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

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 ...

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 ...

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

Sequoia Capital Sequoia Capital Operations, LLC is an American venture capital firm headquartered in Menlo Park, California, specializing in seed stage, early stage, and growth stage investments in private companies across technology sectors. the firm had appro ...

based in

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

, from 1981 until he left to join Vinod Khosla's

Khosla Ventures Khosla Ventures is a private American venture capital firm based in Menlo Park, California. It was founded by entrepreneur Vinod Khosla in 2004. The firm works with early-stage companies in the Internet, computing, mobile technology, artifici ...

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

at the

University of Toulouse The University of Toulouse (, ) is a community of universities and establishments ( ComUE) based in Toulouse, France. Originally it was established in 1229, making it one of the earliest universities to emerge in Europe. Suppressed during the ...

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 Northeastern University (NU or NEU) is a private university, private research university with its main campus in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It was founded by the Boston Young Men's Christian Association in 1898 as an all-male instit ...

. His first job was an engineer with Transitron Electronics in 1957. In January 1962, he joined

Gordon Moore Gordon Earle Moore (January 3, 1929 – March 24, 2023) was an American businessman, engineer, and the co-founder and emeritus chairman of Intel Corporation. He proposed Moore's law which makes the observation that the number of transistors i ...

Fairchild Semiconductor Fairchild Semiconductor International, Inc. was an American semiconductor company based in San Jose, California. It was founded in 1957 as a division of Fairchild Camera and Instrument by the " traitorous eight" who defected from Shockley Semi ...

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

National Semiconductor National Semiconductor Corporation was an United States of America, American Semiconductor manufacturing, semiconductor manufacturer, which specialized in analogue electronics, analog devices and subsystems, formerly headquartered in Santa Clara, ...

, 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 p ...

. 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 an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

. 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