Tom Perkins, one of Silicon Valley’s first venture capitalists, died this week.

The New York Times reported on Thursday that the financier died at 84 at home in Tiburon, Calif., of natural causes. The firm he helped co-found, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, confirmed the news to NPR.

Perkins and Eugene Kleiner co-founded a venture capital firm in 1972 — “at a time when parts of Silicon Valley were still largely fruit orchards,” as the Times points out.

Source: Texas Public Radio