00:00: Charlie Rose: intelligence estimate. Tom Perkins is here. Thirty-five years ago, he co-founded the venture capital firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers. Since then, the company has been instrumental in the creation of Silicon Valley giants such as Genentech, Amazon and Google, just to name a few. Tom Perkins is the author of the novel "Sex and the Single Zillionaire." His latest venture is a revealing memoir called "Valley Boy: The Education of Tom Perkins." I am pleased to have him back at this table. Two things, I should say. One -- in the interests of full disclosure -- I'm (inaudible) Kleiner & Perkins. And secondly, I saw him on "60 Minutes," and it was a fascinating show. Because we got to see this boat, the Maltese Falcon.
00:40: Tom Perkins: Right.
00:42: Charlie Rose: Tell me how you felt about all of that, "60 Minutes" audience watching you, and you and Lesley Stahl --
00:48: Tom Perkins: Well, Leslie, I thought was great. She was interested and she asked good questions. And it was fun to have her on the boat. She told me it was the best assignment she ever had -- to have to go to Italy and eat good food and go sailing and all of that. We had some fun. So it was good. And it was a chance to talk about this boat, the Maltese Falcon, which is kind of a breakthrough. It is a breakthrough. The idea was to see if you could take a clipper ship from the 19th century -- you know, those clippers hit their peak around 1860 to 1875, and then they disappeared. But they were fantastic. The trouble is, they took a huge crew. And my thought was, all right, would it be possible to bring them into this century and automate everything, so that one person could sail the boat -- literally, one person. And we did it. And it works. And the boat has been launched now for about a year and a half. And we've put 30,000 miles, most of that under sail.
01:55: Charlie Rose: Just so we know for the record, though, when you are sailing the boat, what's the size of the crew?
02:01: Tom Perkins: Well, you've got -- you know, you've got guys that have to maintain it, engineers. You've got stewardesses that have to take care of the guests.
02:10: Charlie Rose: And you have to have a chef.
02:12: Tom Perkins: And you have to have a chef. So you end up with 18 to 20 crew. But one person can sail the boat.
02:19: Charlie Rose: All right. Leslie went into this, so I'm a little embarrassed to say the same thing, and you and I have talked about this before. Why is it so important to you?
02:30: Tom Perkins: Well, I like projects. And as I have grown older and accomplished a few things, the projects have gotten bigger. And I like racing boats, restoring them. The whole thing. And building this boat was kind of the ultimate project. It took six years and a lot of --
02:50: Charlie Rose: It's 100 and what?
02:52: Tom Perkins: I wouldn't tell Leslie, so I'm not going to tell you, Charlie. It cost a lot of money.
02:58: Charlie Rose: About 150 million, somewhere, give or take. Right? And worth every cent of it for you?
03:05: Tom Perkins: Oh, more.
03:07: Charlie Rose: More? Because it brings you so much pleasure?
03:10: Tom Perkins: It's pleasure -- it's not a frivolous use of money. I mean, the value is there.
03:16: Charlie Rose: How many days out of a year do you spend on the boat?
03:20: Tom Perkins: Well, surprisingly, not as much as I thought I would last year, because of the book and other things. But this coming year I think I'll do better. I'm taking the boat through Panama, and --
03:29: Charlie Rose: Through the canal?
03:32: Tom Perkins: Through the canal. Yes. Not around Cape Horn.
03:38: Charlie Rose: What's amazing about it -- and then we're going to leave the boat -- what's amazing about it is the sails.
03:43: Tom Perkins: Yes.
03:45: Charlie Rose: Both in terms of -- take a look at this. This is -- you can see we have video, but this is -- this is -- tell me about them.
03:50: Tom Perkins: Well, it's a square -- It's a square rigger, just like 150 years ago. Well, not just like, but there's the family resemblance. I think a sailor from that era would understand this boat immediately. But it's highly automated, and instead of trimming the yards the way they used to, we rotate the whole mast.
04:11: Charlie Rose: And the sails come out.
04:13: Tom Perkins: The sails come out automatically.
04:16: Charlie Rose: And they're made of what?
04:18: Tom Perkins: They're made of dacron. It's the only low-tech thing on the boat. They're not a high-tech fiber.
04:23: Charlie Rose: Now, why not?
04:25: Tom Perkins: Because they don't need to be. They've very lightly loaded. It's not like pulling on the corner of a giant sail and putting all that force on it. So they're low-tech. And they are designed to actually to blow out -- if God forbid everything went wrong, you got hit by an unexpected blast in the wrong direction, they'd blow out, just the way they used to in the old days.
04:45: Charlie Rose: Do you have fast cars?
04:48: Tom Perkins: Yes.
04:51: Charlie Rose: What do you have? I'm just trying to get at a man and his toys for a few minutes.
04:56: Tom Perkins: I used to have a collection of classic cars, but I sold it some years ago. And --
05:04: Charlie Rose: Go ahead. Your current --?
05:07: Tom Perkins: Well, my current car is a Porsche.
05:09: Charlie Rose: And how fast do you drive this --?
05:11: Tom Perkins: I don't drive that fast. I like to drive on curvy roads and scenic roads.
05:16: Charlie Rose: There are plenty of those up where you live.
05:19: Tom Perkins: There are plenty, yes.
05:21: Charlie Rose: Looking back, back from where you are now. All the toys you ever wanted. You know everybody you want to know. You sit on the boards of companies you want to sit on. These are media companies.
05:33: Tom Perkins: Yes.
05:35: Charlie Rose: But the money has come from technology. I mean, you are a Silicon Valley company.
05:39: Tom Perkins: Yes.
05:40: Charlie Rose: Not a media investment company, even though --
05:43: Tom Perkins: No, that's right. No, that's correct. Well, I think the reason Murdoch wanted me to be on his board is because of the Silicon Valley and the high-tech aspect of it. Because there's a lot of News Corp sort of go down a layer that is very high-tech. I mean, the encryption of the broadcast, for example, from the satellites, and all that sort of thing. There's a lot of technology in that. There's a lot of software. And News Corp has been making acquisitions in the software area. So --
06:14: Charlie Rose: You mean MySpace, which is not software, but --
06:16: Tom Perkins: It's in that direction.
06:19: Charlie Rose: It's fueled by software.
06:21: Tom Perkins: Yes, and it's run by fail-safe computers. And there's some technology there.
06:25: Charlie Rose: So much to talk about. Let me go -- "The Education of Tom Perkins." Why did you sit down and decide to write this? You wrote this novel, almost, like, to see if you could do it and because your wife --
06:36: Tom Perkins: My wife.
06:38: Charlie Rose: -- once upon a time was a very good novelist --
06:40: Tom Perkins: Competition, competition.
06:42: Charlie Rose: -- writer --
06:44: Tom Perkins: Yes, she's Danielle Steel.
06:45: Charlie Rose: And you wanted to show her --
06:47: Tom Perkins: Yes.
06:49: Charlie Rose: -- that you could do it.
06:51: Tom Perkins: Well, I did do it, and of course, mine sold that much, and hers always sell at least 100 times more, but still, I did it.
06:57: Charlie Rose: She was pleased that you showed you could do it, right? That you could get it published?
07:03: Tom Perkins: Yes, she was pleased.
07:04: Charlie Rose: Did she help you?
07:06: Tom Perkins: She gave me some very good editing device, which I followed. Yes, she did help me.
07:09: Charlie Rose: She knows how to tell a story and how to make you turn the page.
07:13: Tom Perkins: Absolutely. She does. She does.
07:17: Charlie Rose: How do you explain this relationship between the two of you?
07:20: Tom Perkins: Well, we love each other. We just can't live together.
07:23: Charlie Rose: What's the problem?
07:25: Tom Perkins: I think it's -- it would be easier to merge General Motors and General Electric. You know, we lead big, complicated lives. There are lots of children --
07:32: Charlie Rose: You know what it sounds like to me? You're one of these couples that can't live without each other and can't live with each other.
07:36: Tom Perkins: That's us.
07:38: Charlie Rose: That's basically it.
07:39: Tom Perkins: Yes, right.
07:40: Charlie Rose: You can never forget her. She's inseparable.
07:43: Tom Perkins: Right.
07:45: Charlie Rose: And you're there at all the right times --
07:46: Tom Perkins: Yes.
07:48: Charlie Rose: -- but you both would be smothered if you were there all the time.
07:51: Tom Perkins: Afraid so.
07:52: Charlie Rose: But writing a memoir is different from writing a novel and telling somebody else's story.
07:55: Tom Perkins: Yes, right.
07:57: Charlie Rose: No matter how much of your life is in the story.
08:00: Tom Perkins: Well, I knew the plot.
08:02: Charlie Rose: Yes, but was it easy? I mean, you're a pretty straightforward guy. Was it easy to do this? Or did it cause you -- did you find yourself thinking about your parents and crying? Did you find yourself thinking about times far ago that were very hard?
08:17: Tom Perkins: Yes, because I think for it to be interesting to anybody that wants to read it, you have got to talk about those things. And I have tried to be very candid and open. I've talked about problems in my life. Exciting things.
08:30: Charlie Rose: Like --?
08:33: Tom Perkins: Well, oh, gosh, like being tried for manslaughter in a French court --
08:36: Charlie Rose: Because of a boating accident.
08:38: Tom Perkins: Yes, yes. I mean, for example. I talked about the Hewlett-Packard thing, which was a business problem.
08:44: Charlie Rose: Now, what happened on the being tried for manslaughter deal?
08:47: Tom Perkins: I was found guilty. Everybody was found guilty.
08:50: Charlie Rose: And?
08:52: Tom Perkins: Well, I paid a fine. Fortunately didn't have to go to jail. All parties were found guilty. So it was sort of preordained. They didn't want to hear my evidence -- I wasn't able to present evidence. Very different in a French court. You do not have the right to present anything. The judge doesn't want to hear from you, you're not heard.
09:15: Charlie Rose: Is there at this stage -- we've all watched what Silicon Valley has meant and technology has meant to the economy, and then we saw and experience implosion, 2001. Then we now see some people worrying that we may be building up to another implosion. You have sat on the boards of companies out there, like Hewlett-Packard, which we'll talk about, H-P. Where do you see the circumstance today?
09:41: Tom Perkins: Well, you know, I guess if I knew exactly, I wouldn't need to know anything else. But --
09:49: Charlie Rose: But you have bet rightly before.
09:52: Tom Perkins: There is the potential for the inflation of bubbles here, because there's so much venture capital available. Nobody knows exactly, but it's somewhere between $20 and $40 billion ready to be invested in venture capital. That's a huge amount of money. So the question is, can that amount of money be multiplied by 100 -- which is every venture capitalist's goal.
10:15: Charlie Rose: Invest a dollar and make $100?
10:17: Tom Perkins: Yes. I think the answer is no, it's too much money. It can't be done. But that doesn't mean that some won't do very well. And I think -- so venture capital is OK. It will continue. Good investments will be made. But all this money does inflate prices. And --
10:40: Charlie Rose: Google is now over $600.
10:43: Tom Perkins: It came out at $85, and everybody thought oh, my God, that's crazy. Almost (inaudible), not quite. So you know, I don't know how far it's going to go. I hope it slows down in a sort of a controlled way and doesn't just pop. I don't get the feeling that it's about to pop, however.
11:05: Charlie Rose: The interesting thing -- and you can speak to this much better than I can -- it is -- nothing ever changed about the technology. Nothing ever changed about the Internet. Nothing ever changed about what people -- the potential of the Internet. And --
11:18: Tom Perkins: It came true.
11:20: Charlie Rose: It came true.
11:22: Tom Perkins: It came true.
11:24: Charlie Rose: The problem was money chasing no earnings.
11:26: Tom Perkins: Well, I think it was about 10 years ago when my partner John Doerr said that it's possible the Internet hasn't been sufficiently hyped. And he was right. And even though everybody thought it was crazy back then. So, yes, it's -- I mean, this information revolution is going to continue.
11:44: Charlie Rose: Yes, but your firm -- and it's not because I know a bit about it, but everybody knows about this -- is looking at the green revolution as a place.
11:52: Tom Perkins: Yes.
11:54: Charlie Rose: Tell me about that, and then I want to talk about biologic.
11:57: Tom Perkins: It makes sense. Of course. It's a global problem. There's a great deal of attention on it, a lot of intellectual power is going into it at both the universities and at private corporations. So it's beginning to brew the way these kinds of things need to do to have a good future. It's good. So, sure. We're very interested in it.
12:28: Charlie Rose: But you think it's a huge market.
12:30: Tom Perkins: I think it's a huge potential market, yes.
12:32: Charlie Rose: As big as biotech?
12:35: Tom Perkins: Well --
12:37: Charlie Rose: Or it's a combination.
12:39: Tom Perkins: I'm going to pull a John Doerr and say it's very possible that biotech hasn't been sufficiently hyped. I'm a great believer in --
12:45: Charlie Rose: But you were early there.
12:47: Tom Perkins: -- in a huge future of biotech.
12:48: Charlie Rose: I mean, you were early there, earlier than almost anybody.
12:53: Tom Perkins: Early there. It's already a big deal, but I still think we're on the ground floor. I really do. I mean, after all, if you look at --
13:02: Charlie Rose: Explain what the ground floor is like and what the potential is, as you see it.
13:06: Tom Perkins: Well, the ground floor, I mean, Genentech really was the ground floor. You know, I kidded the -- you know, it wasn't clear that God would let us -- much less Darwin -- let us make a new form of life that would do something we wanted done. In our case, it was to trick a bacteria into making human insulin. It was a neat trick, and it worked. So that was a breakthrough. But if you think about -- most things that are going on in biotechnology are still extracting genes from nature, reproducing them, or dealing with small molecules that will attack specific diseases, maybe made with biotech. But we haven't gotten around to making genes that should be made or things that don't exist in nature.
13:50: Charlie Rose: Like?
13:53: Tom Perkins: That's -- like -- use your imagination, Charlie. I mean, just think about it. Think about what is possible. It's, I think, unlimited. So, yes, I'm still excited.
14:04: Charlie Rose: Getting little bugs to do all kinds of things for us.
14:08: Tom Perkins: Yes.
14:10: Charlie Rose: Clean up the atmosphere.
14:12: Tom Perkins: All kinds of things.
14:14: Charlie Rose: So your optimism for that potential --
14:16: Tom Perkins: It continues unabated. Yes.
14:19: Charlie Rose: Does the credit crisis have any impact on venture capital?
14:23: Tom Perkins: No, no.
14:26: Charlie Rose: All that money floating out there, and the fact that people at these big investment banks here in New York got in trouble, Merrill Lynch, Citigroup --
14:35: Tom Perkins: Wall Street always gets in trouble. You go to Google -- another one of my favorite companies -- and type in "Wall Street scandal," you'll get about 2.5 million hits. Do the same thing "venture capital scandal," maybe get 100,000 or so. I mean, there isn't a venture capital scandal. I think Kleiner and I --
14:56: Charlie Rose: This would be Gene Kleiner.
14:58: Tom Perkins: Gene Kleiner, my original partner.
15:01: Charlie Rose: The late Gene Kleiner.
15:05: Tom Perkins: The late Gene Kleiner. I think when we set out, there really wasn't a venture capital industry, and we tried to do it in a way that would be very fair to the investors and very fair to the entrepreneurs, and we probably left too much money on the table. I mean, if we had been a hedge fund or leveraged buyout company, we would have paid ourselves much better, but we did all right.
15:29: Charlie Rose: Yes, I would say.
15:32: Tom Perkins: And so -- and we were successful early on. And it just sort of evolved that if you were going to be in venture capital, you kind of had to compete with us. Well, how do they do it? Well, I guess we have to do it that way, too. And to the best of my knowledge, there's never been a major litigation in the venture capital world. I'm not talking about companies that have gone public and had troubles with others --
15:55: Charlie Rose: Is it still --
15:57: Tom Perkins: -- but it's still a very straightforward, simple, clean, non-Wall Street-type business. So anyway, to answer your question, this huge flopping around in the credit markets and so forth really is independent of venture capital.
16:13: Charlie Rose: The returns on venture capital are as good as ever.
16:19: Tom Perkins: I think individually, yes, but collectively, I don't see how they can.
16:24: Charlie Rose: They can't be, can they?
16:25: Tom Perkins: No. But that's probably always --
16:28: Charlie Rose: Exactly.
16:30: Tom Perkins: Yes.
16:32: Charlie Rose: I mean, those --
16:33: Tom Perkins: Even when there wasn't much money.
16:35: Charlie Rose: Those that are doing well are doing as well as they ever have. Those that were Johnny-come-lately are the first to go down.
16:41: Tom Perkins: Yes.
16:43: Charlie Rose: Or to do badly when times get tough. You still get to see the best deals, don't you? I mean, that's part of being as good as your firm is, and other firms, too.
16:53: Tom Perkins: I think, yes, and the reason is we have a sales force, and our sales force is the 500 companies -- I think it's 525 -- that we've financed over the years, over 35 years. And that's our sales department. So those guys, or women out there see things, bring them to us. So that's sort of our deal flow. And, you know, that continues.
17:14: Charlie Rose: You have an office now in China.
17:16: Tom Perkins: Yes.
17:18: Charlie Rose: Tell me what you think the future is for China in your area.
17:25: Tom Perkins: Well, I have always had very good feelings about China. I don't view China as a threat to America. I think, as lots of people have said, we're very similar in many ways. I think there's a good long-term future between these two wonderful countries. And we're moving slowly, cautiously with Chinese, with some adult supervision from Menlo Park. Moving --
17:53: Charlie Rose: There's more opportunity in China than Silicon Valley?
17:57: Tom Perkins: I don't know. But I think, you know, we'll find out, and I think we can do both. Silicon Valley is still great, of course. But, yes, we're intrigued by that. And we're intrigued in the possibilities that might come from a pandemic and the threat --
18:11: Charlie Rose: That's another area you're looking at.
18:13: Tom Perkins: The threat of that -- you know, that's sort of another era -- area of biotech. And we're intrigued by that.
18:24: Charlie Rose: How do you prepare for the possibilities of a pandemic in terms of meeting it when it comes? Or preventing it from coming?
18:33: Tom Perkins: Well, both. Hopefully it doesn't come. But we've already seen --
18:40: Charlie Rose: Most people think it's just a question of time, as you know.
18:47: Tom Perkins: Yes, and, unfortunately, we've already seen the example of a virus crossing from one species into another, you know, HIV/AIDS. It was essentially from monkeys. And it could happen with avian flu. Obviously, we hope not, but we should be ready. And hopefully, we will be.
19:11: Charlie Rose: This book says "The Education" -- "Valley Boy: The Education of Tom Perkins" -- what are the lessons that Tom Perkins has lived in this good life that he's had?
19:20: Tom Perkins: Well, of course I lifted that from the "The Education of Henry Adams."
19:24: Charlie Rose: Yes. But you chose it, and then you have to defend it.
19:29: Tom Perkins: I have to defend it. And Adams really talked about everything, and I do here, too. I talk about very personal things.
19:37: Charlie Rose: The things we've been talking about.
19:38: Tom Perkins: And the lessons. And the lessons. And --
19:44: Charlie Rose: Well, what are the lessons? That's what I want to know.
19:48: Tom Perkins: Probably settling a few scores, to be honest.
19:49: Charlie Rose: What score did you settle?
19:51: Tom Perkins: Well, I felt obliged to write about the Hewlett-Packard thing.
19:54: Charlie Rose: OK. Is that the biggest controversy and crisis that you faced in terms of -- beyond the personal and the manslaughter charge?
20:01: Tom Perkins: No, no, I don't think so.
20:03: Charlie Rose: Because here's what's interesting about you. You had a longtime history. You were there pretty much soon after -- brought in by David Packard --
20:12: Tom Perkins: Yes.
20:14: Charlie Rose: -- and Bill Hewlett to work for them. And this was the Silicon Valley in every way.
20:18: Tom Perkins: Absolutely.
20:19: Charlie Rose: The most admired, the most generous --
20:21: Tom Perkins: The icon.
20:22: Charlie Rose: The icon. You wanted to be like them.
20:27: Tom Perkins: Absolutely, and I learned everything I ever learned from them.
20:33: Ok: They are -- they were the ultimate entrepreneurs. And they were the ultimate venture capitalists, which is maybe a little strange because they were doing it within this corporation. But they would constantly push into new markets with new ideas. The ideas came from them. They would get the risk out of it, put the money in, bring in the team, manage it, and then go on to the next one. That's what we do in venture capital. And Dave Packard was my mentor, a kind of a father figure, became a lifelong friend, and the most wonderful person. And one of the reasons I wanted to write the book was to talk a little bit about Dave Packard and Bill Hewlett, what kind of people they were. And I do that. And it's a bit irreverent. I mean, they were marvelous, but they weren't perfect. So there's some of that in there.
21:25: Charlie Rose: When do you think they would have been turning over in their grave?
21:30: Tom Perkins: Well, I think the -- I think the spying scandal was so --
21:35: Charlie Rose: Which you were right in the center of.
21:37: Tom Perkins: Right in the middle of, unfortunately.
21:39: Charlie Rose: In fact, you sort of ignited the fuse.
21:42: Tom Perkins: Yes. I didn't intend to, but, yes, that's what happened. I -- it caught me completely unawares. I was in charge of the governance committee of the board. I should have known about what was going on. I didn't. No one -- it was kept from the directors. Because the spying was on the directors. So --
22:06: Charlie Rose: Including?
22:07: Tom Perkins: Well, of course, including me. Yes. So when I --
22:14: Charlie Rose: Trying to find out who was leaking to the press.
22:17: Tom Perkins: Yes. And leaking to the press is a problem. It's not good. You know, when a company is in trouble, these leaks happen.
22:25: Charlie Rose: When there's intrigue in the board room, somebody will tell.
22:29: Tom Perkins: It's --
22:31: Charlie Rose: To get their story out.
22:33: Tom Perkins: I don't approve of it, it's not right, I don't do it, but it happens.
22:38: Charlie Rose: But the story that happened in this case wasn't all that important, was it?
22:43: Tom Perkins: That's the crazy thing. So there were serious leaks at the time of Carly's departure.
22:48: Charlie Rose: Carly Fiorina.
22:50: Tom Perkins: They upset her -- Carly Fiorina -- they upset her, as they should have. But then nothing leaked, to use that word, for about a year and a half, when there was a very innocuous luncheon between a director and a reporter. Nothing was revealed, nothing confidential revealed. Nobody else picked it up. Unfortunately, the man's name was not included in the article, so the company hyped up their investigation and did some things which they shouldn't have done. And when I found out about it, I was very upset.
23:32: Charlie Rose: And stormed out of a board meeting.
23:36: Tom Perkins: Well, yes, but it wasn't just that. It was -- I had known that Patricia Dunn was -- was worried about leaks. I thought she was just talking to the directors one on one, trying to find out. If she found out, she would get a promise not to do it again, and we'd move on. And I told her, you know, I really don't want to know who it is. I like all these people. I don't want to -- I don't want to know. She said, well, you know, you have to know. I said, well, all right, then you and I will deal with it, and we'll get an admission and a promise not to do it again, and we'll move on. That isn't what happened. Instead, on the day -- she went around me and threw it under the boardroom table. And the next thing I knew, we were holding a trial for this very important director. He has a Ph.D. in physics, he was deeply involved in the technology of the company, did important things, which are still bearing fruit. So I was shocked that we -- and he apologized. He said, well, why didn't you ask me? I would have told you. I'm sorry. I thought it was OK. You know, the company had asked him to speak to the press many times in the past. Anyway, instead of moving on with it, the next thing I knew we were in this trial. Motions were made for his resignation. A secret vote is taken, which are unheard of in business. You don't do secret ballots. And the board asked for his resignation. And it was just too much for me. I just thought, no, can't be a part of this.
25:13: Charlie Rose: Do you regret any part of this?
25:15: Tom Perkins: I miss H-P. I enjoyed being on the board. I enjoyed contributing.
25:22: Charlie Rose: Partly it was that relationship, and you have said in this book that David Packard was like a father for you, a father you never had.
25:27: Tom Perkins: Yes. He was. I think that's true.
25:32: Charlie Rose: There are two things that run through this part. You know, thinking about all these things that we admire, toys that look like they are a lot of fun, it is that you have never forgotten how poor you were, and you've never forgotten --
25:45: Tom Perkins: Dave Packard.
25:46: Charlie Rose: Dave Packard.
25:48: Tom Perkins: That's right. Well --
25:50: Charlie Rose: Dave Packard was a man who gave a lot of money to charity, too.
25:55: Tom Perkins: Yes. Well, I do, too, Charlie. It's not only toys.
25:59: Charlie Rose: The Packard Foundation is --
26:01: Tom Perkins: The Packard Foundation is fantastic. And, you know.
26:05: Charlie Rose: But the Hewlett-Packard thing, you wish you were back on the board?
26:08: Tom Perkins: I do, the trouble is -- -- I'd do the same thing again. That's the problem. I just felt it was a mixture of behavior and ethics that I just couldn't be part of.
26:23: Charlie Rose: So, looking at where you are now, is there anything that you very much want -- I don't talk about material possessions -- very much want, lust for, obsessed by, that you don't have? I mean --
26:34: Tom Perkins: Wisdom, Charlie.
26:38: Charlie Rose: Wisdom. Wisdom to make the right decisions? Wisdom to -- I mean, you don't need more money.
26:43: Tom Perkins: No. No.
26:47: Charlie Rose: You don't need to pick one more great venture, like Google, which a lot of your colleagues, John Doerr included, played a huge role.
26:54: Tom Perkins: Yes, of course.
26:56: Charlie Rose: You don't need that.
26:58: Tom Perkins: No. No.
27:02: Charlie Rose: I'm not even sure -- I'm talking about need. I'm maybe just talking about desire.
27:07: Tom Perkins: Desire. I think -- I think I'm finally getting there in terms -- maybe -- of the wisdom thing. I tried to impart a little bit of that --
27:17: Charlie Rose: Who I am and -- -- the way I am and what --
27:22: Tom Perkins: What it means.
27:24: Charlie Rose: What has driven me.
27:25: Tom Perkins: Right. Yes.
27:30: Charlie Rose: So what did Danielle Steel say about this book? Nothing I didn't already know, first?
27:35: Tom Perkins: Well, she read the book. And she read the chapter about herself.
27:38: Charlie Rose: Right. And she said what?
27:41: Tom Perkins: Well, she liked it. Liked it very much.
27:44: Charlie Rose: Because you like her very much.
27:45: Tom Perkins: Yes. And then she asked me to rewrite it. And I did, and then I rewrote it again. But anyway, we got it through.
27:53: Charlie Rose: That's all you need to say about the relationship, isn't it?
27:56: Tom Perkins: It's a great (inaudible).
27:57: Charlie Rose: All right. The book is "The Education of Tom Perkins: Valley Boy." It is the story of somebody who has been there. This American economy in the last 25 years has been fueled by technology. A lot of great companies have been part of that. Microsoft, which you had nothing to do with. Sun Microsystems, which they had some to do with, and Google which they had a lot to do with. And many more, including Amazon. Silicon Valley has made a huge contribution to America, and Tom Perkins is one of the people out there who has led the charge. I thank you for coming.
28:29: Tom Perkins: Thank you, Charlie.
28:31: Charlie Rose: Thank you for joining us.