Michael Jonathan Moritz KBE is a Welsh venture billionaire, philanthropist, author and former journalist.
Moritz works at Sequoia Capital and wrote the first story of Apple Inc., The Little Kingdom and Going for Broke: Lee Iacocca Battle to Save Chrysler .
Moritz was previously a staff correspondent for Time magazine and a member of Google 's board of directors .
He studied at Oxford University and the Wharton School of Pennsylvania University and founded Technologiclogic Partners before becoming a venture capitalist in the 1980s.
Moritz was named the # 1 venture capitalist on the Forbes Midas List in 2006 and 2007 .
Michael Jonathan Moritz was born into a Jewish family in Cardiff, Wales, on September 12, 1954.
His father, Ludwig Alfred Moritz , was a German Jew who fled Nazi Germany. His mother, Doris, also fled Nazi Germany. Moritz attended Howardian High School in Cardiff.
At first, Moritz worked as a journalist for many years. In the early 1980s, when he was a Time reporter, Steve Jobs hired him to document Mac development for a book he was writing about Apple. By the end of 1982, Moritz was Time's bureau chief in San Francisco and was working on a special issue of Time's "Man of the Year", which was originally supposed to be dedicated to Jobs.
The person of the Year according to TIME for 1982, who had the greatest impact on good or evil, is not a person at all. It's a machine: a computer." Jobs severed all ties with Moritz after the publication of the issue and threatened to fire anyone who communicated with him. According to Herzfeld, "some of us were secretly talking to Mike again when he was finishing work on his book around the time of the Mac presentation," and the resulting text, "Little Kingdom: A Personal History of Apple Computer," "remains one of the best books ever written about Apple Computer."
In 1986, Moritz joined Sequoia Capital after co-authoring the book "Ruin: The History of Chrysler" with Barrett Seaman, head of the Detroit bureau of Time.
After leaving Time, Moritz co-founded Technologic Partners, a newsletter and conference company.
His investments include Google, Yahoo! , Skyscanner , PayPal , Webvan , YouTube , eToys and Zappos.
He currently serves on the boards of directors of Client 24/7, Earth Networks, Gamefly, HealthCentral, Green Dot Corporation, Clarna , Kayak.com , LinkedIn , Stripe and PopSugar .
In July 2010, Moritz was awarded an honorary scholarship to Cardiff University, where his father Alfred was previously vice-director and professor of Classics.
In July 2014, he was awarded the title of Researcher at the University of Aberystwyth.
In November 2014, Moritz was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
Moritz was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2013 Birthday Honours for services to promoting British economic interests and charitable work.
He was a prominent supporter of President Barack Obama 's candidacy.
In May 2012, Moritz announced that he had been diagnosed with a rare incurable disease, and he would relinquish his day-to-day duties at Sequoia Capital, and would also be appointed chairman.
Moritz lives in San Francisco with his wife, American writer Harriet Heyman, and two children.
