For a high-tech firm, security sure is lax.
Venture-capital powerhouse Kleiner Perkins had its posh Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters robbed last month, the firm recently disclosed in letters to employees and at least one regulator.
“Regretfully, over the weekend of July 19-20, Kleiner Perkins’ building and office security were circumvented and several laptops were stolen from our premises,” the company wrote in a recent letter to New Hampshire’s Attorney General.
The VC said it sent the Aug. 13 letter to AG Joseph Foster because one of the state’s residents is now at risk of identity theft, it said in the letter.
Among the items stolen in the weekend heist were two laptops used by finance department personnel who had access to “contact information; social security numbers; and, financial account information,” KPC said in the letter, which Foster posted to the agency’s Web site.
Attached to the letter to the AG, which was first publicized by Web site databreaches.net, was a letter to the unnamed New Hampshire “colleague” whose personal information may have been compromised.
Kleiner, which was in the news earlier this year for controversial comments made by one of its founders, offered that person a year of free credit monitoring by Experian.
The company, through an employee of public-relations firm Brunswick Group, declined to comment.
Founder Tom Perkins, 82, wrote a letter to the Wall Street Journal earlier this year comparing the tax treatment of rich Americans today to the persecution of Jews under Nazi Germany.
KPC distanced itself from Perkins, who no longer works there, by tweeting that it was “shocked” by the comments.
In the letter to Foster, KPC said that it has been investigating the breach since Monday, July 21, and that it is “cooperating with law enforcement.”
Local police confirmed to Bloomberg News that there is an investigation into the theft.
In all, six laptops, two monitors and a docking station are being sought, the police said.