Donald T. Valentine

But I've always found it more difficult to be around people who, I mean, I like them and enjoy being with them, but who appear to be doing nothing.

What did Don Valentine see in you, and what did you see in him?

So Don was the founder of Sequoia.

He took a risk on me around nineteen eighty-five, hired me to join Sequoia when Sequoia was a very small firm.

Okay.

And it's like, just to give the context that I put it, it's like I've got the board, which is just, uh, Jeff Bezos, Steve Jobs, Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz, Don Valentine, and Doug Leone, right? So a mix of like startup, you know, kinda tech leaders and VC leaders.

I have other complementary boards.

You don't have to have just one board, by the way.

Was it Mike Moritz or was it...

I forget it was maybe it was Don Valentine with Jensen Huang was like, if you lose my money, I will kill you.

And that was what was at stake.

You know, there was something at stake between the founder investor understanding where the investment is not a research grant.

So it seemed to me the right thing to do is to get out of the way and let the next generation have their turns at bat.

Don Valentine, he found that he stepped away at around the age of 63.

I figured 65 was the natural age.

And on my 65th birthday, I stepped down.

You should have seen his memos internally, his reports to the limited partners were funny as heck.

It kills me because I read biographies for a living and that 60 page, you know, all these obscure ones that are not, people are not supposed to have, they all come to me anyways, because I do this for a living.

And I sat down and read the Don Valentine one that he wrote in one sitting.

And then somebody that's mentored by Moritz that I'm friends with, I I was like, dude, I got to fucking do a Founders episode on this.

Maybe I'm too introspective.

But I always think of like both Mike Moritz and Don Valentine had versions of this question where, you know, Moritz would want to like know what happened to you before you turned 18 that formed your psychology.

And he's almost like Freudian about his investing.

Yeah.

as an investigative journalist turned investor, which was, I think, interesting.

And then Don Valentine, Don Valentine being sort of like more like a raw competitor, not that he wasn't competitive.

He liked to really get into your like family background and what's your relationship with your siblings.

And he almost kind of liked seeing like sibling rivalry.

And I asked him, I said, "I'm up here in, uh, San Francisco.

I know Stanford University is just down the road in Menlo Park, and I'm hearing a lot about these venture funds, and should I explore that?" And he said, "Well, you got to meet Don Valentine." And I didn't know who Don was actually at the time.

I should have, but I didn't.

And I said, "Well, I'd love to." He goes, "He starts Sequoia.

We backed him." The capital partners' money was some of the early money that they used to start companies before they started funds.

So they knew them well.

So he calls Don, says, "Come down tomorrow morning at nine o'clock." I go in and meet with Don Valentine at Sequoia.

We have a nice conversation.

And so the amount of downstream effects of it, we feel, and we can't even fathom and like how many different perverse ways that have come out of it.

And I was listening to, um, was it the David center, uh, this morning, um, is it Don Valentine, I think? Yeah, I think it was Don Valentine that came back and he did a podcast and he's just like, he retired, you know, for a few years at like 65.

He's coming back and he's like, look, I'm going to be here a year and if it doesn't work out, I'm going to be the first to leave, not because I'm scared, but because the world has changed too much.

And he's looking at like valuations and just all this stuff.

I, I was a hired gun, so it seemed to me the right thing to do is to get out of the way and let the next generation have their turns at bat.

Don Valentine, he founded it.

He stepped away at around the age of sixty-three.

I figured sixty-five was the natural age, and on my sixty-fifth birthday, I stepped down.

Yes

... 'cause I do this for a living.

And I, I sat down and read the Don Valentine one that he wrote-

Yeah

That's Jim Getz, the founder of Vital Signs.

Then there was Don Valentine, the founder of the firm.

There's Doug Leone, one of the greatest venture capitalists and sits in more billion-dollar companies than ABC ever.

Then there was me.