Sequoia founder dies Tang & middot; Valentine's personal data work experience
On October 26, 2019 Beijing time, the official website of Sequoia Capital announced that Tang middot, the founder of Sequoia Capital, the father of venture capital in Silicon Valley and one of the four giants of venture capital; Don Valentine died in California at the age of 87.
Valentin and Sequoia Capital created by him are inseparable from the innovation of Silicon Valley in recent years. The companies he has invested in include apple, which set off the personal computer revolution, Atari, which pioneered the game console industry, Oracle, a well-known database company, Cisco, a network hardware giant, and Yahoo, a network legend. Valentine is therefore regarded as the legendary existence of the 'father of Silicon Valley venture capital'.
According to China business, Shen NANPENG, founder of Sequoia Capital China fund, sent a circle of friends to mourn:
'don & bull; Valentine helped start an industry and became a legend in Silicon Valley. He has established a good cooperative relationship and will be deeply missed! (Don helped to create an industry and becomes a Silicon Valley legend。He also assembled a great partnership。Don will be sorely missed。)'
I almost missed apple and fell in love with Cisco
According to the information released on Sequoia's official website, before the establishment of Sequoia Capital, Tang & middot; Valentine has three main professional experiences:
In 1959, Tang & middot; Valentine worked as a sales engineer in Raytheon company, an American device company; Raytheon is a large defense contractor in the United States and one of the five major weapons suppliers of the U.S. Department of defense.
From 1960 to 1967, Tang & middot; Valentine joined Fairchild Semiconductor Company in San Francisco Peninsula and was responsible for the sales of semiconductor chips. During his seven years working in Fairchild Semiconductor, he established a competitive sales team in the industry. Fairchild is regarded as the 'Huangpu Military Academy in Silicon Valley'. Michael makura, one of the founders of apple, Jerry Sanders, founder of AMD, Eugene Kleiner, founder of Capone Huaying, etc. are all from Fairchild.
Then, Tang & middot; Valentine followed the general manager of Fairchild Semiconductor operations to national semiconductor as vice president of sales and marketing.
Working in the sales position of the technology company for a long time, Valentine paid great attention to the combination of technology and market, and found that although engineers can do amazing things, there is often a shortage of project funds, so Valentine turned his attention to equity investment in the technology company.
In 1972, Tang & middot; Valentine founded Sequoia Capital for 47 years. The name 'Sequoia' represents the long-term vitality of Sequoia, which can grow tenaciously in various environments.
According to statistics, Sequoia Capital has invested in many start-up companies. From the number of listed companies, its invested companies account for more than 20% of the total number of NASDAQ listed companies.
According to investment china.com, some classic investment cases of Valentine are as follows.
I almost missed the apple
In the early days of Apple's entrepreneurship, jobs and woznik were working in the garage. Valentine visited in a dazzling Mercedes Benz. He was introduced by Jobs's boss Bushnell in Atari to help them raise funds.
At that time, jobs wore a shawl and long hair, but he wore a pair of worn slippers in the company. His jeans looked like they hadn't been washed for many days and were in a mess. After a few words, Valentine felt that this man was really eccentric and knew nothing about business and marketing. The first time we met, the two sides were very unhappy.
'why did you ask me to find this & lsquo; Freak ' Valentine sent jobs to Mike & middot, a former subordinate of Fairchild company; Makura.
He did not expect that Makula was optimistic about jobs and decided to invest. He became the chairman of apple and once owned 1 / 3 of the company.
Valentine deeply regretted that although Sequoia Capital finally participated in Apple's investment, it missed one of the richest returns in venture capital history.
Cisco in the eye
Leonard possack and sandilena, a maverick Stanford teacher couple, founded Cisco in the mid-1980s. Cisco's name comes from Francisco, where there is the world-famous Golden Gate Bridge. Sequoia Capital believes that this will be an unimpeded 'Golden Bridge' between networks, so it invested seed funds.
Gradually, with the development of the company, Cisco needs the injection of venture capital to expand its scale. The couple talked to 74 venture capital companies, but none of them was willing to invest in them. They all thought 'they can't play'.
At this time, Valentine had a good eye and invested $2.4 million. Sequoia Capital owned 30% of Cisco and had the right to manage personnel. Later, the founders entrusted the voting rights of their shares to Valentine, so Sequoia Capital controlled 64% of the voting rights of Cisco, and Valentine became the chairman of Cisco. He hired an excellent sales representative and selected mogerich as the CEO of the company.
Under the leadership of mogerich, Cisco developed rapidly, from a small company with 35 people in 1988 to an emerging technology enterprise with 170 people and an income of nearly US $30 million by the end of 1989.
In February 1990, Cisco went public. In January 1995, chambers succeeded as CEO and led the company to the top of the Internet, with a market value of $550 billion. The original investment of Sequoia Capital has been invaluable, and Valentine has become a big winner.
Investment in Cisco has thus become Valentine's' most proud case '.
According to Sequoia exchange, Valentine also cultivated two companies, American Art and electronics and Sierra semiconductor. From the business plan to the establishment of the company, the two enterprises were completed in the Sequoia office. The former has become the mainstay of the video game industry. The latter co founded the Chartered Semiconductor Company with the Singapore government, which changed the face of the global semiconductor industry.
'better bet on the racer than on the track'
Valentine dedicated the most famous phrase in the field of venture capital to Sequoia: 'bet on the track, not on the racer.' Later, the 'betting track' concept represented by this sentence was regarded as the overall investment style of Sequoia. Of course, Valentine's original words are, 'investing in a company with huge market demand is better than investing in a company that needs to create market demand.'
In a speech at Stanford Business School, Valentine said that he has only invested in the market, and the personality and quality of the founder are secondary. First, we should look for the largest market, then look for the best and most promising products in the market, and finally the founder.
According to China business, in 2003, Valentine set his sights on the booming Chinese market and began to step up his investigation into the Chinese market. After extensive contact with many Chinese venture capital teams, don chose to start Sequoia Capital China fund with Zhang Fan, former director of defengjie Global Fund and Shen NANPENG, former president and CFO of Ctrip. " Betting on the track 'is regarded as a classic rule of Sequoia China's investment.
More than ten years ago, Sequoia China became the leader in this capital game because it seized the opportunity brought by the vigorous development of e-commerce. Alibaba, macaulan, Lefeng, Jumei premium products and Meili said that there was the shadow of Sequoia China behind the almost nameable e-commerce at that time. Seven years ago, with the rise of the mobile Internet, Sequoia China began to bet on local life projects. Dianping.com, meituan.com, hungry and ganji.com all became heavyweight players on the o2o track.
However, betting on the track does not buy the whole track. For investment institutions, especially those focusing on the early and growing stages, investing in the track means putting forward high requirements for the management ability of institutions. First of all, we should grasp the hot spots and bet on the track.
Sensitive smell, early entry and fast speed have become a major feature of Sequoia in China. In addition, in addition to focusing on hot spots and betting on the track, Sequoia China will 'occupy multiple positions' in the same field, but it will not invest in two companies that compete directly in the same period of time.
Shen NANPENG believes that the biggest support for the rise of Chinese investors is the rise of the whole market, and China's new economy even has more room for growth than the United States.
In today's memorial speech released by Sequoia exchange, it was written:
Unlike most retired leaders, Valentine is willing to retire from the second line, no longer easily criticize those decisions he thinks are wrong, and no longer interfere in specific business.
But as an experienced think tank, he is still eager to provide advice to those who visit his office. Always curious, he always likes to stay with young people who are full of longing for the future. His family, friends and colleagues who have worked with him for decades are full of deep memories of him.
In people's memory, he has a lovely quirk of liking green ink and never drinking coffee; He is also a serious listener. He appreciates the deliberate thinking in silence and helps many entrepreneurs lay a solid foundation for their lofty buildings.
He insists that the ultimate test for every entrepreneur is whether he thinks clearly about who the entrepreneur will create value for, which has become a question he always asks Entrepreneurs: 'who cares?'
Tang & middot; Valentine
May you rest in peace
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