The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 48 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Wang: SCGE goes long Nvidia and shorts moatless server hardware stocks
“We can go long NVIDIA and then we can short a bunch of the companies that I think don't have the depth of modes that NVIDIA has.”
Wang: Chinese companies have become less transparent over time
“It is, it has been more difficult for us to say invest in Chinese companies. And it's not just the macro, right? It's. It's these companies have been become less transparent with us over time.”
Wang: Google faces more threats today than ever before in its history
“I do think there are more threats on Google's business than there have been ever in the company's history.”
Wang: Only trim stocks when valuations get 18 months ahead of fundamentals
“I tell my team, don't tell me if, you know, ServiceNow is 10% too expensive. If we have a three to five year investment hold period, you know, 10%, if you get six months ahead yourself in terms of the pricing, it's not going to impact your IRR that much. Where…”
Wang: Hedge fund crossover 'tourists' have been wiped out of private markets
“Over the last few years, there have been a lot of tourists, as you know, a lot of tourists mostly on the hedge fund side who've dabbled in private markets and they've gotten burned. Those tourists are out of the market. We don't see them anymore.”
Wang: VC partners dictating public fund investments guarantees failure
“Now, when I speak to other VCP funds that reached out to me over the years to get advice about launching a similar effort They almost never want to give up control. They want to dictate the investing. And I just don't think that's a recipe for success.”
Wang: Claiming AI will eliminate software companies is a naive view
“That I hear now that software companies are going away, right? AI is going to write all, all software. And I just think that's a naive view.”
Wang: AI generates $15 billion in incremental EBIT for Meta
“We estimate that it's not just delivering revenue. I think it's already delivering about fifteen billion of incremental EBIT, EBIT for Meta, right?”
Wang: The world will ultimately have three to five AI foundation models
“So maybe there's three to five foundation models in the world. It's not going to be 10. It's not going to be 20.”
Wang: Sequoia considered shutting down its global equities fund in 2016
“And so there's this crucible moment in 2016 where Sequoia decided to part ways with the original PM and actually consider shutting down the business entirely.”
Wang: Only one-third of SCGE's portfolio consists of Sequoia venture companies
“So there is a portion of our business that, our portfolio that is Prior or existing Sequoia portfolio companies, right? That's maybe about a third of the portfolio”
Wang: SCGE should have trimmed portfolio positions more aggressively in 2022
“I think 2022 was a period where a lot of these stocks got ahead of themselves and we should have, we had to trim, we trimmed a bunch, but we should have trimmed more.”
Wang: SCGE is prioritizing public markets over privates due to deal quality
“And so right now, for example, we do not see for SCGE as many opportunities in the private markets And so most of our attention is actually on the public markets.”
Wang: Tech IPO market will reopen in late 2024 or 2025
“I do expect the IPO markets to open, say back half of this year into next year.”
Wang: Tech companies can no longer IPO with high burn rates
“The, you know, the days of rule 40, you're going out at 60 -20, those are gone. You have to be a 30 and 10, 40 and zero kind of growing into a nice profitability curve in order to get public.”
Wang: SCGE held Twilio too long, missing out on legendary returns
“So Twilio initially was a very good investment for us and actually ended up being a decent investment overall. It could have been a legendary investment. We held on for too long.”
Wang: SCGE takes carry once every three years instead of annually
“We have also a three-year incentive crystallization. And so what that means is most hedge funds, as you probably know, just take carry at the end of each calendar year. We take carry once every three years, and we also vest ourselves over a three year period.”
Wang: Magnificent Seven tech stocks will continue to thrive in AI
“At least in the initial stages of AI, where your data and distribution are so important, I think the mag seven will continue to do quite well.”
Jeff Wang: China's market will recover driven by founder quality
“It has to. I mean, The level of just pure entrepreneurship, the level of just the founder quality, how smart and aggressive they are. It's just remarkable. And I just don't think that goes away.”
Wang: Preserving optionality is the most expensive mistake young professionals make
“I think that optionality is the most expensive thing you can buy. So both financial options, but also more importantly, life options. So too many young people spend too much effort focused on preserving optionality in lieu of actually making decisions. So I fi…”
Wang: SCGE internal employee surveys turned 'downright awful' in 2022
“The initial, I'd say right post COVID, the surveys were very positive. You know, everyone's super happy. You know, everyone's feeling fulfilled. They're doing good work. And then you can see the surveys just getting worse and worse. And then in 20, 22, they're…”
Wang: Tech CapEx is unprecedented due to $150B Big Tech cash flow
“You have never seen this level of investment because I think if you roll back to 1999, for example, the, you didn't have this mag seven that was throwing off, you know, one hundred and fifty billion of free cash flow and you can go invest gobs and gobs of mone…”
Wang: SCGE allocates 70% of research to themes, 30% to companies
“For us, 70% of our research process is actually up front on the theme, and only 30% on the actual company.”
Wang: SCGE manages $9B across two-thirds public and one-third private investments
“We had fifty million of internal capital. We now manage about nine billion of mostly external LP capital, but that internal capital amount is also now about a billion. The portfolio is about two thirds public and then one third private. And that one third priv…”
Wang: SCGE shorts companies to express long-side disruptive themes, not find fraud
“So we are not looking for frauds. We're not looking for valuation arbitrage. We're looking to further express a disruptive thematic viewpoint that we hold on the long side, albeit on the short side.”
Wang: Public tech markets exhibit power law returns without needing heavy leverage
“You could take leverage, but then you're taking more volatility and I just don't think in technology where you already have a lot of beta, you already have a lot of volatility. You don't need to take a lot of you don't need to take a lot of leverage, especiall…”
Wang: SCGE has had only one down year in 15 years
“Now we've been in business now, 15 years. We've had one down year over that 15 year timeframe.”
Wang: Shopify is one of SCGE's biggest winning investments
“So Shopify is has been one of our biggest winners. It is also one of my bigger regrets in terms of post COVID.”
Wang: Post-COVID e-commerce growth reverted to pre-pandemic trend line
“One thing that we got wrong is a lot of things return back to pre-COVID. Humans don't really change that much or they change more slowly. And so e-commerce really returned back to the pre-COVID trend line.”
Wang: SCGE assigns separate partners as devil's advocates on controversial deals
“One thing that we will do is we will have a fresh underwrite from a different partner where you have a devil's advocate position.”
Wang: SCGE originally invested in non-tech assets including ports and airlines
“Gone were the days of investing in lodging companies, port infrastructure. We even invested in an airline miles program.”
Wang: Crossover Investing Market Will Improve as IPO Window Reopens
“And so I do think the crossover market is getting more attractive and it's getting more attractive. It's just one tourist exit and two as the IPO markets open up again.”
Wang: 99% of private companies cannot stay private via secondaries indefinitely
“I think there may be a certain set of companies out there that can pull off what you're talking about before. 99% of the companies out there. I think that's really difficult.”
Wang: SCGE targets steady-state private exposure of 20% to 25%
“I think closer to 20 to 25% would be more comfortable because then that gives us an opportunity to add. I think If we are focused primarily on the public markets, let's say if we had 50% of the portfolio private, that would feel too illiquid to me. So 20 to 25…”
Wang: VC and PE firms launching public funds historically fail
“The history of venture PE firms launching public funds has not been a good one.”
Wang: AI will rapidly cause massive disruption in call centers
“I think there is going to be massive disruption, for example, in call centers, and I don't think that's going to take a lot of time.”
Wang: US and Canada generate two-thirds of global software revenue
“If I look at most software companies, you're probably Two thirds kind of US Canada in terms of revenue contribution and then one third everything else.”
Jeff Wang: Subsiding competition in India has enabled Zomato profitability
“I think one of the things that we've seen in India is that that brutal level of competition that you saw actually in the U S right. So you saw in the U S in the zero interest rate environment that has subsided in India as well. And so that's allowed companies …”
Wang: Doug Leone excels at enterprise talent while Moritz excels at consumer
“I think Doug probably has a better nose for enterprise talent and Michael for consumer talent.”
Wang: Disregarding Google at Stanford taught me not to underestimate disruption
“Probably not taking Google more seriously. So I was at Stanford at the time of its founding. I was even a section leader for Marissa Mayer for a computer science class where she was a lecturer. And so I heard about it from her too. And I just thought to myself…”
Wang: Public market advantage is measured in months, not years
“I think it's important to be early, but if I think about the public markets, we're talking about not years, but months, right? If you are, because the public markets price something so quickly, if you figure it out last year, that hyperscaler CapEx was going t…”
Jeff Wang took a 70% pay cut to join SCGE in 2010
“On the flip side though I was taking a 70% pay cut and there was a real risk of failure, right? Most hedge fund launches don't survive.”
Wang: SCGE re-underwrites every portfolio position during quarterly reviews
“And so one of the things that we do is we have a quarterly review of the entire portfolio where we do a re underwrite of every single position, because unlike the venture world, we can buy and sell.”
Wang: Sequoia missed Shopify in private markets and first invested post-IPO
“Shopify was not a Sequoia portfolio company. It's a company that we admired in the private markets, but we did not invest in the private markets. And our first chance to invest is when they go public, right?”
Wang: SCGE holds neither a long nor short position in Google
“We're not either long or short Google”
Wang: Canva raised enterprise plan prices by three times
“Canva, which you mentioned, has raised prices on its enterprise plan by three X.”
Wang: Michael Moritz still helps write SCGE quarterly investor letters
“Michael still helps me write my quarterly letters to this day.”
Wang: Roelof Botha memorizes every Sequoia employee's newborn child's name
“And then at events like our holiday party where he makes a speech every year, he makes it a point to remember every single person within all of Sequoia who had a baby that year and the name of their child. He memorizes it, no cards.”