20VC: Sequoia's Pat Grady on What Sequoia Is Focused On Today, How Sequoia Think About Investment Decision-Making Processes & Why It Is Important To Trade A Few Points of Efficiency for Culture When It Comes To Attribution
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 637 Ratings
🗓️ 1 July 2019
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Pat Grady is a Partner @ Sequoia, one of the world's leading and most renowned venture firms with a portfolio including WhatsApp, Zoom, Stripe, Airbnb, Github and many more incredible companies. As for Pat, at Sequoia he co-leads the firms growth investment team and has been involved with some of the true greats, Hubspot, Zoom, Okta, Qualtrics, the list goes on. Prior to Sequoia Pat spent three years with Summit Partners.
In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How Pat made his way from Summit Partners to co-leading Sequoia's growth investment team? Was it intimidating for Pat entering a partnership with Jim Goetz, Don Valentine, Roelof Botha? How did he manage those nerves?
2.) So many different funds and activities, so what is Sequoia focused on today? Where does Sequoia think about their ideal insertion point today? How do they see the deployment of their blended capital across rounds? Does Pat believe in ownership on first check or building ownership over time? How does Pat think about the extended window of privatisation with IPOs being continuously delayed?
3.) Does Pat believe that VC really is a team sport today? Does Pat agree with Josh Kopelman's statement, "I would rather be a better picker of partners than investments"? What are the core requirements, skills and traits that Sequoia looks for when adding to their partnership?
4.) What is the investment decision-making process at Sequoia? How do they feel about unanimity vs conviction based investment decisions? What are the pros and cons of each? What does Pat believe is the most non-obvious investment decision that Sequoia have made? Sequoia run an incredibly rigorous process when investing, how does Pat balance between that level of rigour with the speed to win the deal?
5.) What advice would Pat give to someone that has just gained their first institutional board? What does Pat know now that he wishes he had known when he started in VC? How does Pat think about time allocation across the portfolio? Concentrate on winners or the strugglers are where your reputation is built? Leading Sequoia Growth and with a beautiful family, how does Pat approach work/life balance?
Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:
Pat’s Fave Book: God Friended Me
Pat’s Most Recent Investment: Embark: Revolutionizing Commercial Transport
As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Pat on Twitter here!
Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You are listening to The 20 Minute VC with me, Harry Stebbings, at H. Stebbings, 1996 with 2Bs on |
| 0:05.1 | Instagram, and I have said it time and time again, but for me, the biggest joy of doing the 20 |
| 0:09.3 | minute VC is building relationships and friendships with people I respect and who inspire me. |
| 0:14.3 | Today's guest I had on the show over two and a half years ago, since he's been hugely |
| 0:18.1 | supportive and kind to me, and I'm forever grateful for that. |
| 0:24.9 | And so to this mystery guest today, and I'm thrilled to welcome back to the hot seat, Pat Grady, |
| 0:29.1 | partner at Sequoia, one of the world's leading and most renowned venture firms, with a portfolio including the likes of WhatsApp, Zoom, Stripe, Airbnb, GitHub, and many more incredible |
| 0:34.7 | companies. As for Pat, at Sequoia, he co-leads the firm's growth investment |
| 0:38.3 | team and has been involved with some of the true grace, including HubSpot, Zoom, Octa, Qualtrix. |
| 0:43.6 | The list really goes on. Prior to to Sequoia, Pat spent three years at Summit Partners, |
| 0:47.3 | and I do also want to say a huge thank you both to Frederick and Octor and to Dan Shinerman |
| 0:51.2 | for some fantastic questions suggestions today. I really do so appreciate that. |
| 0:55.5 | But before we get into the episode today, I'd like to give a big shout out to my friends over |
| 0:59.0 | at Multiple. Widly regarded as the go-to firm for game-changing companies when it comes to |
| 1:03.2 | building your brand, crafting your culture, and gearing up your growth. They've worked with |
| 1:07.2 | breakthrough companies such as We Transfer, P drive, mix cloud, unbables, |
| 1:11.5 | Signal and Kalo. And when we set up Stride.VC, they were the first call we made to help us get our |
| 1:16.5 | story straight. And what makes multiple really special is their empathy for and experience of the |
| 1:21.2 | entrepreneurial journey. That's because they've actually been on the front line themselves, |
| 1:24.9 | backing, building and growing, and even selling businesses |
| 1:27.7 | as founders, operators and investors. So drop them a line at Grow at we are multiple.com |
| 1:33.0 | with the subject line 20 minute VC or head over to we are multiple.com and find out more. |
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