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Acquired

Special: Sequoia Capital's Investment Playbook (with Alfred Lin)

Acquired

Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal

Venturecapital, Ma, Investing, Acquisitions, Startups, Vc, Investment, Business, Technology

4.8 • 2.9K Ratings

🗓️ 1 February 2021

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

We cover Sequoia Capital a lot on this show. Not only across our now four(!) dedicated episodes, but across a stunning nearly 50% of recent season companies where Sequoia was a primary or only investor — the most of any venture firm by an enormous margin. Today in this very special episode, we dive into the principles that have led to the firm's 49 years of unparalleled success in venture, and the playbook behind how they identify markets and companies that create outcomes worthy of the firm's namesake tree.

If you love Acquired and want more, join our LP Community for access to over 50 LP-only episodes, monthly Zoom calls, and live access for big events like emergency pods and book club discussions with authors. We can't wait to see you there. Join here at: https://acquired.fm/lp/

Sponsors:
Vanta: https://bit.ly/acquiredvanta

Statsig: bit.ly/statsigacquired
Modern Treasury: https://bit.ly/acquiredmoderntreasury


The Sequoia Capital Playbook is available on our website at https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/special-sequoia-capitals-investment-playbook-with-alfred-lin


Links:

Transcript

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0:00.0

I'm Ben Gilbert and I am the co-founder of Pioneer Square Labs a startup studio and venture capital firm in Seattle

0:08.9

Oh, that's me and I'm David Rosenthal. Welcome to this special episode of Acquired, the podcast about great technology

0:27.2

companies and the stories and playbooks behind them. I'm Ben Gilbert and

0:31.2

I'm the co-founder of Pioneer Square Labs a startup studio and venture capital firm in Seattle

0:36.2

And I'm David Rosenthal and I am an angel investor based in San Francisco and we are your hosts.

0:44.0

Sequoia Capital needs almost no introduction.

0:48.0

When we did the comprehensive two-part series on their history,

0:51.0

we noted that they had invested early in companies that went on to be worth over $3.3 trillion.

0:58.0

At the time, the market cap of the entire NASDAQ was about $10 trillion.

1:02.0

I'm sure both of these numbers are dramatically. higher NASDAQ was about $10 trillion.

1:02.8

I'm sure both of these numbers are dramatically higher right now

1:06.0

as we record this in January of 2021.

1:09.2

At the end of last year, we saw a Sequoia double-headed

1:12.0

in the two enormous IPOs of Door Dash and AirB&B.

1:15.8

Alfred Lynn, a partner at Sequoia, sits on not one but both of these boards.

1:21.2

And as pointed out by Dan Primac at Axios, these were his first two IPOs after his decade at Sequoia. It certainly

1:28.5

pays to be patient. So after that we couldn't help ourselves but reach out to Alfred to have him back on acquired and ask the questions.

1:35.5

How does Sequoia identify these investment opportunities?

1:38.8

What is the internal playbook for creating their famous prepared mind to evaluate such opportunities when they come along.

1:45.0

And today, we dive into what this all means in practice at Sequoia, and we take a few lessons from what they've learned in over 49 years of finding and building great companies.

1:57.5

So David, who is Alfred?

1:59.7

49 years.

...

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