We've tried to build Sequoia Capital with an eye for the long term that we really look for in the companies we like to partner with.
Douglas Leone
Crystal-clear thinking is one of the things we look for - not a fancy slide pitch, but crystal-clear thinking.
Raise as little as you can to get you to something that you can show - plus maybe a quarter or two so you have a little bit of cushion - and then raise some more money. Raise as little - not as much - as you can because that's the most expensive equity you're going to sell.
A tremendous chief executive in a small market will never be great. All great companies start with great markets.
In a globalized world, one application can spread like wildfire and there's only one winning company, which means you have to invest more than you've ever had.
Our business is all about helping someone - a founder, a CEO - building a great business. It's not about seeing our names in the press.
I was working on boats as a teenager, sweating like a pig during a summer job.
If I could press a button and have all of Sequoia Capital on the Midas List, I would choose to do that over a honoring a single individual.
I routinely make trips to China and India where we have offices to continue to maintain the linkages that are necessary to run a successful business.
The venture industry is both quite vibrant and quite competitive.
You meet with a CEO or founder. You talk about sales, engineering, product management and give some ideas or suggestions. And the founder quickly understands that you really can help them both operationally and from a strategic standpoint.
We want people who come from humble backgrounds and have a need to win.
There's a number of companies clearly that we wish we had invested in either at the early or at the moderate stage.
The trick is, a market has to be nonexistent when you start. If the market is large early on, you will have too many competitors. You have to make it large.
If you choose a market that already exists, say, networking equipment, you have to compete with an established company like Cisco. Even if your product is marginally better, Cisco can fudge it and outsell you.
I'll say this: I can't think of one instance in my 20 years in venture capital in which I have wanted to sell a company before the entrepreneur.
Give me an entrepreneur with a lot of courage, gusto and who iterates rapidly, and I will back that person day in and day out.
During dark times, real entrepreneurs come out. They are not competing with 10 look-alike companies for engineering talent, so it's a great time to invest and help build companies.
We look at the number of engineers coming out of India; we look at the growth of the economy, and it's clear that India is a place we want to be.
If you start a successful company in China at 11 A.M., by 2 P.M. there's three more companies like it.
We like companies that can get big and powerful on $50 million or less and not two, three, four or five billion.
We have co-opted seed funds. You know, Y Combinator, that was completely our money. We have secret handshakes with a whole bunch of people. Very dangerous, because word gets out that so-and-so's money is Sequoia's money, that would not be a good thing.
You have to be willing to risk things; otherwise, somebody else will put you out of business.
Be incredibly, ruthlessly selfish with your equity.
We work as a team. I think having the individual being shown as a star actually creates problems internally. We encourage all our investors to work as a team for the benefit of the founders.
We see China as a large market opportunity with similar cyclical economic cycles that occur throughout every economy.
Guys like me on the investor side are a dime a dozen.
