Mary Meeker (born September, 1959) is an American [1] venture capitalist and former Wall Street securities analyst primarily associated with the Internet. She is a partner at Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.
Meeker became known as "Queen of the Net" after being dubbed so by Barron's Magazine in 1998. [2]
Meeker was born in Portland, Indiana, and holds a B.A. in psychology from DePauw University (1981) and an M.B.A. in finance from Cornell University (1986). In addition, she received an Honorary Doctor of Letters degree from DePauw University.
In 1982, Meeker joined Merrill Lynch as a stockbroker. After graduate school, she began as an analyst covering the technology sector at Salomon Brothers in 1986. She worked for Cowen during 1990-1991 before moving to Morgan Stanley to specialize in covering the personal computer and consumer software industries.
In the early 1990s, while spending time with Ray Ozzie and Jim Manzi of Lotus Notes and Steve Case of America Online and watching a demo by John Gage of Sun Microsystems, Meeker began to appreciate that online connectivity could transform the way people communicate as well as the operation of all industries. She became known as an early Wall Street champion of the Internet.
In August 1995, Morgan Stanley (with Meeker as research analyst) served as lead manager for the initial public offering of Netscape Communications. Later that year, Meeker and Chris DePuy at Morgan Stanley, published "The Internet Report," a landmark Morgan Stanley industry report which became known as "the bible" for investors in the dot com boom [3] and went into popular circulation - as a book, and on the web.
Over the years, Morgan Stanley published similar landmark reports led by Meeker on online advertising, e-commerce, evolution of search, the Internet in China, and the mobile Internet. In August, 2004, Morgan Stanley (with Meeker as research analyst) served as lead manager for the initial public offering of Google.
Meeker was characterized by Andy Serwer in Fortune magazine in 2006 as "absolutely first rate when it comes to spotting big-picture trends before they come into focus. She gathers massive amounts of data and assembles it into voluminous reports that, while sometimes rambling and overambitious, are stuffed with a million jumping-off points." Meeker is often credited for her comprehensive, rapid fire, annual Internet industry overviews at the Web 2.0 conferences in San Francisco each Autumn.
In February 2011, Meeker created and compiled 'USA Inc.,' a non-partisan report that looked at the U.S. government (and its financials) from a business perspective.
Successful stocks Meeker championed early on included Dell, Microsoft, Intuit, Netscape, AOL, Amazon.com, Yahoo!, eBay and Google. Failed picks included AOL after its takeover of Time Warner, Excite@Home, and drugstore.com.
Meeker was vilified in the press [4] as one of a number of star analysts who were questioned in fraud investigations after the bursting of the dotcom bubble in 2000. Meeker was not charged with any wrongdoing. Morgan Stanley and nine other investment firms were compelled to participate in a global legal settlement.
During Morgan Stanley's tumultuous period in April, 2005, when CEO Phil Purcell's management decisions were being intensely scrutinized, Meeker, along with colleagues Steve Roach, Byron Wien, and Henry McVey wrote a letter to then co-presidents Zoe Cruz and Steve Crawford that expressed their concerns about the damage to the culture of the firm. Randy Smith brought the basics of the letter to the public in "The Wall Street Journal" in May, 2005. In turn, the letter served as an important catalyst in increasing the focus of the board of directors on the depth of challenges facing Morgan Stanley at the time. In June, 2005, John Mack was named CEO of Morgan Stanley, replacing Phil Purcell. A copy of the letter is included in Patricia Beard's book "Blue Blood & Mutiny" published by HarperCollins, 2007.
Meeker was named "one of the ten smartest people in tech" by "Fortune" magazine in 2010. [5]
In December, 2010 Meeker left her position as a managing director at Morgan Stanley and head of the bank's global technology research team to become a partner at the Silicon Valley venture capital firm of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.