Irwin Federman

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Irwin Federman (born 1936) is an American businessman, philanthropist, and general partner at U.S. Venture Partners. He grew up in a Jewish family and earned a B.S. in Economics from Brooklyn College. He won the Forbes Gold Medal for the highest California CPA exam score and began his career as an accountant in New York and California. He then served as CFO for three startups, the last being Monolithic Memories (MMI).

As MMI’s president, the first non-engineer CEO in the semiconductor industry, he led a successful turnaround. To avoid layoffs, he required all workers to take one unpaid day off every other week, cutting payroll by about 10% but improving morale and efficiency. MMI went public in 1980, and in 1987 it merged with Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) in a $442 million stock swap, making Federman the Vice Chairman of AMD.

In 1988 he became Managing Director at Dillon, Read & Co. In 1990 he joined U.S. Venture Partners as a General Partner, where he has helped fund many early-stage tech companies. He has served on boards of SanDisk, Checkpoint Software Technologies, and Mellanox, and he has chaired the U.S. Semiconductor Industry Association. He has also been involved with the National Venture Capital Association and Santa Clara University’s Leavey School of Business.

Federman has received numerous awards, including the Torch of Liberty from the ADL and the Brotherhood Award from the Silicon Valley Conference for Community and Justice. He was inducted into Junior Achievement’s Silicon Valley Hall of Fame in 2004 and received the IBF Special Achievement Award in 2008. He serves as a trustee for the San Francisco Ballet, Brooklyn College, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and he holds an honorary Doctorate of Engineering Science from Santa Clara University.

Family: His first wife, Sheila, died in 1987; they had four children. In 1992 he married Concepcion Socarras, mother of Nick Woodman, founder of GoPro, and he has three stepchildren.