Venture capitalist Paul Holland (’82) is a living illustration of JMU’s hallmark virtue of collaboration. “My simple one-liner for advice is to partner wisely,” he said. “If you’re fortunate enough to partner wisely and deeply, then you will have a more fulfilling life and more opportunities.” He has lived out this ethic in business, where he’s known for partnering with iconic CEOs and thought leaders, and in his personal life. “The partnership between Linda Yates and Paul Holland, together, is what is resulting in this gift,” he explained. The couple announced their $5 million investment in October 2022, praising Holland’s Madison roots and saying they want to open doors for others.
Holland’s Madison Experience
Holland’s college selection process led him to JMU as a 17-year-old freshman. “I had narrowed it down based on academics and location. I toured the campus, and I remember a moment — this beautiful, sunny day with people all over the Quad, Frisbee and laughter,” he said with a smile. “I knew JMU was the place for me.”
His instinct paid off. “When I look at JMU now, it really was the gateway to the rest of my life. First was academic maturation, and I think JMU did a very good job there. The second, which I believe is more important, was social maturation — the notion of being able to go there and grow as a person. That’s where JMU excels, where it surpasses other schools,” Holland said.
Not one for down time, Holland took advantage of every opportunity while a student. He double majored in Public Administration and Political Science, pledged Sigma Nu, played intramural sports and served as the inaugural vice president of the Public Administration Society. During the summers, he worked all kinds of jobs, from building roads around Harrisonburg to serving at Dukes Grill, and even joined his buddies on the crew of a North Carolina scallop fishing boat, Amazing Grace.
On his dad’s advice, he tacked on a Business minor, which turned out to be critical. “Developing business acumen was so important. The world is full of entrepreneurial types like me — artistic entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs — but they do other things because they’re starved for the business discipline and experience,” he said. “JMU is where I got the building blocks I needed.”
California dreamin’
After Holland graduated, he set out for the University of Virginia, where he pursued a master’s in International Relations. There, he met Yates, a talented undergraduate on her way to earning a degree in the same field. Linda asked Paul to come visit her in California, where he has lived for the past 38 years.
“I had ambition and education but not a really strong direction until I followed a girl to California,” he said. Transplanted to Silicon Valley (the world-famous home base for Google, Facebook, Netflix and others), Yates’ family introduced him to their friends. “I instantly got a taste for these West Coast personalities,” Holland said. “I had stumbled into sales jobs because of my personality, and then on the weekends, Linda and I used to throw these great parties at her parents’ house — barbecue and a pool — just getting to know people.” While sitting in a hot tub at one of those parties, a mutual friend introduced him to Reed Hastings, which led to Holland’s entrepreneurial career.
Becoming an entrepreneur
As Holland developed his career in Silicon Valley, he helped talented founder-CEOs build two of the most successful software companies of that era. First, he partnered with Hastings, who later became famous as founder and CEO of Netflix, to develop Pure Software. The second company was Kana Communications, where he worked with Mark Gainey and Michael Horvath, better known today as the founders of Strava. Pure and Kana eventually generated more than $12 billion in market capitalization. Later, Holland was recruited to Foundation Capital, a high-level firm in the Silicon Valley that has taken $5 billion of investor and partner capital, and generated more than $750 billion in market value by investing in companies like Netflix, Chegg, MobileIron, SunRun and many other successful initial public offerings.
Yates began her career at Smith Barney, and after completing a graduate degree at Stanford University, she became the youngest head of West Coast operations for the MAC Group, a strategy consulting house. Later, at 32 years old, she was founder and CEO of Strategos, the first global growth consultancy where she partnered with leading strategists Gary Hamel and C.K. Prahalad. After Strategos, Yates was recruited to the board of New York Stock Exchange-traded Sybase, where she helped drive the company stock price from $3 to $65, and the eventual $6 billion acquisition of Sybase by SAP. Hastings nominated Yates for the Henry Crown Fellowship at the Aspen Institute. She later founded (at her kitchen table) Mach49, the growth incubator for the global 1000. Today, Mach49 employs more than 200 people on five continents and was recently valued at $300 million. She also authored The Unicorn Within, published by Harvard Business Review Press in 2022.
Currently, Holland is the managing director of venture investing at Mach49, where he works for Yates, the CEO. He credits JMU with readying him to jump into multiple business fields and always hit the ground running. “When I left JMU, I was academically prepared and socially adept enough for any adventure I encountered,” he said.
Yates has also become a fan of JMU over the years. “When you’re walking around at James Madison, you literally feel like you’re in a top-tier global educational institute,” she said. “We’ve also hosted multiple students over the years who’ve literally lived in our home for a week, and we’ve set them up to tour Silicon Valley and to meet with top companies here.” She’s been impressed. “Every single JMU student and alumnus, every one of them, is inclusive. They’re welcoming; they’re a ton of fun. There’s a reason JMU is considered one of the happiest universities on the planet, and I get to see that every day getting to live with Paul. Being able to be part of the JMU Family has been very meaningful to me.”
Holland Yates Hall: Gateway to JMU, passport to the world
The Holland Yates gift also renamed Madison Hall, which is visited by more than 60,000 prospective students each year and serves as home to the Office of Admissions and the Center for Global Engagement. That’s fitting, as their investment provides scholarships for student recruitment and study abroad — as well as entrepreneurship.
“We are proud to add our name to such an important centerpiece on a beautiful campus,” Holland said. “I’m an optimist, I’m a globalist and I’m an idealist. We are investing in entrepreneurship and global immersion opportunities as two key areas that have made a difference in our own lives.”
Holland and Yates have lived and worked in more than 74 countries. Now, they are providing study abroad scholarships for JMU undergraduates, an opportunity they believe is critical for current and future generations. “I think young people need the overseas experience, outside of our American bubble, to view the world accurately. Exposure to people, on a person-to-person level, will not only help them see how the world works but also make them more understanding and more successful,” he said. “All of America benefits from more people having that chance earlier in their lives.”
Yates believes Madison graduates will be better equipped to look at the “big hairy problems” of our world — climate change, sustainability, water, disease, racism, poverty — because of their travels. “We hope to give them the opportunity to reach out, to really address those big problems and make a difference,” she said. “I can’t wait to see the pictures that are going to line the walls in that building as these kids go abroad and show what their experiences are like.”
Giving for future Pauls and Lindas
Another piece of the Holland Yates gift is a scholarship endowment for students minoring in Entrepreneurship. Holland said he appreciates how JMU’s minor is not limited to business students but open across all academic disciplines. “There’s a certain type of person that comes out of a hardcore business school, and then there’s a certain type of person that is still entrepreneurial but is coming from a background of liberal arts, performance arts and other areas,” he said. “Linda and I believe that in the coming decades, there will be dozens more Pauls and Lindas, drawing from current and future students at James Madison University. These scholarships will be extremely critical for those students.”
“By getting more and more students focused on entrepreneurship, either inside large companies or with startups, this is very important to help improve the world,” Yates said. “We’ve been incredibly blessed, and I truly believe that we are meant to channel our gifts, not to keep them for ourselves.”
