The billionaire strolled into the three-star restaurant on New York’s Upper East Side wearing a wrinkled tan suit and loafers in desperate need of a shine. That was the first clue that Michael Moritz, 72, wasn’t your typical Silicon Valley rich guy. It wouldn’t be the last.
Of late, Moritz—the former chairman of Sequoia Capital, who is worth an estimated $7.6 billion—has been using some of that wealth to help revive San Francisco, the city he calls home. Last month, he announced a competition offering up to $50 million to as many as three organizations that have ideas to make the city better. But before we get to his noblesse oblige, an explanation of what came first—well, besides the fact that, after ordering tea (for him) and cabernet (for me), we both recalled the time I interviewed him early in his venture capital career for a story about Steve Jobs.
Moritz had also once been a journalist, a correspondent for Time magazine before joining the venture ranks in 1986, investing in companies such as Google, PayPal, and YouTube. You make bets like that, you get rich. And if you use some of that money on philanthropy and “promoting Britain’s economic interests,” you can get a knighthood, which Moritz achieved in 2013.
Anyway, Moritz was in town to promote his new book, Ausländer: One Family’s Story of Escape and Exile, which—clue No. 2—contains not a single word about technology, artificial intelligence, or how to become a successful venture capitalist. It is instead about the murder of his grandparents, and many of his other relatives, in the Nazi death camps, and the effect that had on his father especially, who, along with his brother, made it safely to England in his teens. It’s also a beautiful piece of writing. Clue No. 3.
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