About Mike Moritz

Mike Moritz, Partner at Seqouia. Mike Moritz first worked for many years as a journalist. In the early 1980s, when he was a reporter for Time, Steve Jobs contracted him to document the development of the Mac for a book he was writing about Apple. According to Andy Hertzfeld, in response to the fact that a history of another computer company had been published a year earlier. As he was close in age to many on the development team, he seemed to be a good choice. By late 1982, Mike Moritz was Time's San Francisco Bureau Chief and working on the special Time Person of the Year issue, which was initially supposed to be about Jobs. His research included a lengthy interview with Jobs' high school girlfriend, Chrisann Brennan, in which she discussed the history of their child, Lisa. Moritz's follow-up interview with Jobs on the subject led to denial of paternity on his part. The issue also contained negative commentary on Jobs from other Apple employees. The special issue was renamed Machine of the Year prior to publication, celebrated The Computer and declared that "it would have been possible to single out as Man of the Year one of the engineers or entrepreneurs who masterminded this technological revolution, but no one person has clearly dominated those turbulent events. More important, such a selection would obscure the main point. TIME's Man of the Year for 1982, the greatest influence for good or evil, is not a man at all. It is a machine: the computer."Jobs cut off all ties with Moritz after the issue was published and threatened to fire anyone who communicated with him According to Hertzfeld, "some of us talked with Mike again surreptitiously, as he was putting the finishing touches on his book around the time of the Mac introduction" and the resulting text, The Little Kingdom: the Private Story of Apple Computer, "remains one of the best books about Apple Computer ever written". In 2009, 25 years after The Little Kingdom, Moritz published a revised and expanded follow-up: Return to the Little Kingdom: How Apple and Steve Jobs Changed the World. In the prologue to Return to the Little Kingdom, Moritz states that he was as incensed as Jobs was about the Time Magazine special issue: Mike Moritz recounts a challenging experience from his early career involving Steve Jobs and the publication of his book, *The Little Kingdom: The Private Story of Apple Computer*. Moritz describes how Steve Jobs felt deeply betrayed by an article about Apple, which was based on materials Moritz had gathered for his book. The article, heavily altered by an editor in New York who was more familiar with covering the rock-and-roll scene, painted a distorted and gossipy picture that enraged Jobs. As a result, Jobs banned Moritz from Apple and instructed those around him to cut off communication with the writer. This experience profoundly impacted Moritz, leading him to vow never again to work in an environment where he couldn't have significant control over his work or where he would be paid by the word. In 2015, Mike Moritz collaborated with Alex Ferguson on his book, Leading: Learning from Life and My Years at Manchester United, which draws on Ferguson’s experience as a football manager, and provides lessons on achieving business and life success. His internet company investments include Google, Yahoo!, Skyscanner, PayPal, Webvan, YouTube, eToys, and Zappos. He currently sits on the boards of 24/7 Customer, Earth Networks, Gamefly, HealthCentral, Green Dot Corporation, Klarna, Kayak.com, LinkedIn, Stripe and PopSugar.