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 7 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
Lin: Sequoia's Most Successful Fund Had a 50% Write-Off Rate
“I work in a business where our most successful fund had a 50% write-off rate.”
Lin: Sequoia measures success by LP distributions, not AUM
“The thing that we measure is being a net liquidity provider to our LPs. So we believe in alignment of interests, and we think about founders first, then LPs, then Sequoia, then our team, and then ourselves. And when you do that, we actually measure how much we…”
Lin: Airbnb, DoorDash, Snowflake, and Square drove Sequoia's $43B distribution
“Airbnb, DoorDash, Unity, Snowflake I'm sure I'm missing a few others. Mongo, Square.”
Lin: Sequoia's legendary wall threshold rose from $100M to over $1B
“When I first got here, So Sequoia what was required to get onto that wall was a hundred million dollar gain. Today it's a, it's, it is in excess of the billion dollar gain.”
Alfred Lin: Sequoia partners make only 1-2 investments per year
“Each partner only makes one or two investments per partner per year.”
Lin: Airbnb raised debt instead of equity in 2020 to avoid dilution
“Obviously we needed to raise money. Do we do it in equity? Do we do it in debt? Equity would be very punitive at that time. We decided to do it in debt.”
Lin: Sequoia spent 2.5 years pursuing Ken Griffin before Citadel deal
“Our partner, Constantine, met Ken at a conference. And went up to Ken and talked to him and struck, developed a relationship. And over time, I think it's over like two and a half years where he kept asking Ken, could we ever invest in Citadel Securities? And I…”