Meet the new Midas List, same as the old list
Forbes released the latest edition of its Midas List yesterday, and it’s full of familiar faces. The top four spots are literally identical to last year’s list, with Google backers John Doerr (of Kleiner Perkins), Michael Moritz (of Sequoia Capital), Ram Shiram (of Sherpalo), and Stanford Prof. David Cheriton holding on to their titles as the titans of venture capital. The lack of movement isn’t too surprising, since VCs didn’t exactly make a lot of money in 2008 - in fact, it was the worst year for venture liquidity since 2003.
Moving down the list a bit, who were the big winners and losers? Sigma Partners‘ Gregory Gretsch got on at number 19, largely by investing in EqualLogic, which was last year’s biggest exit with a $1.4 billion acquisition from Dell. Meanwhile, famed venture capitalist Vinod Khosla of Khosla Ventures, who was down at number 70 last year, has dropped off altogether. Forbes’ calculations are based on investors’ last five years of returns, so expect to see bigger shifts next year, when Google’s IPO falls beyond that horizon. Doerr, for example, had literally no exits in 2008. (He edged past Moritz on last year’s list due to Microsoft’s $800 million acquisition of Tellme.)
