20VC: Sequoia's Doug Leone on What Has Been Instrumental To Scaling Sequoia Over Generations, How Sequoia Think About International Expansion and What They Learned From China and India & Why When You Lose Pre-Seed You Become Private Equity

**Harry Stebbings** (0:00)
Welcome back to 20VC with me, Harry Stebbings. And today is likely one of the most excited and proud that I've been to release an episode, an incredible individual. And so I'm very honored to welcome Doug Leone, global managing partner at Sequoia Capital, one of the world's most renowned and successful venture firms with a portfolio including the likes of Google, Airbnb, WhatsApp, Stripe, Zoom, and many more incredible companies. As for Doug, he joined Sequoia over 33 years ago and has led investments in Nubank, Meraki, ServiceNow, and TradeRepublic, to name a few. But before we move into the show today, I just love using AngelList's Fund Admin platform to manage my investments. The team in the platform with AngelList takes care of all my back office needs so that I can focus on working with great founders. Leading fund managers have made over 10,000 investments into 6,000 startups via AngelList, all online and all in one place. And with the recently announced Rolling Funds, you can easily find and invest in these top fund managers on angellist.com forward slash Rolling. And Harness is the next generation of wealth management solution created for builders, individuals, founding, scaling, and investing in businesses. Are you approaching a liquidity event and looking for expertise on how to navigate stock sales, receiving your K1 partnership updates and wondering whether there is a better tax firm to help you or simply need tax advice on your crypto holdings? Harness helps tech employees and investors find the optimal solutions for their finances. Their algorithms helps identify the right services for your needs and recommends the right advisors for you. Harness has helped founders and early employees at companies like Stripe, UiPath, Affirm, Coinbase and Plaid capture more value with their finances. Simply go to harnesswealth.com forward slash 20VC to sign up. Plus, 20 Minute VC listeners receive $100 off their first year fees when they sign up for an advisor on the Harness platform by entering 20 Minute VC. And finally, let's face it, this new world of remote work is here to stay. And so are all of the new headaches that come with running a remote team. Rippling helps fast growing startups automate their HR and IT. And now they're making it super easy to manage employees and contractors anywhere. When you hire people in new states, Rippling can now automatically register your startup with each state tax agency and keep you compliant with all of the different local labor laws. From there, Rippling lets you onboard new hires in literally 90 seconds. You can instantly set up people's payroll, benefits and all of their apps like Slack and GitHub. And so if you're looking for an easier way to run your startup remotely or just a better way to manage your HR and IT, visit rippling.com forward slash two zero VC. That's rippling.com forward slash two zero VC. That is quite enough from me though. So now I'm so, so excited and proud to welcome Doug Leone, Global Managing Partner at Sequoia Capital.

**Doug Leone** (2:42)
You have now arrived at your destination.

**Harry Stebbings** (2:45)
Doug, this is such an honor to do. I mean, it's a far cry from breakfast at the corner, but I cannot thank you enough for joining me today. So really appreciate you taking the time.

**Doug Leone** (2:52)
It's my pleasure and honor to be here.

**Harry Stebbings** (2:54)
I would love to start today though. What an incredible 33 year journey with Sequoia, but I did my research before this and Pratt's Guide to Venture Capital, 5 p.m. meeting with Don Valentine. How did you get it and how did the meeting go? What did Don ask?

**Doug Leone** (3:08)
Well, some of the training for that cold call came from my sales days.
And when you sold computers back in the late 70s, you had to get past what was then called the secretary to get to someone who might have a budget. And so it was really no different. And the lady who answered the phone, she was not a secretary. I did not know that she was the right hand person of Don Valentine. She was a shrewd, tough, great sense of humor, a New Yorker who would not be bullshitted, if you will, by anybody. We started the call. I quickly sensed what she was. And we had an honest and real conversation, a firm conversation between two people who had spent a lot of time in New York, and we hit it off. And I was told afterwards that she walked into Don's office, and she said, this kid may have something you might want to interview. And that's what led to my 5 p.m. Monday meeting with Don Valentine.