Vinod Khosla, a partner at the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, has quietly stepped down from Corvis Corp.’s (Nasdaq: CORV) board of directors, a position he held since the company’s early days in 1998.

Corvis announced on January 24, 2001, that David S. Oros, CEO of Aether Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: AETH), a wireless products and services provider, would be replacing him.

In an email response to Light Reading, Khosla says that distance was the main reason he left the board. He says that he hadn't been on the board of an east coast company in more than 10 years and had been looking to get off the Corvis board for some time.

"I had always intended to get off the board," he writes. "I originally signed up for one year IF half the meetings were held on the west coast. I did try and get off the board prior to the IPO but was advised against it. Since the company now has a good board and all the meetings are on the east coast, I thought it was an opportune time."

Corvis has tried to spin Khosla's departure as matter-of-factly as possible. “He comes from a VC perspective,” says a spokesperson. “And it’s typical for someone like him to be on the board in the early stages and then leave later on, once the company has gotten to the next stage of development.”

Khosla is still on the boards of four other public companies, all of which have been public longer than Corvis: Corio Inc. (Nasdaq: CRIO), Juniper Networks Inc. (Nasdaq: JNPR), Redback Networks Inc. (Nasdaq: RBAK), and Qwest Communications International Corp. (NYSE:Q).

But this situation is expected to change, according to Khosla: "This is one of six boards I am getting off in the early part of this year. So don't read any 'signs' into it."

Corvis’s five other board members still remain, including Frank Bonsal, founding partner of New Enterprise Associates; Frank Drendel, CEO of CommScope Inc. (NYSE: CTV); Joseph Hardiman, former President and CEO of the National Association of Securities Dealers Inc. (NASD) and its subsidiary Nasdaq; Ossama Hassanein, managing partner of Newbury Ventures; and David Huber, president and CEO of Corvis.

Khosla's depature was announced two days before Corvis reported earnings (see Customer Questions Dog Corvis). Corvis was trading at $23.50 on January 25, 2001 and is down to about $19 a share today (Friday) in mid-afternoon trading.

-- Marguerite Reardon, senior editor, Light Reading, http://www.lightreading.com