Insight certainty 4/5 debate potential 2/5

Gupta: VCs must remember companies exist for people's life's work

Ravi Gupta · 20VC: Sequoia's Ravi Gupta on His Lessons From The Hyper-Growth of Instacart, The Key Question To Ask When Building or Evaluating Teams & The Importance of Investing In and Detecting Slopes Rather Than Intercepts · Sep 14, 2020 · at 37:37

Ravi Gupta, Partner at Sequoia Capital, discusses what he would most like to change about venture capital culture when investors reject startups.

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“Investors would be best served to remember that Companies do not exist for their pleasure. Companies exist for people to do their life's work. And when you do decide it's not for you, that it's not about proving that you're right.”

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More from Ravi Gupta

Assertion Contradicted
Gupta: Sequoia Capital requires unanimous partner approval for all investments
“This is reinforced by things like unanimous decision-making, which means we all need to be bought in when we decide to partner with a company.”
Ravi Gupta Sep 14, 2020 ▶ 16:34 20VC: Sequoia's Ravi Gupta on His Lessons From The Hyper-Growth of Instacart, The Key Question To Ask When Building or Evaluating Teams & The Importance of Investing In and Detecting Slopes Rather Than Intercepts
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
Gupta: Sequoia allows founders to choose which partner joins their board
“When entrepreneurs ask somebody at Sequoia, hey, if I work with Sequoia, who will my board member be? And the answer is always the same, which is whoever you want. You get to choose.”
Ravi Gupta Sep 14, 2020 ▶ 16:41 20VC: Sequoia's Ravi Gupta on His Lessons From The Hyper-Growth of Instacart, The Key Question To Ask When Building or Evaluating Teams & The Importance of Investing In and Detecting Slopes Rather Than Intercepts
Disclosure
Gupta: A Sequoia partner shared their 360 feedback with the entire partnership
“At Sequoia, one of our partners late last year shared their three 60 feedback with all of us at a partner meeting and then asked, can you help me get better on these?”
Ravi Gupta Sep 14, 2020 ▶ 25:22 20VC: Sequoia's Ravi Gupta on His Lessons From The Hyper-Growth of Instacart, The Key Question To Ask When Building or Evaluating Teams & The Importance of Investing In and Detecting Slopes Rather Than Intercepts
Insight
Gupta: Sequoia evaluates founders on trajectory (slope) rather than baseline (intercept)
“I think that when we talk about the people we like to invest in at Sequoia, we talk about investing in slope rather than intercept.”
Ravi Gupta Sep 14, 2020 ▶ 29:03 20VC: Sequoia's Ravi Gupta on His Lessons From The Hyper-Growth of Instacart, The Key Question To Ask When Building or Evaluating Teams & The Importance of Investing In and Detecting Slopes Rather Than Intercepts
Insight
Gupta: Any team evaluation short of 'enthusiastic rehire' is a no
“I think the question you've got to ask if you're building or evaluating your team is, would you enthusiastically rehire this person if given the chance, knowing everything you know? And I think the word enthusiastically is so important here because it removes …”
Ravi Gupta Sep 14, 2020 ▶ 6:55 20VC: Sequoia's Ravi Gupta on His Lessons From The Hyper-Growth of Instacart, The Key Question To Ask When Building or Evaluating Teams & The Importance of Investing In and Detecting Slopes Rather Than Intercepts
Opinion
Gupta: Stripe maintains its talent bar by enduring unfilled open roles
“I think that Stripe is absolutely inspirational on this topic. And I personally, I think they've done it the right way, which I think they are willing to deal with the pain of not filling a spot because they respect that spot so much that they're only going to…”
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