Perkins, Tom 1932-

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Perkins, Tom 1932-
(Thomas J. Perkins, Thomas James Perkins)

PERSONAL:

Born 1932; married Gerd Thune-Ellefsen (died, 1994); married Danielle Steel (an author), 1998 (divorced, c. 1999); children: (first marriage) two.Education: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, B.S., 1953; Harvard University, M.B.A., 1957. Hobbies and other interests: Yachting, sculpting, physics, baroque music.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Northern CA, and East Sussex, England. Agent—c/o Author Mail, HarperCollins Publishers, 6th Fl., 10 E. 53rd St., New York, NY 10022.

CAREER:

Hewlett-Packard, general manager, beginning 1963; University Laboratories (now Spectra-Physics), founder, c. 1960s; Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (venture capital company), founder, 1972-c. 2001; Tandem Computers, chair, 1974-97; Genentech, chair, 1976-90, also served as director. Has served as director of such companies as Compaq Computer, Applied Materials, Acuson, Hybritech, Philips Electronics NV, Symantec, Tandem Computers, LSI Logic, The News Corporation, and Corning Glass Works; former member of board of directors, Hewlett-Packard.

WRITINGS:

Sex and the Single Zillionaire (romance novel), Regan Books (New York, NY), 2006.

SIDELIGHTS:

Tom Perkins is best known as a prominent venture capitalist and cofounder of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a firm that has helped finance such companies as Google, Amazon, and America Online. Originally only planning to be a television repairman, he was urged by a teacher to go to college. He did so on a scholarship, studyingelectrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and business at Harvard. Joining Hewlett-Packard, he became the head of the company's first computer division and later invented a new way to manufacture lasers. Perkins became a hugely successful and respected businessman, and so it was a surprise to many when he decided to publish a book that was not about business but was instead a romance novel. This was the result of a chain of extraordinary events. Perkins had been approached to star in a reality television show in which he would be the single, wealthy man who would choose a beautiful, young wife among the contestants. He turned down the offer but approached his ex-wife, romance novelist Danielle Steel, to see if she would take the idea and turn it into a book. She, however, said that he should write it. With much urging from Steel, Perkins gave in and wrote the novel himself.

Sex and the Single Zillionaire features investment banker Steve Hudson. Like Perkins, Hudson is rich and successful and is asked to be on a reality show; unlike Perkins, Hudson accepts a chance to appear on Trophy Bride; what follows is a string of sexual encounters and, in the end, a true romance. Realizing that the novel is not intended to be great literature, reviewers complimented Perkins on doing a respectable job on his romance novel. Fortune contributor Nadira A. Hira, for example, called it a "saucy tale" that "is everything you never expected from a distinguished 73-year-old."