VC Tom Perkins resigns from HP's board

Famed venture capitalist Tom Perkins has stepped down from Hewlett-Packard's board of directors, the company announced late Friday.

Perkins had been a member of HP's board since early last year, when he returned to the board after serving a two-year term from 2002 to March 2004. He is believed to be have been a leading influence behind the removal of former CEO Carly Fiorina shortly after he rejoined the board. He served on the committee that screened replacements for Fiorina; it settled on current CEO Mark Hurd in March 2005.

Perkins was an early employee at HP, once serving as director of HP Labs. His main claim to fame was founding seminal Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers in 1972. The firm gave rise to such tech industry giants as Sun Microsystems, Google, and Amazon.com. He also recently published his saucy first novel, "Sex and the Single Zillionaire."

An HP representative declined to comment on the nature of Perkins' resignation.