Thomas J. Davis, Jr.

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Thomas J. Davis, Jr. was the original Silicon Valley venture capitalist.

As Vice President of Kern County Land Company from 1957 to 1961, he managed its investment in four new companies including Watkins-Johnson Company which investment of $900,000 was sold in 1968 and 1973 by Tenneco, successor to Kern, for over $80 million.

With Arthur Rock, Tommy formed Davis and Rock partnership in 1961, which made many hugely successful investments including Teledyne, Apple Computer and Intel.

With Wally Davis and Stanford University he formed in 1969 another partnership, Mayfield Fund, which also brought great returns not only to its limited partners, but also to Stanford.

Born in 1912 in Cincinnati, Tommy earned his A.B. and J.D. degrees from Harvard and served in World War II in the Office of Strategic Services in Burma (see Colonial Era part of article in Wikipedia), often behind Japanese lines, as detailed in his 223-page privately published book "One Man's War". He died in 1989 before the book was compiled by Jeff McNish and published.