Glenn here's some interested reading:
Posted at 12:59 a.m. PDT Monday, July 27, 1998
Kleiner Perkins has another Internet goodie up its sleeve BY CHRIS NOLAN
Mercury News Staff Writer
LOOKS like Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers wants to open a corner drugstore in your living room. Yep, the venture capital firm that brought you @Home and Amazon.com is hard at work on its next potentially revolutionary Internet offering. Details are vague, in part because the principals aren't talking. But there are some tantalizing clues. The domain name Drugstore.com is registered to a Kleiner associate. And speculation -- offered up by e-commerce CEOs in Silicon Valley, rival venture capitalists and bankers -- suggests an interesting business plan. A call to Kleiner partner Brook Byers -- who has traditionally managed the firm's drug and biotech investments -- wasn't returned.
Like Kleiner's other big e-commerce investments, Drugstore.com appears to be an effort to change the business of buying and selling over the Internet. And while prescription drug sales may be offered -- there are potential legal obstacles to selling prescriptions online -- Drugstore.com isn't just an Internet pharmacy. All kinds of things are sold in drugstores: magazines, shampoo, cosmetics, vitamins.
One rival venture capitalist asked if this latest Kleiner e-commerce play is an extension of Amazon.com, the Kleiner-backed firm that started off as an online bookseller but is becoming much more.
''Amazon, to me, wants to dominate all of e-commerce,'' he said. The firm recently started offering music. And it's built a large list of loyal, well-educated, wealthy customers who have happily provided Amazon.com (and, by extension, Kleiner) with their credit card numbers and other information about their habits -- self-help or biography? Rap or Spice Girls? Such data could prove valuable for anyone trying to open an online business, even one as prosaic as a drugstore.
Kleiner has also recently added a high-profile executive to its ranks, one with interesting and possibly relevant experience doing business online. Some suspect he'll be running Drugstore.com.
Peter Neupert, former Microsoft vice president of news and publishing who worked in Redmond's interactive media group, has become a CEO in residence at Kleiner. He may be ''in residence'' but it's a loose definition. Neupert will be staying in Seattle, where he has lived most of his life. Amazon.com is also in Seattle. And while he hasn't announced his plans, Neupert has had conversations with other CEOs in the Kleiner family about running one of the firm's portfolio companies.
Neupert was at Microsoft for 11 years, helping start MSNBC and Slate, the company's best-known ''content'' ventures. He also headed advertising and sales for Microsoft's online businesses.
Neupert didn't return a phone call or e-mail to his Microsoft office. Kleiner partner Byers was credited by News.com, the online news services, with recruiting Neupert to Kleiner.
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