

Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that is 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 area of the Santa Clara Valley ...

firm

Andreessen Horowitz AH Capital Management, LLC (commonly known as Andreessen Horowitz, or a16z) is an American privately held venture capital firm, founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. The company is headquartered in Menlo Park, California. As of M ...

, which he joined in June 2010 as its third general partner. He has served on the boards of

UNICEF UNICEF ( ), originally the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund, officially United Nations Children's Fund since 1953, is an agency of the United Nations responsible for providing Humanitarianism, humanitarian and Development a ...

USA, PagerDuty, Slack, Factual, GoodData, Granular,

IFTTT IFTTT (, an acronym of Conditional (computer programming)#If–then(–else), if this, then that) is a private commercial company that runs services that allow a user to program a response to events in the world. IFTTT has partnerships with dif ...

, ItsOn and the Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties.

Early life and education

O'Farrell is from

Stillorgan Stillorgan (, also and previously or ), formerly a village in its own right, is now a suburban area of Dublin in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Stillorgan is located in Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown, and contains many housing estates, shops and oth ...

in south Dublin."The Dubliner At The Heart Of Silicon Valley"
'' Dublin Globe'', Tom Lyons, published 3/13/2019 Born in Ireland, O’Farrell has a Bachelor of Electronic Engineering from

University College Dublin University College Dublin (), commonly referred to as UCD, is a public research university in Dublin, Ireland, and a collegiate university, member institution of the National University of Ireland. With 38,417 students, it is Ireland's largest ...

and an MBA from the

Stanford Graduate School of Business The Stanford Graduate School of Business is the Postgraduate education, graduate business school of Stanford University, a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California. For several years it has been the most selective ...

, where he graduated as an Arjay Miller Scholar.

Early career

From 1997 to 2001, O’Farrell was senior vice president of international for

@Home Network @Home Network was a high-speed cable Internet service provider from 1996 to 2002. It was founded by Milo Medin, cable companies Tele-Communications Inc. (TCI), Comcast, and Cox Communications, and William Randolph Hearst III, who was their fir ...

(later Excite@Home), where he led the launch of broadband Internet services through joint venture subsidiaries in the Benelux countries, Australia and Japan. Prior to @Home, O’Farrell held general management, marketing and consulting positions in the United States and Europe with

US WEST US West, Inc. was one of seven Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs, also referred to as "Baby Bells"), created in 1983 under the Modification of Final Judgement (''United States v. Western Electric Co., Inc.'' 552 Fed. Supp. 131), a cas ...

, Telecom Ireland,

Booz Allen Hamilton Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corporation (informally Booz Allen) is the parent of Booz Allen Hamilton Inc., an American company specializing in intelligence, AI, and digital transformation. It is headquartered in McLean, Virginia, in the Washing ...

, the

European Commission The European Commission (EC) is the primary Executive (government), executive arm of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with a number of European Commissioner, members of the Commission (directorial system, informall ...

, Digital Equipment Corp. and

Siemens Siemens AG ( ) is a German multinational technology conglomerate. It is focused on industrial automation, building automation, rail transport and health technology. Siemens is the largest engineering company in Europe, and holds the positi ...

. From 2001 to 2007, O’Farrell was executive vice president, business development, for Opsware Inc., which was initially known as Loudcloud and was one of the first companies to offer

Software as a Service Software as a service (SaaS ) is a cloud computing service model where the provider offers use of application software to a client and manages all needed physical and software resources. SaaS is usually accessed via a web application. Unlike o ...

and cloud computing services. With CEO Ben Horowitz, O’Farrell negotiated Loudcloud's 2002 exit from the services business and its emergence as a server automation software company named Opsware with a $52 million initial contract from EDS. Over the subsequent five years, O’Farrell led the expansion of Opsware's product line into asset-management, networking, storage and runbook automation through four acquisitions as well as overseas partnerships with

NEC Corp is a Japanese multinational information technology and electronics corporation, headquartered at the NEC Supertower in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. It provides IT and network solutions, including cloud computing, artificial intelligence (AI), Inter ...

. and

NTT Communications is a Japanese telecommunications company owned by Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation. It operates an international network across over 190 countries and regions, with locations in more than 70 countries and regions. The company has ...

. In February 2006, O’Farrell negotiated Opsware's multi-million dollar distribution agreement with

Cisco Systems Cisco Systems, Inc. (using the trademark Cisco) is an American multinational corporation, multinational digital communications technology conglomerate (company), conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develops, m ...

, which was generating $5 million in quarterly revenue for Cisco by Q4 of that year. O’Farrell and Horowitz orchestrated a process involving 10 potential acquirers that resulted in the sale of Opsware to

Hewlett-Packard The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company. It was founded by Bill Hewlett and David Packard in 1939 in a one-car garage in Palo Alto, California ...

for $1.65 billion in June 2007. O’Farrell joined smart grid networking company Silver Spring Networks in January 2008 as executive vice president, business development. O’Farrell led the company's $90 million Series D fundraising led by

Kleiner Perkins 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 entrepreneur ...

and

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

; its expansion into Europe, Latin America and Asia; and its acquisition of Greenbox Technology. He became the first non-founding partner of

in 2010, and according to the ''

Irish Times ''The Irish Times'' is an Irish daily broadsheet newspaper and online digital publication. It was launched on 29 March 1859. The editor is Ruadhán Mac Cormaic. It is published every day except Sundays. ''The Irish Times'' is Ireland's leading n ...

'', he "quietly oseto become one of Ireland’s most senior figures in the technology world.""Dubliner John O’Farrell is turning things around in Silicon Valley"
''

The Irish Times ''The Irish Times'' is an Irish daily broadsheet newspaper and online digital publication. It was launched on 29 March 1859. The editor is Ruadhán Mac Cormaic. It is published every day except Sundays. ''The Irish Times'' is Ireland's leading n ...

'', David O'Dwyer, published 7/7/2016 In 2013, he moved out of investing and into an advisory role."Andreessen Horowitz’s First GP — John O’Farrell — Moves Out of Investing and Into Advisory Role"
All Things D, Kara Swisher, published 7/30/2013 In 2019, he became a board member at Slack, although without board voting rights, prior to its acquisition."Here's who's getting rich now that Slack is a public company worth over $20 billion"
''

Business Insider ''Business Insider'' (stylized in all caps: BUSINESS INSIDER; known from 2021 to 2023 as INSIDER) is a New York City–based multinational financial and business news website founded in 2007. Since 2015, a majority stake in ''Business Inside ...

'', Julie Bort, published 6/20/20

References

External links

Andreessen Horowitz Website

John O'Farrell's Blog
{{DEFAULTSORT:OFarrell, John Living people 20th-century Irish people 21st-century Irish people American computer businesspeople American venture capitalists Irish investors Year of birth missing (living people) Stanford Graduate School of Business alumni American philanthropists Irish emigrants to the United States Andreessen Horowitz