Franklin “Pitch” Johnson graduated from Palo Alto High School in 1946, received a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford in 1950, and an
M.B.A. from Harvard in 1952. He served as a maintenance officer in the U.S. Air Force from 1952 to 1954, and was an open hearth production executive for Inland Steel Company from 1954 to 1962.

Mr. Johnson was co-founder in 1962 of Draper and Johnson Investment Company, and became an independent venture capitalist in 1965 as the founder of Asset Management Company. Mr. Johnson has been a director of several public companies, and was a director of Amgen until July 2006. He is a past director of the National Venture Capital Association, a past president of the Western Association of Venture Capitalists, and was an elected trustee of the Foothill-De Anza Community College District for 12 years. He developed and taught a course in entrepreneurship and venture capital at Stanford Business School from 1979 to 1990, and was a founding member of the SIEPR advisory board in 1982.

Mr. Johnson received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Association of Venture Capitalists. In September 2005, Mr. Johnson was inducted into the Dow Jones Private Equity Hall of Fame and, in June 2006, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars of the Smithsonian Institution presented Mr. Johnson the Woodrow Wilson Award for Corporate Citizenship. In 2009, Mr. Johnson received the Gold Spike award from the Stanford Associates.