I started writing about company-building frameworks and principles about 18 months ago to share with Team
@Sequoia
. I'm now sharing them more widely in the hope that they provide you with the provocation to get better at getting better. Learn more at
Today is a sad day! The world lost a pioneer of company culture, the shoe industry, Downtown LV, web advertising, and also a gentle soul who gave a part of himself to countless people. We'll remember Tony for that and the happiness he brought to so many people. RIP Tony Hsieh.
Today’s swift and unanimous verdict confirms what we already knew: that SBF misled and deceived so many, from customers and employees to business partners and investors, including myself and Sequoia.
1/ Huge congrats to the
@DoorDash
team on today’s IPO! As the team celebrates today's milestone, I thought it would be fun to take a walk down memory lane. Here’s a snapshot of the internal memo I published on DoorDash in 2014, just before our Series A partnership.
Your contributions at
@OpenAI
forever changed the way we work and live. They are truly legendary for humanity.
Look forward to the next world-changing companies that
@sama
and
@gdb
build.
What seeds should I plant today? My partner
@roelofbotha
sent this quote around
@sequoia
:
"Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.”
– Robert Louis Stevenson
Have been wearing my
@sequoia
luck socks all week. My big boss (wife) suggested that I might want to change them, but my little boss (10 year old) asked why not buy more pairs of them if they are lucky?!?
Happy Birthday,
#tonyhsieh
! Your friends are remembering you today, celebrating your life, and reminiscing about the powerful impact you had on them. A day down memory lane that mixed laughter, tears, and joy. Happy 47th!
Over the last few days, the world witnessed what makes
@sama
and
@gdb
outlier founders. We’ve been inspired by their unwavering optimism and commitment to their mission & impact. We’re excited to see what the brilliant
@OpenAI
team builds next. We are proud to be their partners.
i love openai, and everything i’ve done over the past few days has been in service of keeping this team and its mission together. when i decided to join msft on sun evening, it was clear that was the best path for me and the team. with the new board and w satya’s support, i’m…
Amazing Day for all stakeholders of
@Airbnb
. Started 2020 as the IPO candidate of the year, paused, stared down the abyss of a global pandemic, pivoted, accelerated out of the depths, and is today 2020's IPO of the Year!
Congratulations on 15 years! Team
@Sequoia
is incredibly proud to have been your partner since your seed round, and we look forward to seeing what the next 15 years hold for
@Airbnb
.
Be great..seek truth.
”Average players want to be left alone. Good players want to be coached. Great players want to be told the truth."
- Nick Saban, 7-time National Champion, Head Football Coach at Alabama (via
@GuptaRK22
)
“There’s been such a focus on victim ideology for so long and such a…limited focus on actually reading texts. When these university presidents want to say these issues are too complex…I mean, we have…raped girls, stolen, kidnapped grandmas, we have a massacre at a concert, we…
University of Florida President and former Sen. Ben Sasse railed against the silence by some universities on Israel’s ongoing conflict with Palestinian militant group Hamas.
“This isn’t morally complex. It’s easy to condemn evil as evil.”
1/ Applications are open for the latest
@Sequoia
Arc America cohort. People often ask us what areas we're most interested in. The honest answer is that there isn't one. 🧵 👇
The saddest part is
@chesaboudin
won’t even answer the hard questions at his own press conference and relied on his communications handlers to deflect. I still live in SF and have fled for Los Angeles, Miami, or NYC (where I grew up), but it is time to recall
@chesaboudin
“There has to be consequences…there is a lack of consequences…officers only make arrests in fewer than 2% of all car break-ins throughout the city [of San Francisco].” Complete failure of SF criminal justice system &
@chesaboudin
Immediately after FTX collapsed, we extensively reviewed our due diligence process and evaluated our 18-month working relationship with SBF. We concluded that we had been deliberately misled and lied to.
1/ We’re excited to open applications for a new cohort of
@Sequoia
’s company-building immersion, Arc.
If you’re a pre-seed or seed founder from the Americas or UK/Europe and are interested in joining the Sequoia family, here’s some of what we look for in applications. 👇
1/ We’ve been busy reviewing
@Sequoia
Arc applications and are inspired by the ideas shared and the promising future they reflect.
If you’re a founder and haven’t yet applied, there’s still time! The deadline for applications is Sunday, February 5th at 11:59PM PT. 🧵👇
Flashback to meeting
@bchesky
,
@jgebbia
&
@nathanblec
, they simply told a story of a world that is very different than what existed. What they wanted was a "better way to travel" & where you "belong anywhere." Thank you for allowing
@sequoia
to embrace your adventure since 2009!
Since Day 1, the
@Airbnb
founders had the imagination to envision a world where hosts and guests who had never met could build trust and a sense of belonging. Congrats to
@bchesky
@jgebbia
@nathanblec
and thank you for allowing us to join the adventure.
Take note, this is extraordinary leadership! Thank you
@MayorNYC
@ericadamsfornyc
Proud to be from NYC.
"We are not alright…Your fight is our fight. Right here in New York, we have the largest Jewish population outside of Israel. This is the place that our voices must raise…
Patience is a virtue. We believe it’s also smart business.
The traditional 10-year VC fund cycle no longer makes sense for today’s world, or tomorrow’s founders.
Introducing The Sequoia Fund.
(1/2)
Even after a decade, I continue to learn from
@airbnb
. Listen to
@jgebbia
today: "Some will love your idea. Some won’t. Who cares? Move on...The gift of the entrepreneur is the ability to take rejection and turn it into an invitation." Thank you
@airbnb
for inviting
@sequoia
!
Once in a while, a team comes along changing the way companies build and find their first customers.
@PrologueXYZ
is one such example. We are proud to be partners! Read about how they’re bringing distribution and world-class advisors to startups:
In the last year, we have had to remain quiet while the prosecution built its case and through the trial period. We are pleased that the trial is over.
I am horrified by the atrocities occurring in Israel and the surrounding region. Slaughtering innocent civilians is never the answer. My heart goes out to those affected, and I pray for peace.
“There has to be consequences…there is a lack of consequences…officers only make arrests in fewer than 2% of all car break-ins throughout the city [of San Francisco].” Complete failure of SF criminal justice system &
@chesaboudin
Watch this video of the hard-working, noble, & unsupported
@SFPD
calling out the incompetent
@chesaboudin
TO HIS FACE 😯 — and Chesa’s inability to even respond!
Well done
@BigadShaban
👏
Congrats to
@Airbnb
for all that you’ve accomplished in your first decade. We
@sequoia
are so very proud to be your business partners since your seed round. May your second decade be even more amazing than your first.
Founders sometimes tell us they’re afraid of signaling risk if they partner with Sequoia too early, but we’ve found the opposite to be true. There is actually a signaling advantage! Companies who partner with Sequoia at the seed are 4x more likely to raise a Series A.
For nearly 50 years, Sequoia has partnered early and our commitment to idea-stage companies hasn’t wavered. Check out some fast facts on our recent seed investments.
.
@FTX_Official
is the high-quality, global crypto exchange the world needs, and it has the potential to become the leading financial exchange for all types of assets. We
@sequoia
are honored to partner with
@SBF_Alameda
and the team on this journey.
Wonderful wisdom from Belinda Johnson
@airbnb
: Instead of starting with the problem, start from the outcome you want and work backward. Envision what you want the world to look like and then figure out how to get there. [via
@sequoia
's newsletter]
After hearing a number of positive reports, I took 3
@waymo
rides this weekend in SF, including one at night in the rain. The consumer product experience is magical where I can have a private conversation or jam to my music while enjoying a smooth ride.
The caution of the autonomous vehicle company Waymo, once seen as a weakness, is starting to pay off. There are lessons there for AI,
@DaveLeeBBG
says via
@opinion
Congratulations to Team
@DoorDash
. Today is a testament to your differentiated strategy and operating at the lowest levels of details at the start and $DASH-ed past all your competitors.
@sequoia
and I are very fortunate to be part of your journey and look forward to what's next!
Nizeyimana of
@zipline
derives his drive from the sheer improbability of his survival: “If I got another chance...what should I use the second chance for? Serving the community and making an impact on other people’s lives is what makes sense for me.”
Things that Schools should teach: 🧠
• Being wrong is not a bad thing.
• It's Okay to question what you have been taught.
• Grades aren't as valuable as skills.
• Understanding is more important than memorization.
• Making mistakes is Okay. Learn from your mistakes.
“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex. It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage - to move in the opposite direction.”
― E. F. Schumacher, Small is Beautiful
Sign of the times: Best moral clarity has come from a comedian, a German Vice Chancellor, America’s top 20 law firms, a Democratic black NY congressman & Senator Fetterman. Honorable appearance for Arnold, but that wasn’t a shock.
We are proud to partner with
@citsecurities
alongside
@paradigm
to further Citadel Securities’ mission to solve some of the most complex and worthwhile market challenges of our time.
Local restaurants are the fabric of our communities and employ over 15M people across the country. Let's continue to support restaurants who are
#OpenForDelivery
, like one my favorites, Pizzeria Delfina:
🧵 This week
@Sequoia
launched our 5th seed fund to support the next gen of early-stage founders & opened applications for our seed-stage catalyst, Arc. There are incredible opportunities for innovation in so many sectors, but there's one I'm particularly excited about. 🧵 👇
“Every company will have some kind of AI angle around it, and it won’t be seen as an AI company,” Zhan said. “It will be seen as a company solving a particular domain or problem space that they’re focused on, with AI as an accelerator.”
As a mother of two,
@EllenJDaSilva
understands firsthand what’s broken about health care, especially pediatrics. She,
@MatthewEdanWoo
& the
@JoinSummer
team are on a mission to fix it.
Saturday Reflections: If you want to be the best, work with demanding and supportive people.
"Far from being contradictory, being demanding and supportive are inextricably linked. It’s the way you are when you believe in someone more than they believe in themselves."
@GuptaRK22
The best leaders are (both) demanding and supportive.
(As a bonus, I would bet this is the only thing you'll read today that talks about Mike Moritz, my parents, and Game of Thrones)
We're constantly dreaming of what's possible. Every quarter, we hold a Blue Sky Session to imagine the future together so that we are prepared to see it before others might. Help us imagine. What trends/technologies should we be paying attention to? Reply below👇
#PreparedMind
OH @ hotel bar: "just met a company that is going to launch a token and then an exchange and then a platform for frictionless payment." I thought I left the Bay Area for a reason, and seriously, how many freaking useless buzzwords can you drop in one sentence.
#ridiculous
Congrats,
@michelle_fradin
, on your next adventure.
@sama
and
@OpenAI
team, you are fortunate to have her! Good luck fulfilling your inspiring mission.
Today marks a step forward in the future of retail:
@faire_wholesale
and
@Shopify
announced a global partnership that unlocks opportunities for small business growth on a much larger scale. Learn more here:
Thoughts of a math nerd:
@apartovi
means the probability
@sama
returns to
@openai
as CEO is 88% (from screenshot). To convert from a probability to odds, divide the probability by one minus that probability. Therefore, the odds are 7.3:1. You can indeed buy insurance on
@kalshi
.
Odds are 88% that Sam returns to OpenAI, according to
@Kalshi
trading markets.
This means anybody who wants him to return can buy "insurance" and earn 9x if he doesn't.
Thrilled for the debut of
#BoardXcelerate
, a program launching today from
@AllRaise
that helps private companies build boards that represent the world around us – in under 90 days. We
@Sequoia
are proud to be a founding partner.
If you want to build an enduring company, take these words to heart: "We built a dream together. And now, after all of these years, we still continue to dream." Many thanks to
@jgebbia
@nathanblec
@bchesky
@Airbnb
for the reminder.
If you solve hard problems nobody else can solve and are patient, you can build a tremendous company over time. Hear how Jensen Huang took
@nvidia
from pioneering GPUs to powering the AI revolution:
We help the daring build legendary companies. Few are more daring than
@FTX_Official
founder and CEO
@SBF_FTX
Learn more about Sam, his journey, and his mission to build a better future below.
It’s selfish not to go for broke—if you’re planning on giving it all away in the end, anyway.
@FTX_Official
founder and CEO
@SBF_FTX
is on a mission to maximize the total happiness of the future
Resilience combined with a maniacal focus on the customer (merchants, consumers, dashers), on different strategy (suburbs), and willingness to understand and operate at the lowest levels (unit economics, cohort retention, neighborhood profitability) you get
@DoorDash
/ $DASH
We've admired
@DoorDash
's resilience & clear vision since we first partnered in 2014. Today, we share the story of how the team's customer-obsession guided them through crucible moments on their journey to becoming the leader in US local food delivery.
Thrilled to partner with
@kalshi_official
to unlock a new chapter in financial markets: trading on event outcomes. Can't imagine a better time to offer people a new way to trade.
We’re beyond thrilled to announce our $30M Series A led by
@Sequoia
, and to welcome
@alfred_lin
to our board! Together, we’re unlocking the next step for financial markets: trading on events.
What is the scale of your ambition? Arc is for seed-stage founders actively working on an idea or product and with the ambition of building a category-defining company that will endure for the next decade.
To learn more and apply 👉
Introducing Arc, a seed-stage catalyst for outlier founders.
🌱15 companies
🗓8 weeks
💰$1M up-front investment
Apply now for our European cohort (US coming soon) 👉
The IPO is just a financing event and just the beginning of another chapter of
@Airbnb
and
@bchesky
future. Look for “I made many things people want” in the next decade.
We’re trying an experiment today: auctioning our 2005 YouTube memo as an NFT. Anyone can bid from now through 12/7, and proceeds will benefit
@0xPARC
’s public ecosystem fund. The winner will have 100% ownership.
I have known
@RonConway
as a friend, co-investor (
@Airbnb
to
@Zappos
), founder whisperer, and philanthropist for over 2 decades. He is incredible in all those dimensions.
I've been reaching out to many of the people who supported Airbnb in our earliest days to say thanks. While there are a number of people who believed in us, without Ron Conway, Airbnb wouldn't be what it is today.
Excited to share that Sequoia led the Series A for
@bankonfound
. Thrilled to partner with Lauren, Connor and the entire team at Found as they work to demystify banking, bookkeeping and taxes for the over 60M self-employed people in the US!
What should it look like when humans and robots work together?
@BradPorter_
and his team at Cobot are building the future we want to see. We’re thrilled to partner with them and lead their Series A.
Around
@sequoia
,
@vickie_ish
is known to ask: “What problem are you trying to solve?” She has an innate ability to cut through the BS.
Hear her &
@HarryStebbings
break down the key components of a strong product foundation and the Arc PMF framework.
We won't forget yesterday as our democracy was assaulted & a permanent stain marked our Capitol. We should also not forget that in the end democracy and the will of the people won. I remain hopeful that we will learn from this and there are more that unites us than divide us.
Big news:
@zipline
expands its drone delivery service to Ghana, providing 12M people with instant access to vital medical supplies. We
@sequoia
are honored to work with
@kellerrinaudo
& team.
#ZiplineGhana
Brendan Kennedy's advice, “your company is not your stock and your stock is not your company," is good advice during good and bad times & akin to Ben Graham: “In the short run, the market is a voting machine but in the long run, it is a weighing machine.”
The new
@Zipline
"fixed-wing drone can carry up to 3.85 lb. at 80 m.p.h. for up to 100 miles per round-trip, making it the fastest—and most efficient—commercial delivery drone in the world" and one of
@TIME
best inventions of 2018.
If you are a fintech or lender and haven’t used
@truework
before, it’s definitely time to look them up. They now have 20 of the top 25 mortgage lenders in the country on its platform.
We believe in instant, accessible and accurate consumer financial data. This $50M Series C investment will help us connect more customers to borrowers and continue empowering both sides of the verification equation.
#lending
#fintech
2/ Customer empathy:
@t_xu
grew up washing dishes in restaurants where his mother worked while she saved up for med school. He understood the struggles small-business owners face: how hard it is running a restaurant, how thin the margins are, & how little room there is for error.
Congrats to all the women VCs out there. Thank you for your leadership and driving positive change in areas of diversity and inclusion. Proud to have my partner
@Jesskah
be part of
@allraise
and
@sequoia
.
We’re incredibly excited to announce that Found has raised $60M in equity financing led by
@foundersfund
with participation from new investors,
@lightspeedvp
, and our existing investor,
@sequoia
. Read more at . ✅
Data >> Anecdotes & if we want the creator economy to be the driving force in the future or work we need to radically transform this income distribution. If you have enduring and transformative ideas, reach out to me.
We are obsessed, sometimes unconventionally, with the long term. Thanks
@eriktorenberg
for the opportunity to unpack how the team
@Sequoia
is thinking about the opportunity ahead.
Today we revealed the latest cohort of
@Sequoia
Arc founders. We were blown away by the response and grateful to every founder that applied. We couldn’t be more excited for the friendships, learning, and successes to come.
Today we’re thrilled to open the application for Arc Americas. Arc is a 7-week seed-stage catalyst for outlier founders where we teach the Sequoia way to start, build and scale enduring companies. Apply here:
This year we unveiled Arc, Sequoia’s seed-stage catalyst that helps outlier founders build enduring, category-defining companies. Today, we’re thrilled to open applications for the first Arc Americas cohort. Apply here through July 13
7/ Over the years,
@t_xu
@andyfang
@stanleytang
& team have continually shown a deep understanding of their customers, unparalleled operational efficiency and ongoing resilience. Congratulations on today’s milestone! We look forward to working with DoorDash for many more years.
Excited to share that
@sequoia
led
@OkayHQ
’s seed! Founded by
@tonioab
@tomasrb
, Okay builds dashboards to help eng leaders run high-performing teams. As teams become more distributed, there has never been a greater need for visibility into productivity