In Memoriam: Remembering John Walter Glynn, Jr., Founder of Glynn Capital
John Walter Glynn, Jr.
John Walter Glynn, Jr., a longtime Silicon Valley venture capitalist, philanthropist, and business school lecturer from Atherton, California, and Charlottesville, Virginia, died on July 26, 2023, at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. He had been vacationing with his family in Nantucket. He was 82.
John co-founded Lamoreaux, Glynn & Associates in 1974 and established his own firm, Glynn Capital Management, in 1983. With offices in Menlo Park and San Francisco, Glynn Capital manages $1.6 billion of investments in public and private technology companies and employs 26 people. Managing Partner David Glynn will continue to lead the firm.
From humble beginnings, John was born on August 23, 1940, son of Dorothy Ann and John Walter Glynn. He grew up in Kansas and Virginia. He graduated from Hampton High School in 1958, the University of Notre Dame in 1962, the University of Virginia School of Law in 1965, and the Stanford Graduate School of Business in 1970. John received an honorary doctorate from Trinity Washington University in Washington, D.C., in October 2022.
John met his wife, Barbara, when he was a third-year law student at the University of Virginia, and she was beginning her studies at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in September 1964. They became engaged under the magnolia tree of the Rotunda in May and were married on September 4, 1965, in Front Royal, Virginia.
After graduating from law school, moving to San Francisco, and working at a law firm for several years, John became convinced that his interests – and the more exciting opportunity – lay in the rapid growth of the technology industry in the Bay Area. He made the decision to undertake a career change and attend business school at Stanford University. In 1970, he went to work in venture capital for Reid Dennis at the American Express Company, making his first major investment in Intel. From the beginning, John looked for founders whose companies would create markets, mixing art into the science of investing.
John Glynn evangelized listening as the best way to evaluate management teams and build a mutually beneficial relationship. In a 2023 interview, he said, “Listening is the best way to build a bond of trust, and that's what makes it work. That's what gives you a chance to get to know the management better. They trust you, they respect you, and they think you can do something for them in the way of your advice.”
Beyond good listening, John described what he looked for in CEOs, words that were equally applicable to his own approach in building Glynn Capital: “Making money is a byproduct of executing well on a consistent basis. I would say one of the things you look for on the front end is: Would you like to work for this person? Can they delegate? How do they treat their people? How important are people to them? You know, is this a one-man show? Or is this somebody that realizes they have limitations and need to build a team to back them up and execute on the key issues?”
In his mentorship of company founders and the venture community, he offered his 12 guidelines for entrepreneurs (listed below), which included focusing on inputs rather than outputs, building a “cash moat” in lean times, and understanding that failure and invention are inseparable twins.
In 1987, John began a parallel pursuit that brought him great meaning and joy: teaching courses on venture capital and entrepreneurship each year at the Darden Graduate School of Business at the University of Virginia, the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and the Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge. He revitalized his case-structured courses as technology advanced, inviting relevant speakers from various industries. Each class started with a handwritten chalkboard quote, a "life lesson" focused on ethics and the important aspects of life beyond work. He maintained a genuine interest in his students, their backgrounds, and their ambitions, staying connected with hundreds as they became successful entrepreneurs and investors in their own right. Former student Meghan Lyons Mahoney wrote, “He changed my entire Darden experience in the greatest way, but, even more importantly, I found a lifetime friend in him.”
John served in many roles at the University of Notre Dame, including the Board of Trustees. Among the Glynn family’s most enduring legacies at Notre Dame remains the establishment of the Glynn Family Honors Program in 2006, a joint honors program in the College of Arts and Letters and the College of Science. Each year, 100 of the University’s most promising students are admitted to the program and receive support for a wide array of opportunities, including summer fellowships to pursue original research projects at Notre Dame or other universities around the world. In the past five years, the program has produced two Rhodes Scholars, two Truman Scholars, a Marshall Scholar, and a Churchill Scholar, among others. John rooted “with intensity” for the Irish every fall. “John was a brilliant businessman, passionate educator, and devoted alumnus,” Notre Dame’s president, Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., said.
John served the University of Virginia School of Law and the Darden School Foundation as a trustee and member of the investment committees of each institution. He ensured that law graduates were well versed in the intricacies of business practices, eventually inspiring and endowing the Law School’s John W. Glynn Jr. Law & Business Program in 2003. “John had a vision of a new way of teaching business law that would integrate financial, accounting, strategic and legal analysis within the foundational business law curriculum,” Professor Paul Mahoney said. According to the university, nearly 90% of J.D. graduates since the spring of 2020 have taken at least one class in the “Business and Finance” concentration.
In 2022, John Glynn shared 12 “Key Thoughts for Entrepreneurs”:
1. Build high standards into company culture.
2. Move fast and focus on outcomes.
3. Don’t deliberate on easily reversible decisions.
4. Bet on ideas that have unlimited upside.
5. Failure and invention are inseparable twins.
6. Decentralize decision-making to generate innovation.
7. Surprise and delight your customers to build long-term trust.
8. Focus on the inputs. The outputs will take care of themselves.
9. Don’t get fixated on short-term numbers.
10. Measure your company by your free cash flow.
11. In lean times, build a cash moat.
12. Long-term thinking is rooted in ownership.
Above all, John cherished his wife, family, friends, parents, and sister, and they remained the focus of his life amid remarkable achievements. He found joy in simple drives around Charlottesville or Vermont's small towns. He loved day trips to Marin, Napa, or Carmel, and he rarely missed a Saturday morning round of golf with friends.
John was a passionate collector of clocks, oriental rugs, photography, and English shotguns. He loved to read, travel, and negotiate. His annual vacations took him across the globe - from Switzerland to Italy, Nantucket to Hong Kong. Skiing became a family tradition. He would shout to his wife, “Let it all hang out, Bob!” as he roared by on the slopes.
He treasured his time sitting on the deck at Black Butte Ranch in Central Oregon, where he spent weeks each summer beginning in 1972, admiring the view of the Sisters and Broken Top mountains. He delighted in his float trips down the Deschutes and McKenzie Rivers, drinking pure spring water from Paulina Springs, and watching his children and grandchildren jump across the spring rocks.
John is survived by his beloved wife of 57 years, Barbara Glynn; his daughters, Jacqueline Glynn Brandin, Alexandra Glynn Rowe and son-in-law David, and Elizabeth Glynn Clarke and son-in-law John; his son, David Glynn and daughter-in-law, Massimilliana Glynn; his grandchildren, Katherine Brandin, Margaret Brandin, Emily Rowe, Elizabeth Rowe, Caroline Rowe, J.W. Glynn, III, Francesca Glynn, Alessandra Glynn, and Isabel Clarke; his sister and brother-in-law, Linda and David Hutchinson; his nieces, Shannon Crockett and Morgan Gosey, and nephew, David Hutchinson; Retrievers, Maddie and Charlie. The family offers its deep and abiding gratitude for the support of John’s colleagues at Glynn Capital.
A celebration of John’s life will take place on Friday, August 25, at 2pm at St. Ignatius Church, 650 Parker Ave in San Francisco, followed by a reception at the San Francisco Golf Club. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that memorial contributions be made to a charity of your choice.
Photo credit: Denise Forster, Director, Foundation Communications, University of Virginia Law School Foundation. forster@law.virginia.edu