He’s a private-equity-firm investor turned tequila entrepreneur who happens to have the priciest home on the market in Sonoma—a 362-acre spread that features a stunning 11,600-square-foot, Tuscan-style villa on a hilltop. He bought the completely undeveloped property in 1990 for a little more than $3 million, and transformed it into a lavish estate that boasts …

He was one of the first investors in Twitter. He also had a pretty nice role at Google as head of special initiatives, where he oversaw projects like creating citywide WiFi access in Mountain View, California. He left Google to launch his venture capital firm, and based on his first bet in Twitter, he has …

One of Silicon Valley’s pioneers, Perkins’ venture capital firm, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, was an early backer of Genentech, Netscape, and Google. He is now, or has been, a director of the following firms: Acuson, Applied Materials, Compaq, CorningWorks, Genentech, Hewlett Packard, Hybritech, LSI Logic, News Corporation, Philips Electronics NV, Spectra-Physics, Symantec, and Tandem …

Another mogul with a passion and a talent for the art of the deal, Kim has built a career and reputation in private equity investing. Rustic Canyon Partners is where he built fame and fortune before forming Cendana Capital in December 2009. Kim was also President of the San Francisco Employee Retirement System, a $15 billion …

A six-year stint in the NBA put John Hummer in the spotlight at an early age. After retiring from the Seattle Supersonics in 1976, he did not shy away from the splendors of success. In 1989, he partnered with Ann Winblad to start up Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, which invests solely in software companies.