Thomas Perkins has lead an interesting life, to say the least: He was knighted by the king of Norway, was married to romance novelist Danielle Steel, owns an “Adventure” yacht named “Dr. No,” and was convicted of inventory manslaughter following a boat-racing accident. He’s also a founding partner of powerhouse venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and has sat on boards of both Hewlett-Packard and NewsCorp. He is fabulously wealthy, and – as evidenced by a short oped published in today’s Wall Street Journal – deeply troubled by the rising persecution faced by those in his lofty tax bracket. So troubled, in fact, that the only comparison he can think of is the motherfucking Holocaust against Jews. Yes, really.
In his charmingly titled “Progressive Kirstallnacht Coming?” Perkins writes:
Writing from the epicenter of progressive thought, San Francisco, I would call attention to the parallels of fascist Nazi Germany to its war on its “one percent,” namely its Jews, to the progressive war on the American one percent, namely the “rich.”
Perkins is shocked – shocked – that there’s some sort of resentment over gross wealth inequality, and also, apparently, that people aren’t being very nice to his ex-wife:
We have, for example, libelous and cruel attacks in the [San Francisco] Chronicle on our number-one celebrity, the author Danielle Steel, alleging that she is a “snob” despite the millions she has spent on our city’s homeless and mentally ill over the past decades.
That he thinks Danielle Steel is SF’s #1 celebrity should give you a pretty good sense of what planet this guy is on.
Perkins closes with this doozy:
Kristallnacht was unthinkable in 1930; is its descendent “progressive” radicalism unthinkable now?
In other words: “If you’re not nice to rich people, you’re probably a Nazi!”
The whole oped is short (less than 200 words) and is worth reading, if only marvel at its truly remarkable tone-deafness. And, should you happen to find yourself inspired by Perkins’ words, you can pick up his other published work – a romance novel entitled “Sex and the Single Zillionaire” – on Amazon.com
*****UPDATE*****
VC Fund KPCB has responded to the batshit ramblings of one-fourth of their namesake, and from the looks of it they are not fucking around. If Thomas Perkins is reading this tweet, it’s presumably from under the bus
Tom Perkins has not been involved in KPCB in years. We were shocked by his views expressed today in the WSJ and do not agree.
— Kleiner Perkins (@kpcb) January 25, 2014
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