Reed: Effective board members act as emotional shock absorbers
Andrew Reed · Andrew Reed on Sequoia and How to Be a World-Class VC · Mar 28, 2025 · at 14:48
Sequoia Capital partner Andrew Reed discusses Sequoia Senior Partner Roelof Botha's philosophy of board governance.
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“And then there's this concept that Roloff talks about a lot of being a shock absorber on the board, which is something that I really, really believe in. You know, when things are going well, many board members love to do the rah-rah cheerleading board meetings. ... And then similarly, when things are going poorly You know, and poorly is almost always relative, right? But, you know, you can have a company that in a vacuum is doing amazing. We come in at 80% of plan and everyone's ho hum in the board meeting. You know, it's like, oh, and then we need to change our strategy. We need to change this executive. We need to, as always, we need to fire the VP of sales. Like, you know, I think oftentimes the best thing you can do is just like cause everyone to take a deep breath.”
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