EGN NEWS DESK
A few years after I began Salesforce, I used to be invited to a particular dinner to rejoice a buddy’s marriage. The location was the house of Sandy Robertson, a Silicon Valley legend. I used to be thrilled. I’d all the time needed to satisfy Sandy. A local midwesterner who noticed the tech revolution coming years earlier than the Wall Street institution, he was current on the creation of Silicon Valley, shaping the monetary infrastructure that fueled its exceptional rise.
We hit it off instantly, discovering chemistry in our shared ardour for every part from know-how to trendy artwork and our love for Hawaii. We additionally found that our workplaces had been in the identical constructing–1 Market Street in San Francisco–and made a plan to get collectively there the subsequent day. Sandy, as ever, confirmed up proper on time. I spontaneously requested if he would think about becoming a member of our board. Just as spontaneously, he mentioned sure, starting a friendship and mentorship that spanned some twenty years, till Sandy sadly handed away Aug. 3 on the age of 93.
In an trade of outsized personalities, Sandy stored a low profile. But there are few individuals on the earth of tech whose profession touched so many individuals and so many firms. Curiosity and a real curiosity in others had been keys to his success in with the ability to spot the subsequent massive factor. It was why as a younger manager in Smith Barney’s Chicago workplace, he had jumped on the probability to maneuver to San Francisco. “With 4 hours’ discover I got here to the West Coast,” he advised a podcaster a couple of years in the past. “I actually acquired turned on by the individuals I met in Silicon Valley—the entrepreneurs and the scientists and the engineers.”
Over greater than six a long time, a interval that noticed Silicon Valley rework from a set of semiconductor firms to a worldwide know-how hub, Sandy appeared to have a finger in every part. That was partly due to his unbridled enthusiasm about innovation and innovators. The checklist of firms he helped develop was as broad because it was lengthy: Gilead Sciences, eBay, AOL, Sun Microsystems, Dell, AOL,, Pixar, E*TRADE and lots of extra.
One historical past of Silicon Valley known as Sandy “the genesis of funding banking in San Francisco.” Often neglected is Sandy’s file as a serial entrepreneur in his personal proper. He based not one however two of the 4 companies–the so-called Four Horsemen–that lengthy dominated Silicon Valley banking: Robertson, Coleman, Siebel & Weisel, which grew to become Montgomery Securities, and Robertson, Stephens & Company, which later offered to Bank of America. In 1999, he once more co-founded his personal agency, Francisco Partners, which has invested in additional than 450 tech firms. To play that form of function in a significant trade as soon as is exceptional; to do it repeatedly is nearly exceptional.
Sandy’s enthusiasms–“the enjoyment factor,” as our mutual buddy Bob Grady rightly calls it–prolonged properly past tech to the humanities, sports activities and philanthropy. He was a significant donor to UCSF, inspiring me to do the identical, and to his alma mater the University of Michigan, even establishing an endowment for a soccer offensive coordinator for the Wolverines. He relished his later-in-life function as Broadway impresario, investing in productions together with Hamilton, Spamalot, Leopoldstadt, Cinderella, An American in Paris and this season’s Suffs. Another ardour was thoroughbred horseracing, the place he additionally noticed his share of wins–and located classes for all times and enterprise.
Sandy was as soon as requested in an interview for the Computer History Museum whether or not individuals or concepts matter most in making investing selections. “Some individuals in enterprise capital say it’s a query of betting on the jockey or the horse, the interviewer mentioned. “It’s the jockey. No query about it,” Sandy answered with out lacking a beat. “Pick the best particular person.”
For numerous entrepreneurs and innovators down the a long time trying to construct the businesses that remodeled our world, Sandy Robertson was precisely the best particular person, no query about it–the jockey who guided us, steered us, and helped us run sooner and farther than we ever thought doable.
