Jurvetson sold in first web auction of a venture capitalist.

Mark Hernandez flew in from New York to have breakfast at Buck's in Woodside - paying $4,400 for bacon, eggs, fruit, orange juice, coffee and two and half hours of face time with Steve Jurvetson of Draper Fisher Jurvetson. Mr. Hernandez bought the breakfast as top bidder in an on-line eBay charity auction.

By: Barbara Wood

Mar. 10, 2000

Leveraged investment: $4,400 buys bacon, eggs and advice at Buck's in Woodside

Mark Hernandez flew in from New York last Wednesday to have breakfast the next morning at Buck's in Woodside -- paying $4,400 for bacon, eggs, fruit, orange juice and coffee. Not that Buck's has inflated its prices to match the amount of publicity it has received lately. Mr. Hernandez actually bought the breakfast as top bidder in a recent on-line eBay auction, with the proceeds going to the Emergency Housing Consortium in San Jose.

While $4,400 may seem like a lot for breakfast, even for charity, Mr. Hernandez is far from unhappy with his investment. "I think it was cheap," he said later. For one thing, the breakfast was with Steve Jurvetson and it lasted 2-1/2 hours. Mr. Jurvetson, a managing director at Draper Fisher Jurvetson, lately has proven to be one of the hottest young venture capitalists around, raking in the dough on high-tech startups such as Hotmail, GoTo.com, Four11 and Cybermedia.

And the 29-year-old Mr. Hernandez, who grew up in Watsonville and graduated from Stanford University in 1991, wants to start his own venture capital fund using Mr. Jurvetson as an adviser and role model. Mr. Hernandez had just two days earlier quit his job in investment banking for Merrill Lynch, planning to start a firm serving New York's Silicon Alley high-tech community.

Mr. Hernandez also got an amazing amount of ink for his money. The purchase of the breakfast has appeared in the Venture Capital Journal, the Mercury News, the Business Journal of Silicon Valley, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, several television stations -- and, of course, The Almanac. Wired Magazine plans a story, as does the New York Times Sunday Magazine.

In fact, writer Po Bronson, accompanied by a photographer, shared the breakfast booth at Buck's, taking notes for a story on Mr. Jurvetson that is scheduled to appear in the New York Times magazine within the next few weeks. (And Mr. Bronson, who wrote "The First $20 Million is Always the Hardest," a novel about Silicon Valley, didn't have to pay for his breakfast, either.)

That $4,400 bought a lot more than breakfast, advice and publicity. The breakfast money, says Emergency Housing Consortium Communications Manager Maury Kendall, will provide 314 nights of shelter, with two meals, showers, and access to social services, for a homeless person.

The consortium has eight programs ranging from emergency shelters through transitional housing programs to permanent, affordable housing. With special programs for homeless young people and families, the consortium serves over 10,000 people each year -- up to 1,200 men, women and children each night.

The consortium will actually end up getting even more out of the deal. Just after the eBay auction ended, an anonymous donor who is a lot more reclusive than Mr. Hernandez, and who claimed he wasn't able to figure out how to join the eBay auction in time, offered $5,000 to share a booth with Mr. Jurvetson, who agreed to do another breakfast.

After those hours of discussions about multi-million investments, what did these young venture capitalists leave for a tip? Well, nothing, but the eBay description of the meal did say the deal included the "full cost of breakfast for you and Steve Jurvetson at Buck's in Woodside (including tax, tip and beverages)."