The Exchanges

Q What's your relationship with fear? How do you deal with it?

A Throughout my life, I felt an awful lots of fear, and it's always been the challenge in front of me. I was afraid of public speaking. I made sure I became the very best. I was afraid of heights. I worked on sailboats. I made sure I was up 96 foot masts, that whenever I feel it, I face it head on. It's almost a challenge. Look, there's a story that my partners know. I had to get a tooth removed. I actually drilled, um, a tooth drilled for a root canal, and I had to go to a meeting right after that, and I told the dentist, Drill without any Novocaine. And he says, you're out of your mind. And my whole life, I wanted to see if I was a badass or not. In other words, am I a fake badass that has this envelope nobody could tell, or am I really a badass on the inside? And I told the dentist, take it out with no Novocaine. And he drilled, and I jumped. And I told the dentist, I won't move again. And I didn't move again. And I used the trick of thinking what it must be like to go to war and lose an arm or two legs. That's pain with consequences. Mine was pain with no consequences. And so I just said, it's just nerve endings from there to my spine, to my brain. Fuck it, I'm not moving. Now, I had to go home and change my shirt because I was a puddle of sweat. But I didn't move. And so, I love fear. It does wonders for me. It gives me the challenge to overcome that gives me then a sense of…

AI assessment note: “whenever I feel it, I face it head on. It's almost a challenge.”

Q You gotta say more about that. Why do you like?

A Oh, because who wants a founder that changes his or her mind, depending on who they last spoke to. I want a founder who for the last five months has gone to sleep and, and has woken up three hours into his sleep. Just get, can, just thinking about the problem, thinking of the solution, crystal clear on what they want to build. No one can detract them, driven like crazy and so on. That's what I want. Uh, but now we got to build a business, and so who do you recruit as the first 10 engineers? What does your first salesperson look like? Do you want people that are up and comers? No one that's establishing great is going to join you as a startup. That means you have to have an eye for these up and comer people in sales and marketing, because the made people are going to play it a little safer. And so, to help navigate, ah, all those sets of issues, that is what we at Sequoia, I think, are the very best in the world at.

AI assessment note: “because who wants a founder that changes his or her mind”

Q Deal is trusted by over 40,000 businesses. Learn how they can help your business today by going to deal.com forward slash Senra. That is deal.com forward slash Senra. So looking forward, you're on day 91. Like, what are you, what is going to, you think, occupy most of your time in the next 30, 60, 90 days? Like, what is on your mind right now? If you're not looking backwards.

A Looking for investments. Because at the end of the day, it doesn't matter if it helps the CORE during a crucible type moment and so on, as I said, it's going to matter what's on that sheet of paper or what I've done in the first year. So, We have a little thing we do on Mondays called MIT, the most important thing for the week, and everybody talks about, I've got to do this, and my, I had nothing going on, I just came back from vacation. I don't think I have, I don't think anybody ever said they have nothing going on. I mean, it takes guts to say in front of nine people, I have zero going on. My MIT is to go scrounge, I use that word, for deals. And that means getting on the phone, calling people I know, networking like crazy, and try to intercept some kind of very nice investments. It's one of the 21 of the 30 that I want to make in my lifetime.

AI assessment note: “Looking for investments.”

Q So, so when we go back to this idea that you said earlier, where it's like, hey, you know, some of these other traits that other venture people, you know, don't like in founders, I love, I'm very attracted to them. Going back to the founder of NewBank, did he have those founder traits?

A He had a, a combination of smarts, drive, clarity of thought, toughness, goodness, judgment, Mature way behind, way, way beyond his years, his, his years. Look, um, here's what I have to tell you. We interview people And Mike Moritz had a great line, called them half pagers or full pagers. You interview someone, you write a half page, there's nothing else to write. You're, you're there, 30 minutes, you look and you watch, God, I can't believe, you know, I'm done. And then you have people that you look at, you watch, and it's an hour has gone by and you can't believe it. And David was one of them. And I remember talking to him, the hour flew by, and it was clear to me that We love this person, and he tells the story to show you how Sequoia works. I said, yeah, there's somebody else that wants you to meet. He makes it to his car, and his phone rang, and it was Mike Moritz. He didn't make it out of the parking lot. That's how fast we moved. We pulled him right back in, and Mike met him, and within two minutes, Mike and I knew that we were going to hire this kid, and I had interviewed 10, 15 people from Brazil. They all looked the same. There were all these super smart, fine, wonderful, Uh, guys and girls, they all went in consulting, because that, that's how you self-select in these, in these new markets. That's, I, I saw it in India, uh, and so on. Uh, but they all looked the sam…

AI assessment note: “He had a, a combination of smarts, drive, clarity of thought, toughness”

Q On how to get feedback? I don't know if this is, this is the art you were talking about, but shit sandwich is like compliment, which you add the negative feedback, and then another compliment. That's why they call it the shit sandwich.

A Yeah, well, I don't know how to do that. If anything, the mistake I make is I'm too direct. I remember, ah, there was a venture guy, Jim Breyer. I heard him turning down an investment once, and I said, oh my god, the, the founders are gonna walk away from this thinking he won the freaking lottery. And I don't know how to do that, and I, I was always admirers of how he could do that. And, ah, Yeah, I'm more direct. I hear people talking on the phone for 20 minutes, 30 minutes. My conversations are three, four, three, four minutes at most. You know, hi, what do you need? This and that. Done. Ok, yes, I got it. Alright, I'll let you know.

AI assessment note: “Yeah, well, I don't know how to do that. If anything, the mistake I make is I'm too direct.”

Q finance team faster and happier. Many of the top founders and CEOs I know Run their business on ramp. I run my business on ramp and you should to go to ramp.com to learn how they can help your business save time, save money and grow revenue. That is ramp.com. You mentioned inducing, the importance of inducing misery into your kids' lives. Do you still induce misery into your own?

A Yeah, no. I've gone full cycle and have spoiled myself with material things. Realized they don't make me happy at all. Got rid of a whole bunch of material things. I sold my fancy cars at a great discount. I just went and gone. It was one day I woke up. I just didn't want to have Cars with vowels and at the end of the name. I just got rid of them. I just wanted a more simple life. I wanted to, uh, to start to enjoy the little things in life. Now, having said that, I do have toys. I don't want to make sound like I'm leaving the life, I'm leading the life of a monk, but I have shattered assets on purpose just to simplify my life. And if you will get down to the really important things in life, which are really at the end of the day, Is your family and friends. That's really the most important thing.

AI assessment note: “I don't want to make sound like I'm leading the life of a monk”