Assertion certainty 4/5 debate potential 1/5

Grady: Sequoia screened 9,000 candidates to hire Andrew Reed and Matt Huang

Pat Grady · Pat Grady: Sequoia Partner on Investing Lessons from Doug Leone, Roelof Botha and Alfred Lin | E1174 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings · Jul 8, 2024 · at 44:25

Pat Grady is Head of Growth Investing at Sequoia Capital. He describes Sequoia's 2013 recruiting funnel that yielded Andrew Reed and Matt Huang.

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“Andrew Reed, Matt Huang both started on our team in February of 2014. And so the process that led to them was conducted over the back half of 2013. And it was about the most rigorous hiring process we've ever had. Like top of funnel was 9000 and what came out the bottom of the funnel was Andrew Reed and Matt Huang, which is pretty spectacular couple of outputs.”

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