After astir a decennary astatine the helm of Sequoia Capital, Roelof Botha volition measurement speech arsenic “steward” of the legendary Silicon Valley VC firm.
Botha—PayPal’s defining aboriginal CFO, who’s present known for backing companies similar YouTube, Instagram, and Block—said Tuesday that helium volition walk the baton to Pat Grady and Alfred Lin.
“They person a fearlessness and resilience that’s indispensable to triumph successful this business,” Botha wrote successful a missive that the steadfast station connected X. “They bash not shy distant from hard conversations, and they rotation up their sleeves to company-build—both with founders and wrong Sequoia.”
Botha, who Fortune profiled past year, has presided implicit a tumultuous play successful the past of Sequoia, which burst into the nationalist astir precocious erstwhile the Financial Times reported that Sequoia COO Sumaiya Balbale resigned owed to posts by Sequoia spouse Shaun Maguire that she considered Islamophobic.
The firm—started successful 1972 by Don Valentine, and a backer successful the aboriginal days of companies similar Atari and Apple—has experienced a fig of large changes implicit caller years: In 2021, Sequoia restructured its United States and European funds into 1 evergreen fund, and 2 years aboriginal divided disconnected its China operations.
Botha, who was named Sequoia’s steward successful 2017, said helium volition modulation into a caller relation advising the partnership, portion continuing to enactment Sequoia connected the boards of startup companies he’s invested in. In making Lin and Grady co-stewards, Sequoia is returning to the palmy look past employed erstwhile partners Michael Moritz and Doug Leone served arsenic co-stewards.
Lin—whose aboriginal vocation astatine Zappos and mathematical inclinations molded him into an aboriginal backer of companies similar Airbnb and DoorDash—has been astatine Sequoia since 2010. Meanwhile, Grady’s been astatine Sequoia since 2007 and made his sanction arsenic a cardinal capitalist successful companies similar Snowflake, Zoom, and Okta.
The brace volition look the contiguous situation of addressing the contention implicit authorities that has roiled the firm, astatine a clip erstwhile galore Silicon Valley task firms are becoming progressively outspoken connected hot-button governmental and culture-war issues.
Sequoia has a longtime argumentation of “institutional neutrality,” portion allowing partners the state to explicit their views individually. But that argumentation has been tested by Maguire’s comments, reportedly starring to discord wrong the firm.
At TechCrunch Disrupt past week, Botha declined to remark extensively connected the controversy, but said of Maguire: “I deliberation helium has made it wide what helium stands for, and there’s a peculiar acceptable of founders for whom it is precise appealing that he’s been arsenic steadfast successful his opinion. Does it travel with tradeoffs? Yes it does.”
Sequoia is 1 of the astir almighty task firms successful Silicon Valley, with $56 cardinal successful assets nether absorption and investments successful startups including OpenAI, SpaceX, Stripe, Ramp, and Chainguard. Last week, the steadfast unveiled 2 caller funds, a $200 cardinal effect money and a $750 cardinal task fund.
When reached for remark Sequoia directed Fortune to its LP letter, and Grady and Lin’s comments connected X.
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