Acquired
Sequoia Capital (Part 1)
Every company has a story.
Learn the playbooks that built the world’s greatest companies — and how you can apply them.
Show Notes
Acquired dives into the history behind storied venture firm Sequoia Capital and its legendary founder, Don Valentine. Part 1 tells Don’s story, starting from humble beginnings born to uneducated parents in Yonkers, NY, through shaping the fabric of Silicon Valley first as head of Sales & Marketing at both Fairchild and National Semiconductor, and then for generations to come via his pioneering concept of “company building” at Sequoia Capital. No matter where you sit in the ecosystem today, Don and the companies he helped build laid the foundation for nearly everything technology has become over the past 60 years.
Sponsors:
WorkOS: https://bit.ly/workos25
Intapp: https://bit.ly/intappceleste
Sentry: https://bit.ly/acquiredsentry
Anthropic: https://bit.ly/acquiredclaude25
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Links:
Silicon Valley’s “Traitorous Eight”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traitorous_eight
Don Valentine’s lecture at Stanford GSB: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKN-abRJMEw&t=2555s
Berkeley’s oral history with Don: http://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/roho/ucb/text/valentine_donald.pdf
Carve Outs:
Ben: The Business Roundtable on The Daily: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/21/podcasts/the-daily/business-roundtable-corporate-responsibility.html
David: Amazon Music on 25 years of “Ready to Die”: https://youtu.be/Dsna1nIZzB4
Sources:
http://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/roho/ucb/text/valentine_donald.pdf
http://www.ianhathaway.org/blog/2019/7/31/vc-an-american-history
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