John, my boss, was king of kingmakers when I joined. He had some early, very big hits: Genentech, Intuit, Amazon. He was one of the first to invest in the internet, with Netscape, and cemented his online reputation later with Google. Several companies already had competing search engines, but John saw Google’s potential to transform the internet. He brought in Eric Schmidt as CEO, making Eric a tech king and a multibillionaire. John viewed things from a different lens, one that showed him something special in these companies. He figured out ways to push them through the system, by using his relationships, raising more funding, and helping them sell. He contributed to making many other people into billionaires, including himself several times over.