Thomas James Perkins was born Jan. 7, 1932, in Oak Park, Illinois, to Harry and Elizabeth Perkins, according to Marquis Who’s Who.

He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering and computer science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1953, and an MBA at Harvard Business School four years later.

Laser Company

While working his way up the ranks at Hewlett-Packard in San Francisco, Perkins spent nights and weekends in nearby Berkeley to develop a laser company, University Laboratories, during the 1960s. He later guided it into a merger with Mountain View, California-based Spectra-Physics and then served on its board, according to a 2006 MIT alumni association article.

Perkins was general manager of Hewlett-Packard’s computer division from 1965 to 1970, and oversaw the development of the minicomputers that would become the company’s core product. Ambitious and hard-driving, he was known to jump on desks when the phone rang, loudly counting out the rings to make sure someone answered it by the third one, according to Joe Schoendorf, later a venture capitalist at Accel Partners.

Perkins left Hewlett-Packard’s board in 2006, after charging Chairman Patricia Dunn with approving an investigation of alleged boardroom press leaks that included spying on reporters and executives’ phone records.

As a venture capitalist, Perkins was, at one point, chairman of 14 companies that Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers funded, including three listed on the New York Stock Exchange, MIT reported.

Romance Author

After two marriages, Perkins wrote the 2006 romance novel “Sex and the Single Zillionaire” about a New York financier struggling to cope with the death of his wife. Encouraged by his second wife, the best-selling author Danielle Steel, Perkins wrote the 288-page book in only 100 hours over 30 days, according to an article in the New York Times.

As owner of the 289-foot “Maltese Falcon,” the world’s largest clipper yacht, Perkins enjoyed an extravagant lifestyle and purchased a penthouse in the Millennium Tower overlooking San Francisco Bay in 2009.