John W. Thompson

Lightspeed Venture Partners

John W. Thompson’s career serves as a model for all people of color seeking to transition from operating roles to investing. A technology executive, he served as Chairman at Microsoft from 2014 until June 2021, and later chaired Illumina from 2021 until 2023. Renowned for his 40+ years of enterprise leadership and entrepreneurial experience, Thompson became a Venture Partner at Lightspeed in 2018. Throughout his illustrious career, Thompson served as CEO of Virtual Instruments, Vice President at IBM, and former Chief Executive of Symantec. At Lightspeed, he brings invaluable insights, having initially connected with the firm a decade ago when he led the startup Virtual Instruments (VI) as CEO—a company in which Lightspeed invested. Before VI, Thompson served as CEO of Symantec for an impressive 10-year tenure, navigating strategic shifts and transactions. With a rich history at IBM spanning 28 years, Thompson held various leadership roles in Sales, Marketing, and Software Development. An active investor in Silicon Valley since 2009, Thompson advises and sits on the boards of companies like Reviver, Illumio, and Rubrik, among others in Lightspeed's portfolio. He also contributes his expertise as a board member of Illumina, a leading human genome sequencing company.