John Doerr
Chairman, Kleiner Perkins · 1 appearance on the record.
computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →
investorengineerauthor@johndoerr ↗LinkedIn ↗kleinerperkins.com/people/john-doerr ↗Wikipedia ↗
After joining Kleiner Perkins in 1980, Doerr led early investments in tech giants like Google and Amazon and later became an investor in clean energy. He popularized the Objectives and Key Results framework across Silicon Valley and authored the bestselling books Measure What Matters and Speed & Scale.
13statements → 5claims → 4claims resolved → 50%fully supported → 4.54/5average certainty → 2.31/5average debate potential → 4.4/5argument clarity · the sources → 99said about them ↓
2 supported 2 partly supported 0 contradicted 1 not checkable as stated how the 5 claims stand · each chip opens the sources
3 predictions · 2 assertions · 3 opinions · 1 insight · 4 disclosures · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 5 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 4 are resolved, and 1 names no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.
The record, in short
What the tape says about how John argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.
Expressed certainty vs assessment result
weighted support: a fully supported claim counts one, a partly supported claim counts half. Each filled bar is clickable and opens exactly those claims; "none yet" means nothing said at that certainty level has resolved yet
Argument clarity: do they answer the question? how? →
4.4 / 5
directness 4.1 · coherence 4.8 ·
precision 4.6 · compression 4
answered every one of 10 assessed questions directly
This is a score against a rubric. It is not a rank. Every host question → answer exchange is scored with names hidden on directness, coherence, precision and compression, 1–5 each, on meaning alone: disfluencies are ignored, and only raw unedited episodes count. This is the score that measures thought. Every scored exchange, scores shown → · The rubric and its checks →
How they sound: speaking style how? →
212 words/min while actually speaking · 11 um and uh per 1k words · 13.7 false starts per 1k · 24% of pauses land inside a clause
Measured by listening to the audio itself: 3,452 words across 1 episode of raw-level tape, transcribed verbatim with every um and uh kept, each one attributed only where the alignment onto our timed stream is unambiguous. These are measurements of speaking style. We do not rank them: across this corpus, fluency and argument quality are nearly uncorrelated (ρ≈0.2), and smooth talking does not signal clear thinking. How it's measured →
How the interview went all their pushback → series average →
Across 1 rated episode:
host pushback ▾ 4/10
setup questions received 80%
host pushback: the hardest questions Harry asked, tap to play ▶ 2:08“Why the separate funds? And do you think for funds investing in climate today, we should have the same dedicated climate fund, you know, energy fund strategy in terms of the segreg…” ▶ 29:03“Should every fund just be investing in climate? Is there wasted dollars going into climate?”
Everything John Doerr said on 20VC that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →
Doerr: Carbon accounting will be a more important currency than Bitcoin
“Everyone will do carbon accounting. Governments will do carbon accounting. They will score legislation for carbon. It's a new currency, a more important currency, I dare say, than Bitcoin is.”
Doerr: Enphase gains covered Kleiner's losses across six failed solar investments
“We invested in seven solar companies. The Chinese crushed six of them, all six of which made solar panels. The seventh one made microinverters. It's name is Enphase, and the gains from Enphase made up for the losses across all the rest of the solar investments”
Doerr: The planet will never be cooler than it is today
“This is a new abnormal, and it's going to get worse In the best of all possible cases. The planet will never be cooler tomorrow than it is today.”
Doerr: The climate crisis is the greatest economic opportunity this century
“And I do think that this Climate crisis is, ah, the greatest opportunity of our lifetimes. It'll be the greatest opportunity of the coming century.”
Doerr: Governments are the biggest obstacle to solving the climate crisis
“The governments are the biggest problem. And if the governments don't change, if they don't up the level of ambition and urgency, simply put, we're screwed. We will not succeed.”
Doerr: Not every venture capital fund should be a climate fund
“So every fund should not be a climate fund. That's my first piece of advice.”
Doerr: Kleiner Perkins turned $1B in climate investments into $3B
“Over the course of three or four funds, we invested about a billion dollars in 70 or so climate-related investments. Those investments On an as-of-held basis today are worth about three billion dollars.”
Doerr: Kleiner Perkins bought 12% of Google for $12 million
“Twelve million dollars bought 12% of Google, which is today as a company worth several trillion dollars.”
Doerr: EVs will reach price parity in the US by 2024
“This is key result one dot one to achieve price performance parity with internal combustion engine vehicles in the US by 2024. That means they cost 35,000 dollars and in India and China importantly by 2030 where the cost target has to be 11,000 dollars.”
Doerr: Great board members bring three to five questions to every meeting
“What I've long believed is that the best thing a good board member can do is. Bring three to five questions for a meeting. Have maybe half of those be questions that the team hasn't thought about, and have one of them be truly useful. So I think being a good b…”
Doerr: Amazon almost ran out of cash after going public
“That, by the way, was true also of Amazon. Amazon almost ran out of cash after it was public as well.”
Doerr: Kleiner Perkins turned a $29M Enphase investment into $1B
“We invested, Kleiner did, twenty-nine million dollars in Enphase. Ben Cordlang led the investment for our partnership. That 29 million dollar investment Today is worth a billion dollars, and it is the leading maker of microinverters.”
The other half of the tape: John Doerr's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 90 times in 36 episodes on 20VC. 9 statements on the record name them. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 28Trae Vassallo 6Mamoon Hamid 5Eric Liaw 5Shabih "Shabby" Rizvi 4Chris Sacca 4Bing Gordon 4Tyler Willis 3
Statements about John Doerr, by other people (9)
Jerry Murdock: Peter Fenton and John Doerr were astounding venture pickers
“Peter Fenton John Doerr early on those guys were astounding at picking deals.”
Bloom Energy's 2001 Kleiner Perkins Pitch Proposed Off-Grid Data Centers
“So if you look at my 2001 PowerPoint presentation, which was the pitch to Kleiner Perkins, who was my first investor, John Doerr, the summary page puts out a data center, it puts out a bloom box, powering the data center, the waste heat providing the cooling f…”
Friedensohn: Kleiner Perkins' John Doerr is the best salesperson she has met
“So I think John Doerr is one of the best, if not the best salesperson I've ever met.”
Kleiner Perkins' John Doerr joins Modern Health's enterprise sales pitches
“He has actually come to some of our sales pitches with me, and it's just incredible to see him in action.”
John Doerr Answered Flipboard Support Emails During Launch Crash
“I remember at Flipboard, for example, when the service first launched, The load was so tremendous that it actually took down the back end for a few weeks, and our board member John Doerr came by and actually answered customer support emails all night. He even …”
Hamid: John Doerr has held his Google stock for over 25 years
“You can hold on to your Google stock forever as John Doerr has done over the last 25 years.”
John Doerr combines humility with incisive boardroom problem-solving
“And it was one of the remarkable things about John is just, he lights up a room when he walks in and he's got this incredibly humble personality, but he can really quickly get to the core of a problem or an issue and very quickly start to ask the questions tha…”
John Doerr Excels on Boards by Ignoring Minutiae for Core Drivers
“The thing that was so incredible about working with John is that he was really good at quickly identifying the big question, the big issue. He never got distracted by the small minutiae that so many folks can get distracted by. He was always laser focused on w…”
Khosla: I decided immediately to back Marc Andreessen and Netscape
“He was definitely intense. I remember coming out of the meeting calling John Doerr and saying, let's just do this. Remember, the internet was this ambiguous thing. It was one of these triggering moments I call instigations for me. That's what he was like. It d…”
Every mention by year
tap a year for its mentions
2026 5 mentions in 3 episodes 2 per episode
- Bloom Energy CEO: Why We Aren’t in an AI Capex Bubble | Energy Sovereignty & The Future of Power · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Zuckerberg Back on X Challenging Codex & Claude Code | SK Hynix’s $26BN IPO · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- The SaaS Apocalypse: Who Lives & Who Dies | Insight Partners Co-Founder, Jerry Murdock · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- every mention in 2026, scene by scene →
2025 1 mention in 1 episode
2024 4 mentions in 4 episodes 1 per episode
- Mamoon Hamid: AI - Where Value Accrues, Startups vs Incumbents & Scaling Laws | E1217 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Mike Schroepfer: Former Meta CTO on "Why The Best Leaders are Like Music Conductors" | E1158 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Jason Lemkin: Why Pricing is Worse Than Ever and There is More Funding Than Ever | E1157 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Frank Quattrone: Lessons from 650 M&A Deals Worth Over $1TRN & Taking Amazon and Cisco Public| E1121 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- every mention in 2024, scene by scene →
2023 3 mentions in 3 episodes 1 per episode
- Keith Rabois & Mike Shebat: Creating an Olympian Mindset to Work Ethic| E1087 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Jason Lemkin & Rick Zullo: How "Mark to Market" Corrupted Venture Capital | E1052 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Vinod Khosla: How AI Impacts Healthcare, Energy, Geo-Politics, Media and Climate Change | E1045 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- every mention in 2023, scene by scene →
2022 12 mentions in 5 episodes 2 per episode
- 20VC: What Happens To Growth Rounds in this New Environment? Where is the Funding Crunch? How Does This Impact M&A and Going Public? How do Crossover Funds Respond? What Does it Mean For Early Stage and more with Eric Liaw, General Partner @ IVP
- Emil Michael: How I Negotiated the $4B Uber-China Deal, Why DoorDash Caught Up to Uber | 20VC #941 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- 20VC: David Friedberg on The Framework for Business Value Creation, The Bifurcation in Venture Today That No One Talks About, The Impact of Interest Rate Hikes on Venture and Step by Step; How TPB Incubates, Funds and Exits The Next Generation of Companie
- Chris Sacca's True Unfiltered Opinion on Facebook and Softbank | Full Interview · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Wesley Chan: How I Created Google Analytics; The Founding Story of Gmail & Canva | 20VC #919 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- every mention in 2022, scene by scene →
2021 3 mentions in 2 episodes 2 per episode
- 20VC: Chris Sacca on Coming Out of Retirement To Unf**k The Planet with Lowercarbon, How Chris Evaluates His Relationship To Money Today, Why We Have Bred a Generation of Ass**** Kids, Do VCs Provide Any Real Value and The True Unfiltered Opinion on Faceb
- 20VC: Bill Gurley and Michael Eisenberg on The First Signs of an Impending Bust, What Happens with a Market Crash, How Do Public Markets Impact Private Valuations & The Biggest Lessons from 20 Years Investing in Venture
- every mention in 2021, scene by scene →
2020 11 mentions in 5 episodes 2 per episode
- 20VC: Biggest Lessons from Working with John Doerr, How Founders Can Have Discussions of Vulnerability with Their Board and Investors & Marrying Another Founder; The Pros, Cons and Ways To Make it Succeed with Alyson Friedensohn, Co-Founder & CEO @ Modern
- 20VC: The 4 Phases of Effective Decision-Making, The No 1 Quality of Good Decisions, How To Approach Effective OKR Setting, & How To Optimise and Improve Your Operating Cadence with Shishir Mehrotra, Founder & CEO @ Coda
- 20VC: SPACs. What Are They? Why Now? How Do They Change The Venture Landscape? Are They Better Than IPOs & Direct Listings? How Should Founders Think About Them? Kevin Hartz & Troy Steckenrider @ A*
- 20VC: Steve Jurvetson on 20 Years of Friendship with Elon Musk, How To Analyse Market Timing, Why Venture Does Not Scale & Why He Has Never Sold A Share in Any Company He Holds
- 20VC: Vinod Khosla on What Venture Assistance Really Means, Why Many VCs Are Not Qualified To Advise Founders & Why Startups Can Innovate So Much Faster Than Incumbents
- every mention in 2020, scene by scene →
2019 5 mentions in 2 episodes 3 per episode
- 20VC: Kleiner Perkins' Mamoon Hamid on The Strategy Behind The New $600m "Back To The Future" Fund, The Truth To Price Sensitivity at Series A & Why Venture Team Building Is Like Basketball Team Building
- 20VC: Firstmark's Rick Heitzmann on The Rise of Pre-Emptive Rounds, His Biggest Learnings From The Pinterest Board, 2 Things VCs Can Do To Prepare Their Companies For The Downturn and Why Now Is A Good Time to Be Contrarian and Invest In Consumer
- every mention in 2019, scene by scene →
2018 28 mentions in 4 episodes 7 per episode
- 20VC: The Biggest Lessons From Working Alongside John Doerr, How To Optimize The Speed of Investment Decision-Making & Why Saying No Graciously Is The Most Important Thing with Shabih Rizvi, Founding Partner @ Gradient Ventures
- 20VC: What John Doerr Taught Me About Great Investing, Why Not All A Rounds Are Post-Traction and Why Despite Overfunding, There Is Still Gaps In Venture Financing with Trae Vassallo, Founding Partner @ Defy.vc
- 20VC: Lessons From Slack and Opendoor on Price Sensitivity, Why The Best CEOs Are Able To Manage Momentum and Why Being A Board Member is a "Full Contact Sport" with Glenn Solomon, Managing Partner @ GGV Capital
- 20VC: How To Build Credibility with Investors, Employees and Customers, How To Determine When A Stretch VP is A Stretch Too Far and The Right Way For Founders To Think About Dilution with Amol Deshpande, Founder & CEO @ Farmers Business Network
- every mention in 2018, scene by scene →
2017 8 mentions in 3 episodes 3 per episode
- 20VC: Kleiner Perkins' Bing Gordon on Lessons From Serving On Amazon & Zynga's Board, Why The Best Investors Are Good Listeners and Sceptical Optimists & The Most Important Value Add A VC Can Provide
- 20VC: Kleiner Perkins GP, Eric Feng on How The Best Funds Use Tech and Data To Find Companies, Why Entrepreneurs Start The Fire and VCs Add The Rocket Fuel & Why Consumer Is Harder Than Ever Today
- 20VC: Bessemer's Jeremy Levine on Why We Are In A Fallow Period For Consumer, Why It Is Bogus That Operational VCs Can Add More Value & 2 Golden Rules To Always Tell Entrepreneurs Pre-Investment
- every mention in 2017, scene by scene →
2016 8 mentions in 3 episodes 3 per episode
- 20VC: Tyler Willis on How To Be Innovative With Customer Acquisition and The Future Of Innovation
- 20VC: Arielle Zuckerberg @ Kleiner Perkins: A Review Of My First 6 Months in Venture
- 20VC: Investing In Sectors That Were Cool 2 Years Ago, What Accel's Facebook Fund Taught a Generation of LPs & Why LPs Need A New Discovery Process with Paul Martino, Founding Partner @ Bullpen Capital
- every mention in 2016, scene by scene →
2015 2 mentions in 1 episode
Appearances (1)
| Episode | Date | Speaking time |
|---|---|---|
| How I Bought 12% of Google for $12M; How VC is Fixing Climate Change | John Doerr Full Int | Feb 21, 2022 | 21m |