How Sequoia Capital’s Roelof Botha is forging the future
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Welcome to Goldman Sachs Exchange's Great Investors. I'm Ken Hirsch, cochairman of the Global Technology, Media, and Telecom Group and head of venture capital coverage within Goldman Sachs's Global Banking and Markets business. Today, I have the great pleasure of speaking to Roelof Botha, the managing partner of Sequoia Capital. Born in South Africa, Roelof has become one of Silicon Valley's most highly respected investors, while Sequoia is perhaps the most storied venture capital firm on earth. Founded in 1972, Sequoia backed companies now make up more than a quarter of the Nasdaq's market ca
Thank you very much for hosting me and for inviting me to have this conversation. So you grew up
in South Africa where you excelled as a student and trained as an actuary. You became the CFO of PayPal at the age of 29, where you helped lead the company through an IPO and then an acquisition. But then you left for Sequoia. What can you share about your journey from South Africa to PayPal? And what led you to transition from pursuing a career as an operator to venture capital investing? So
let me take a step back. I finished high school in 1990 Yeah. Which is the year that the ANC was unbanned and Nelson Mandela was released. And at that time, it was unclear that South Africa would have a peaceful transition of power, and the future of the country just seemed very uncertain. So I decided to study actuarial science because it was a ticket out of the country. I've actually became a British qualified actuary. And then McKinsey opened an office in South Africa, and it gave me an opportunity to work for an international firm. South Africa had suffered sanctions from 1985 until the el
it an extensive interview process?
Yes. That's excruciating. 1 on 1 interviews, second interviews with the same partners, 2 on 1 interviews, which is why I said I really didn't think I didn't meet the spec and I was a bit of an unusual person for the role they were looking for. And I know it's just incredibly lucky that they gave me the opportunity. I was really pinching myself after I joined, wondering when they were going to figure out that I wasn't the right match for the need. And the reason I interviewed Sequoia, firstly, I didn't interview any other venture firm. Mhmm. It was the only firm where I took meetings.
But you'd known them through PayPal?
It was partly because of that experience of seeing the impact that Michael had as a board member at PayPal. Mhmm. The Sequoia partners, him in particular, engaged very differently from anybody else. His ability to help us look around corners was just unrivaled. And then the engagement from the Sequoia partnership with the PayPal management team as we were company building, again, was distinctive from anything else that I'd seen, including the marketing partner at Sequoia helping us refine our IPO pitch, our ability to do a rehearsal presentation at the Sequoia partnership before Peter and I la
So let's talk about culture. In particular, what about Sequoia's culture really attracted you as you were evaluating whether to join the firm?
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