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James J. Goetz (born 1965/1966) is an American and businessman who is a partner with Sequoia Capital. Goetz is known for his focus on Mobile app and enterprise startups, including successful investments in AdMob, WhatsApp, Chartboost and GitHub. In 2017, Goetz announced he was stepping back from his leadership role with Sequoia, but continues to invest and represent the firm on company boards.
Goetz became a vice president at Bay Networks, then left in 1996 to co-found a software company, VitalSigns. With co-founders Rajiv Batra and Monty Kersten, Goetz raised $5.5 million from Sequoia Capital and Austin Ventures in April 1997. The same month, the company released a "browser companion" application, NetMedic, enabling users to identify and correct network performance issues. In October 1998, the company agreed to be acquired by International Network Services. Following the sale, Goetz joined the venture capital firm Accel.
Goetz has been ranked on the Midas List of top 100 venture capitalists, and occupied the top spot each year from 2013 to 2017. In 2018, he dropped to number three. In 2015, Goetz was named "VC of the Year" at the Crunchies award show, hosted by the publication TechCrunch.
Goetz's most successful investment was in WhatsApp, in which Sequoia was the only outside investor prior to its acquisition by Facebook for $19 billion in February 2014. Sequoia's stake, led by Goetz, returned $3.5 billion on an approximate $60 million investment. TechCrunch described the deal as the "largest acquisition of a venture-backed company in history", and it earned Goetz a reputation as one of Silicon Valley's "biggest rainmakers".
He has been a non-executive director of Palo Alto Networks since April 2005, and Intel since November 2019.
In 2021, Goetz donated $25 million to the University of Cincinnati. The gift led to the expansion of computer science faculty, the establishment of two athletic scholarships, the creation of an honors program, and the renaming of the school's engineering building to the Mantei Center, in honor of professor Thomas Mantei. The same year, the Goetz family donated a renovated movie theater in Los Gatos, California, to the city.
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