Notes on Doug Leone (Sequoia)

Venture capital is all about figuring out which questions are the right questions to ask, and since we don’t have a clue what the right answer is, we’re very interested in the process by which the entrepreneur get to the conclusion that he offers. Our business is a business of highly intuitive decision making and that fact that it’s done in a scientific area doesn’t make it scientifically practical to make decisions that way… - Doug Leone

Ambition

• Write your value in pen, write your strategy and tactics in pencil.
• We want people who come from humble backgrounds and have a need to win.
• In a globalized world, one application can spread like wildfire and there’s only one winning company, which means you have to invest more than you’ve ever had.
• We like companies that can get big and powerful on $50 million or less and not two, three, four or five billion.
• ==Give me an entrepreneur with a lot of courage, gusto and who iterates rapidly, and I will back that person day in and day out.==

Clear

• You have to be willing to risk things; otherwise, somebody else will put you out of business.
• Crystal-clear thinking is one of the things we look for - not a fancy slide pitch, but crystal-clear thinking
• ==“If you’re a crystal-clear thinker, doing nothing is risky.”==
• It’s tough to have both vision which needs pause time and execution which needs go time.
• “If it ain’t broke, you better break it.” -Doug on accelerating change
• “Focus on building eulogy traits. The traits that people will remember you for, after you are gone.”

Fav book: Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder