Mayfield, founded in 1969 as one of Silicon Valley's original venture funds with direct ties to Fairchild Semiconductor founders, has co-created the long-running Mayfield Fellows Program at Stanford that trains select students in entrepreneurship through direct startup placements for nearly three decades. The firm has formalized "Feel Our Ethos" around "AI Teammates" and a "Collaborative Intelligence Era" focused on human-AI partnership, backed by a dedicated $250M "AI Start" seed vehicle for AI-first founders starting at Day Zero with integrated mentor capital.