he and his partners launched genentech in 1976 with nothing more than a checkbook and an idea. >> thea was to trick nature into letting us make something that didn't exist in nature -- in particular, human insulin. >> genentech's success led to new ways of treating everything from diabetes to dwarfism, and to getting rich. kleiner perkins' initial investment of $250,000 soared 800-fold to $200 million. >> that's what venture capitalists are created to do, and you can blame converting the orchards of silicon valley into parking lots partly on me and partly on genentech, because we proved that this kind of high-risk, high-tech venture capital could be an enormous home run, and everybody wanted to get in on it, including lots of entrepreneurs, and that's what got this whole silicon valley engine rolling, in my opinion. >> and it took somebody like perkins, with a background in science, to figure it out. he got an engineering degree from m.i.t. and an mba from harvard business school, and yet, he says, only two out of about every 10 of his projects resulted in a home run. when you think a