Don Valentine — early venture giant of Silicon Valley

Don Valentine, a venture capitalist who founded Sequoia Capital, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm that helped cement the area’s rise as a technology hub, died Friday at his home in Woodside. He was 87.

Valentine died of natural causes, a spokeswoman for Sequoia said.

Valentine’s career spanned four decades and included roles at chip maker Fairchild Semiconductor, regarded as Silicon Valley’s original startup, and National Semiconductor, which was spun out of Fairchild. In 1959, when he joined a silicon company,

“the word ‘Silicon Valley’ hadn’t been created yet,” he said in an interview at a technology conference in 2013.

In 1972, Valentine established Sequoia, and it soon became one of Silicon Valley’s most successful and enduring firms. Sequoia backed companies including Oracle, Microchip Technology, Linear Technology and Network Appliance. Several tech giants, including Electronic Arts and Sierra Semiconductor, were created in Sequoia’s offices.

Valentine invested in Atari in 1975, and three years later, he wrote a $150,000 check for Apple

Computer. He also invested in Cisco Systems and was the networking equipment company’s chairman for three decades.

John Chambers, who was chief executive of Cisco for 20 years, said in an interview that Valentine had been “a very strong, very forceful leader” who “set high expectations and expected you to meet them.”

Valentine was critical to the success of Cisco’s management changes, Chambers said. Unlike many other venture capital investors at the time, he played an active role in the companies he backed, Chambers said.

Venture capital is often called a “people business,” and many top firms have stumbled as they have tried to pass the reins from one generation to another. But Sequoia survived that transition when Valentine handed control to