Moritz On The Throne

The latest Forbes Midas List is out, with Sequoia Capital’s Mike Moritz again taking the top spot. These rankings are always great conversation starters, but also should be taken with a giant grain of salt (kind of like the majority of conversations).

Why? Because Forbesfocuses on exit value — acquisition price or stock price after first day of trading — without giving consideration to how muchcapital was initially invested or at what valuation. In other words, Vonage doesn’t look so bad in the Forbes vortex, because its high IPO value is not mitigated by the venture dollars burned pre-IPO.

Also, Forbes does not quantify how involved the VC was with his/her portfolio companies or even how active the investor is in todays market. For example, you could theoretically make the list even if your last deal was made in 2003.

But, as I said, it’s good fun to read. Here are the Top 10:

1. Michael Moritz, Sequoia Capital
2. John Doerr, Kleiner Perkins
3. Andreas von Bechtolsheim, Sun Microsystems
4. Ram Shiram, Sherpalo Ventures
5. David Cheriton, Stanford Univeristy
6. Ronald Conway, Angel Investors
7. Michael Grimes, Morgan Stanley
8. Lawrence Sonsini, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati
9. Jay Hoag, Technology Crossover Ventures
10. Thomas Ng, Granite Global Ventures