BERKELEY – Today, Byron Deeter is considered among the world's smartest technology investors, a member of Forbes Magazine's Midas List for his consistent track record as an identifier and builder of successful businesses.
But when the partner at Bessemer Venture Partners came to the world's No. 1 public university as a freshman from Sacramento and El Camino High School, Deeter started from the bottom of the Golden Bears depth chart. Over the ensuing four years, he became part of four national collegiate championships as a member of California rugby by the time he received his degree in Political Economy with honors in 1996.
Since 2005, Deeter has been at Bessemer's Menlo Park office near his home in Atherton, where he lives with his wife, Alli, whom he met on their first day on campus as freshmen at Cal, and their three children. With a remarkable track record that includes founding the company Trigo in 1999, Deeter currently sits on 12 different companies' boards, each a team that Deeter approaches with a mindset he developed as a Rugby Bear.
“The program showed me a path to be successful,” said Deeter of Cal rugby. “It's what I've carried through to building up a management team when I was founding CEO of a business and helping our management teams today.”
After entering the University as an intended major in applied physics, Deeter realized a different academic ambition. “For me, economics and business helped to apply science and technology, and Cal helped to expose me to the wide-open world of technology and business,” he said.
Deeter was devoted in the classroom, earning accolades as a California Emerging Leader Scholar and an Alumni Scholar. “The academic rigor was a great candy shop of excellent classes and professors that allowed me to be very dynamic in terms of what I wanted to do,” he said.
But above all the growth he experienced as a student, Deeter said, “I learned as much or more about being a leader and success in business through rugby as I did in the classroom.”
As a freshman player for head coach Jack Clark, Deeter was, in his words, “a tackling dummy who worked his way up the totem pole.” Deeter was a third-side reserve his first year and then a reserve player as a sophomore before he got his first limited taste of varsity paying time as a junior. As a senior he finally earned his role as the starting tighthead prop.
“I wasn't an All-American, which half of our starters were,” Deeter recalled. “I was always having to work harder and hustle and be smarter out there. My opposite number usually outweighed me by 30 pounds. Every scrum, I was at a disadvantage. I had to close that gap through technique and other things.”
Deeter was part of a key era in the history of Cal rugby from an infrastructure standpoint with the opening of Witter Rugby Field for the 1996 spring season. The field was named for the namesake of the West Coast brokerage firm, and the face of that family during Deeter's era was Bob Witter. Mr. Witter, who died in 2008, was a perennial part of the team's travels.
“I saw the impact that it had on people like Bob Witter and the Witter family to give back,” Deeter said. “Bob was always on the road with us. While we were debating strategy, he was literally washing uniforms at the hotel. It showed all of us how team is above any one person.”
The business of bringing Witter Rugby Field to fruition, with over $2 million in gifts to make it happen, made a lasting impression. “The alumni engagement, that notion of continuous involvement – it's special and emotional for me every time I see that permanent facility,” Deeter said.
On the field, Deeter was part of a legendary streak of 12 straight national titles and a 98-game winning streak at Cal. But it wasn't all victorious for the Bears during his era, either. In 1996, Sports Illustrated was reportedly set to profile the team when it reached its 100th straight domestic victory, but instead, Stanford upset the Bears in what would have been Cal's 99th win and the streak was over. The Cardinal has not beaten the Bears in rugby since.
Although Deter said his squad “was not the physically most gifted team,” one teammate who didn't fit that bill was winger Ovie Brume. “He was just a beautiful person to watch,” Deeter said. “There were times when I would forget to run in support because you knew he was going to go turn the corner and be gone.” Sadly, Brume is now gone, having died in 2002 in Nigeria, but the entire program remembers Deeter's teammate every year at its banquet with the Ovie Brume Award.
The Deeters' kids are 11, 13 and 15 years of age, and Byron said, “A rugby ball is in the house. I hope and believe that as they grow older they will find their way to the game.” The rugby experience that Deeter enjoyed has already had an effect on their lives, just as it has for all the people and entities with whom he interacts.
Coach Clark called Deeter one of the many success stories that consistently emerge from the oldest intercollegiate sport at Cal.
“We provide a training environment to create not just rugby players, but impactful citizens of the world,” Clark said. “Byron Deeter is one of those people doing amazing things. It's a source of great pride.”
Deeter said he is “forever honored to be part of the Cal rugby community. It's one of my proudest accomplishments to have earned the right to wear the Big C. That team picture and letter has hung in my house in a position of prominence through every move. Another team picture with a championship trophy is framed in my office next to photos of people I've IPO'd with and pictures of my family. It's one of the hardest things I ever done, hands down, and one of the proudest accomplishments to be a small part of its success. I was not the captain nor the most impactful player. I was one of 15 men who battled wearing the blue and gold.”
Today, Deeter relies on his Cal experience in his everyday life and has welcomed coach Clark as a speaker to inspire the CEOs with whom he works. “He's got one of the best playbooks I've ever seen in terms of building leaders,” Deeter said of Clark. “Jack and team are in the business of creating great people, not great athletes. So much of business success comes from an understanding of team dynamics. Team dynamics in sport are the most efficient training vehicle known to future operators. Seeing a successful program like Cal rugby from the inside out gave me the insight to be so much better in business and be prepared for whatever life was going to throw at me."
Life after Berkeley has been an impressive body of work for Byron Deeter. He is one example of the kind of future operators being produced by the student-athlete experience at the University of California.
