Don Valentine

Don Valentine
Valentine in 2009. Photograph by Steve Jurvetson
Born	Donald T. Valentine (1932-06-26) June 26, 1932 (age 84)
Alma mater	Fordham University
Occupation	Venture Capitalist

Donald T. "Don" Valentine (born June 26, 1932) is an influential venture capitalist who concentrates mainly on technology companies in the United States. He has been called the "grandfather of Silicon Valley venture capital". The Computer History Museum credited him as playing "a key role in the formation of a number of industries such as semiconductors, personal computers, personal computer software, digital entertainment and networking."

A few years after graduating with a B.A. from Fordham University, Valentine began his career as a sales engineer at Raytheon. He was in the position for less than a year before moving on to Fairchild Semiconductor, where he built up the sales force for seven years. He left and founded National Semiconductor, working as a senior sales and marketing executive.

In 1972, Valentine founded venture capital firm Sequoia Capital. Initially, the company focused on early venture investments with small, risky tech companies. Sequoia's first investment was in Atari in 1975 before the company was sold for $28 million to Warner Communications. Sequoia was one of the original investors of Apple Computer and Atari after Valentine met Steve Jobs when he was a line engineer for Atari, and in 1978, Sequoia invested $150,000 in Apple Inc.. Sequoia Capital has also made early investments in companies including LSI Logic, Oracle Corporation, Cisco, Electronic Arts, Google, YouTube and many others.