Why Kleiner Perkins: Interviews, Careers, & Portfolio

Decide if Kleiner Perkins is right for you as we uncover their hiring process & sector focus

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Kleiner Perkins Overview

Kleiner Perkins, formerly referred to as the Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), is a venture capital firm which primarily invests in early stage, incubation, and growth companies.

The firm’s original name came from its four founding partners namely Eugene Kleiner, Frank Caufield, Tom Perkins, and Brook Byers.

Since its inception in 1972, Kleiner Perkins has supported entrepreneurs in 900+ ventures. Some of them are Twitter, Google, Amazon, Netscape, Compaq, and other companies many people know today.

Kleiner Perkins was described as “perhaps Silicon Valley’s most famous venture firm” by The New York Times. The firm was also considered one of the most established VC firms as per The Wall Street Journal.

Kleiner Perkins is based in Menlo Park in Silicon Valley with additional offices in Shanghai and San Francisco.

Kleiner Perkins AUM

The assets under management of Kleiner Perkins are not publicly disclosed. However, according to the firm’s LinkedIn profile, the firm has invested $10 billion in more than hundreds of companies according to Kleiner Perkins its founding.

Kleiner Perkins Interview Process & Questions

Despite the changes in the interview changes for each candidate, the general nature of the process stays the same for the most part. In fact, you can anticipate the following:

Interview rounds: 4-6
Initial interviews are supervised by junior professionals, while later rounds are handled by more senior folks
Unless it’s on-campus or on-cycle recruiting, expect that the entire process will last for multiple weeks

Get ready to answer a mixture of behavioral questions, technical questions, and fit questions when you interview at Kleiner Perkins.

To help you with preparation, I’ve created a Growth Equity Interview Guide. Feel free to check it out.

Why Kleiner Perkins

One of the questions you must prepare for is the “Why this firm” question.

If you’ve met employees at the firm during your networking efforts, make sure to mention them and how their experiences and testimonies helped in choosing their firm.

Also, do your homework and research the firm. You can try listening to interviews with its founders, management team, and investors to get to know them better.

To start, here’s an interview with John Doerr, Kleiner Perkins Chairman:

More Interviews

Kleiner Perkins Case Study

Communication skills and technical knowledge are two traits that investment firms highly value. To evaluate these, firms like Kleiner Perkins ask candidates to perform case studies.

Most case studies will have you do financial modeling and investment recommendations. But for junior roles, a cold calling case study may also be part of the process.

Check out my Growth Equity Interview Guide if you need more help regarding case studies.

Kleiner Perkins Salary & Compensation

According to Glassdoor, Kleiner Perkins offers annual salaries of $83K and $82K on average to their analysts and associates, respectively. Figures may vary depending on various factors such as location, experience, and education.

Analyst

Associate

From other publicly available data, recent associates at Kleiner Perkins have earned $110K per year, while there’s no data for recent analyst hires.

Kleiner Perkins Careers, Jobs, & Internships

To see the most recent open roles at Kleiner Perkins, visit our job board which features promising opportunities for them and other growth / VC firms.

Kleiner Perkins Portfolio & Investments

According to Crunchbase, Kleiner Perkins has made 1,405 investments across 22 funds. Some of their notable deals include Codeium, Plex, and Harvey

Notable Transaction: Ambience Healthcare

Ambience Healthcare is a company that provides the most comprehensive AI operating system for various healthcare organizations across North America..

Many health providers partner with Ambience Healthcare to improve system efficiency, reduce clinician burnout, and offer high quality care.

In February 2024, Ambience Healthcare announced that they had received a $70 million Series B funding co-led by Kleiner Perkins and OpenAI Startup Fund. Existing investors such as Optum Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz also participated in the funding round.

This investment followed closely after Ambience Healthcare’s accelerated commercial growth which included deployment of healthcare organizations such as Memorial Hermann Health System, UCSF, The Oncology Institute, John Muir Health, Eventus WholeHealth, Midi Health, and GI Alliance.

Next Steps

If you decide to send your application and build your investing career at Kleiner Perkins, I would highly recommend that you check out my Growth Equity Interview Guide first before attending interviews.

Growth Equity Interview Guide helps professionals get a good grasp of topics that are typically covered during interviews such as financial modeling, case studies, and more. Check it out and start learning today!