The Ledger
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Palihapitiya: Sequoia and Y Combinator returns decay as they scale
“As with all things, when you're successful and you try to scale, returns decay. And this is not a slight on YC's returns, but it's what happens to everybody. So if you look at Blackstone's returns, they were incredible when they started, then they're Ok today.…”
Palihapitiya: Cross-fund LP liquidity violates strong venture capital governance
“When you're buying old stakes into a new fund and crossing funds, it's sort of like actually one of those things that are supposed to be verboten. And when you're trying to build a good fund with great governance, This is actually at the top of the list of the…”
Chamath: LPs should pull capital rather than let Sequoia hold public stock
“If I was an LP of Sequoia, I would want the money back. And the reason is I'm not sure that Sequoia can compound money in the public markets anywhere near what I could.”
Chamath claims top public stock pickers beat Sequoia and Benchmark returns
“I think that if you were a very good stock picker in the public markets, you're generating better returns than Sequoia, Benchmark, Name Your Best Venture Fund”
Sequoia Capital Fund gained $6.7B by holding post-IPO stock
“Now, to give you a sense, since we launched this three and a half years ago, we've accumulated another 6.7 billion in gains by doing nothing except being patient.”
Botha: Sequoia-backed companies account for over 30% of NASDAQ value
“The companies in which we were private investors when they were little companies today account for over 30% of the total value of the Nasdaq.”
Botha: Sequoia requires unanimous consensus among partners for investment decisions
“So when we make investment decisions at Sequoia, it's a consensus decision.”
Success in one domain doesn't give VCs the right to compete elsewhere
“We have no MD PhDs on our team at Sequoia, and I think, you know, it's very dangerous when people think that your success in one domain just naturally makes you gives you the right to compete in other domains.”
Chamath: Sequoia's returns stem from replacing underperforming founder CEOs
“And by the way, Sequoia, who has had exceptional returns has always been known to be hard nosed. You know, a lot of people, the critique against Sequoia from founders would be that, oh, if I take Sequoia's money, they may fire me. Well, yeah, because if you're…”
Chamath: Sequoia documented its $215M FTX investment on its website
“This was a two hundred and fifteen million dollar decision, and Sequoia documented it and put it on their own website.”
Sacks: Tiger Global competing in Series A rounds is a poor strategy
“So I don't know that if this report, I don't know if this reporting is actually true, but if the goal is all of a sudden for Tiger to become a Series A investor that competes with Kraft or Sequoia or these other firms that are very hands-on, that doesn't seem …”
Chamath: VC investors struggle to context switch to managing public equity
“The hardest thing I think that Sequoia is going to find in this new iteration is at some point, somebody's reputation will be on the line for judging public equities. And it's still not clear to me that people who live and breathe venture can context switch we…”
Friedberg: Roelof Botha only invests in seven deadly sin businesses
“Roloff Botha Sachs' former colleague and obviously famed investor now at Sequoia Capital said that he always, he only invests in businesses that pursue one of the seven deadly sins.”
Friedberg: Leading consecutive rounds and marking up portfolio companies drives top returns
“The guys that are known for doing this like Sequoia and Founders Fund and others have had incredible returns by doing exactly this. So the strategy does work.”
Chamath: Andreessen Horowitz is set up to rival Sequoia
“They're basically set up to become Sequoia. If they really, I mean, I think if you think about like which two firms are really. Crushing on all cylinders right now, obviously Sequoia has always been the perennial number one, but if you think about the heater t…”
Chamath predicts tax hikes will cause LPs to cut emerging managers
“I bet you what they're going to do is they're not going to cut their allocations in Sequoia. They're going to cut their allocations to all these other folks.”
Calacanis: Sequoia or a16z board seats trigger immediate lower-tier markup offers
“When they join the board, they own over 10%, you are anointed in a way that is transcendent. You will get pounded with inbound from the second tier and third tier firms who want to triple your valuation and give you twenty million bucks.”
Chamath: DAG Ventures' LP pitch was marking up every Sequoia deal
“Dagg's LP pitch is we just, we will mark up every Sequoia deal.”
Botha: Sequoia employs as many developers as investors
“We have about as many developers at Sequoia as we have investors and they're building products for us so that we are much more effective and productive than we might've been.”
Sequoia partners do not pay for equity or charge their successors
“We didn't have to pay to get the partnership from the previous generation and nor will we charge the next generation.”
Botha: Sequoia uses AI to summarize business plans and analyze competitors
“If we get business plan submissions, we have an AI system that'll summarize it for me, so I get a very quick read on the company, a quick summarization of the quality of the Team and a very quick analysis of the competitive dynamics and the other companies I s…”
Botha: Every investment mistake I've made stemmed from a failure of imagination
“When I've thought about my mistakes as an investor, by the way, every single time it comes down to a failure of imagination that I didn't think big enough, I didn't think about how this company could progress from where they were.”
Botha: Sequoia is structured as a private partnership in perpetuity
“No, actually we've structured ourselves To be a private partnership in perpetuity to the extent possible under California law.”
Chamath: Crypto startups raise seed at $30M valuations with $200k-$400k checks
“When we see these projects, all these companies tend to raise, you know, three, four, five million bucks. It all tends to be at like, thirty million pre, and it all tends to be distributed. So like, you know, it's us, Andreessen, Sequoia, and it's like, you kn…”
Chamath Palihapitiya discloses investing in BitClout alongside Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia
“A deal was announced and investment was announced. Andreessen, Sequoia, myself, and a few others. We did this thing called BitClout.”
Sam Altman and Jason Calacanis sourced Stripe and Uber for Sequoia
“You helped us with the investment in Uber. Sam Altman was in that group as well. He helped with an investment in a little company called Stripe.”
Botha: Sequoia's Venture 12 and 13 funds returned over 20x
“The highest multiple in history is I think Venture 12, which has Airbnb, Dropbox, Natera, AdMob, and a couple of other companies. And then Venture 13, which is the fund right after that, has Stripe and Square, now called Block, MongoDB, and a bunch of other co…”
Botha: Sequoia's initial Scout program fund is 26x
“So at this point, that, that fund is a 26 X fund at this point.”
Sequoia's seed, venture, and growth funds haven't grown in 5-7 years
“Our seed venture and growth funds today are no bigger than they were five, six, seven years ago.”
Calacanis predicts VC will transition to a hybrid public-private market model
“Ventures in a massive transition, but I think what comes out on the other side is something that looks a lot more like public private investing, like Ruloff pioneered at Sequoia.”
Calacanis: Sequoia's first Scout fund is its highest multiple returning fund
“That tiny experimental fund that Sam and I were part of a scouts is Sequoia's highest multiple returning fund.”
Chamath: Every successful VC firm faces disgruntled ex-employee smear campaigns
“It's happened to me. It's happened to chase. It's happened. To Sequoia. It's happened to any of us that have been successful.”
Rabois: Sequoia Capital is historically the best-run VC fund
“I think, you know, Sequoia is the best run fund historically.”
Palihapitiya: Sequoia was the sole VC to release 'RIP Good Times'
“There's a reason why in during the great financial crisis, there was only one organization that even had the courage, forget whether it was right or wrong at the time to even write the RIP Good Times deck, right? It was Sequoia.”
Michael Moritz left Sequoia; Doug Leone stepped back from day-to-day investing
“Michael has transitioned out completely. Doug has stepped back from day-to-day investing, so he's no longer in partner meetings routinely, but he continues to serve on several boards.”
Palo Alto Networks was incubated inside Sequoia's office by Jim Goetz
“Palo Alto Networks was incubated inside our office with one founder and my partner, Jim Gates.”
Calacanis: Sequoia's $517M Stripe investment is worth $10B
“Sequoia Capital has invested five hundred seventeen million in Stripe. That's currently worth about ten billion.”
Calacanis: Sequoia Capital led four consecutive preemptive rounds in WhatsApp
“Well, everybody learned from WhatsApp. And you know, shout out to the Sequoia team. Doug Leone, I think. And they did every round. Jim gets to know. Yeah. They did every round. So it was an internal round for, I think, four rounds in a row. So they just made p…”
Calacanis: Sequoia's top recent portfolio exits exceed $300B combined valuation
“Over the past two years, they've had DoorDash, Airbnb, Snowflake, Unity, all these incredible companies worth over three hundred billion dollars combined.”