Sequoia Capital (Part 1)

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:
Statsig: https://bit.ly/acquiredstatsig24
Vanta: https://bit.ly/acquiredvanta
Crusoe: https://bit.ly/acquiredcrusoe

Links:

Silicon Valley’s “Traitorous Eight”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traitorous_eightDon Valentine’s lecture at Stanford GSB: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKN-abRJMEw&t=2555sBerkeley’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.htmlDavid: Amazon Music on 25 years of “Ready to Die”: https://youtu.be/Dsna1nIZzB4

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traitorous_eight https://www.sfgate.com/technology/article/Silicon-Valley-Shockley-racist-semiconductor-lab-13164228.phphttps://signallake.com/innovation/Valentine101409.pdf http://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/roho/ucb/text/valentine_donald.pdf https://www.amazon.com/dp/0875849385/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_ZB8IDb7NNAFAH https://www.amazon.com/Troublemakers-Silicon-Valleys-Coming-Age-ebook/dp/B06ZZ1YDTX/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=https://www.scaruffi.com/svhistory/arun3.htmlhttp://www.ianhathaway.org/blog/2019/7/31/vc-an-american-history https://www.axios.com/sequoia-capital-shakes-up-leadership-1513300220-7d255e34-f4bf-4178-af62-ec68023726e3.html https://www.slideshare.net/lebret/a-history-of-venture-capital-lebret-vers-11https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=47240https://www.inc.com/magazine/19850501/7289_pagen_5.html https://www.amazon.com/VC-American-History-Tom-Nicholas-ebook/dp/B07QV2YM3X/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKN-abRJMEw&t=2555s