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The $5 Trillion Shadow VC That Owns Silicon Valley - Sequoia Capital

发布时间 2023-05-08 19:02:06    来源

摘要

If you’re familiar with Silicon Valley and the startup world, there’s one name that you’ll hear over and over again: Sequoia Capital. On the surface, they’re just another VC firm, but behind the scenes, they were the architects of Silicon Valley having been in business since the early 1970s. In fact, they’ve funded everyone from Apple and Atari to Stripe, Zoom, and Doordash, and much of the firm’s success can be attributed to the brilliant principles of Don Valentine. One of his top principles is to hire an expert to do a job instead of trying to do it themselves. This is the primary reason that Sequoia has been able to survive for so many decades. They’re constantly hiring younger talent to identify the next generation of companies, so they’re always investing in the right places. They’ve also got experts around the world who specialize in identifying investment opportunities in China and India. This video explains the history of Sequoia Capital and how it became the most well-known VC firm in the world. Socials: https://www.instagram.com/hariharan.jayakumar/ Discord Community: https://discord.gg/SJUNWNt Timestamps: 0:00 - The Influence Of Sequoia 2:24 - Don Valentine 5:48 - Hitting The Jackpot 9:21 - Becoming The Goat 12:48 - The Legacy Of Sequoia Resources: https://pastebin.com/usCNqED1

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Can you name a similarity between Apple, Google, Nvidia, Cisco and Oracle? Well, yes, there are all multi-hundred billion dollar fortune 100 companies, but they were also all funded by Sequoia Capital. Sequoia has also funded Dashlane, DoorDash, GitHub, Instagram, PayPal, Reddit, SpaceX, Square, WhatsApp, Yahoo, YouTube, Zoom, and all of these other companies as well. In fact, the combined market cap of all Sequoia Capital companies is a whopping $3.3 trillion, and that was as of July 2019.
你能说出苹果、谷歌、英伟达、思科和甲骨文之间的相似点吗？当然，它们都是亿万富翁100强企业，但它们也都是由红杉资本出资资助的。红杉资本还资助了Dashlane、DoorDash、GitHub、Instagram、PayPal、Reddit、SpaceX、Square、WhatsApp、Yahoo、YouTube、Zoom和其他许多公司。事实上，截至2019年7月，所有红杉资本公司的市值总和高达惊人的3.3万亿美元。

Since then, Apple alone has reached a market cap of $3 trillion, so it's safe to say that Sequoia's aggregated market cap is well over $5 trillion today, even with the stock market crash. And all of those are just a compilation of Sequoia's known investments. Sequoia has dozens of undisclosed investments that would likely stay undisclosed indefinitely. Considering this, many would argue that Sequoia is by far the most successful VC firm of all time, and that's not a very controversial statement, but it's not all sun shines and rainbows.
从那时开始，仅苹果的市值已经达到了3万亿美元，因此可以肯定的是，尽管股市崩盘，红杉聚集的市值今天远远超过5万亿美元。而这些只是红杉已知投资的集合。红杉有数十个未公开的投资，这些投资很可能会无限期保持未公开状态。考虑到这一点，许多人会认为，红杉迄今为止无疑是最成功的风险投资公司，这并不是一个很具争议的说法，但并非一切都是好事。

Well, it's cool to say that you've been involved in all of these companies. The reality is that to get here, there's way more failures. In fact, 75% of all VC backed startups fail, so for every Apple day score, they have to deal with three wannabe apples who end up consuming tens of millions each. But that's not even the worst part. The worst part is that when you're making so many investments, it's only a matter of time until you invest in someone who's truly evil. There are most recent slip ups, but was none other than FTX in which they had a total of $150 million. Some of their other controversial and borderline fraudulent investments include Bart Pay, Trella and Zilingo.
说自己涉足了所有这些公司听起来很酷，但实际上，要达到这个地步，失败的情况要远远多于成功的情况。事实上，75%由风险投资支持的初创企业都会失败，因此，对于每个苹果般的成功故事，他们不得不应对三个想要成为苹果却最终浪费了数千万美元的情况。但更糟糕的是，当你进行这么多投资时，你总有一天会投资给一个真正邪恶的人。最近他们的一些失误中，最严重的是FTX公司，他们在这个公司中累计损失了1.5亿美元。他们的其他有争议和边缘欺诈的投资包括Bart Pay、Trella和Zilingo等。

But despite the roaring highs and humiliating lows, and seems like Sequoia has cracked the code. They've been operating for over 50 years, invested in 1800 companies, and they've essentially funded the entirety of Silicon Valley. So here's the story of Sequoia Capital, the architects of Silicon Valley.
尽管经历过风光无限和屈辱低谷，Sequoia Capital似乎已经破解了成功的秘诀。他们运营了50多年，投资了1800家公司，基本上资助了整个硅谷。所以这就是硅谷建筑师Sequoia Capital的故事。

Taking a look back, the story of Sequoia Capital traces its roots back to a stern man named Don Valentine. Don was born on June 26, 1932, in Manhattan, New York during the worst of the Great Depression. Don didn't have a very strong background either. His father was a regular old milkman, and his mother was a homemaker, so grit and hardship was something that he got used to very early on. He would end up attending Fort Dam University where he majored in chemistry before moving to Southern California in the 1950s.
回顾 Sequoia Capital 的故事，我们可以追溯到一位名叫唐·瓦伦丁的严肃人物。唐于 1932 年 6 月 26 日出生于纽约曼哈顿，正值大萧条时期。唐的家庭背景也并不特别强大，他的父亲是一名普通的送牛奶人，母亲是一位家庭主妇，所以坚韧和艰辛早在他年少时就习以为常。他最终进入了福特·达姆大学，在那里他主修化学，然后在 1950 年代搬到了南加州。

This was during the height of the Cold War, so the defense industry was popping off, and the Don would get a job as a sales engineer at Raytheon, but he didn't really want to be here. Don lived by the ideology that the past is wrong. If you want to make truly great investments, you have to do something that's not part of the past, to do something entirely different.
这是在冷战高峰期间，国防工业蓬勃发展，唐(Don)在雷神公司当上了销售工程师，但他并不真的想待在这里。唐坚持过去是错误的思想。如果你想做出真正伟大的投资，你必须做一些过去没有的事情，完全不同的事情。

From Don's perspective, the something that was completely different was obvious. It was Silicon Wafers. He didn't really understand the technical side of these gadgets, but he knew he wanted to be a part of this industry. So he joined Fairchild Semiconductor as one of their first salesmen, and ended up becoming a star. He would basically build out their entire sales department over the next seven years.
从唐的角度来看，显然有一件事情是完全不同的，那就是硅晶片。他并不真正理解这些设备的技术方面，但他知道自己想成为这个行业的一员。于是他加入了飞兆半导体（Fairchild Semiconductor）作为其中的第一位销售人员，并最终成为了一位明星。在接下来的七年里，他基本上建立了整个销售部门。

In fact, he did such a great job that he would be offered an executive role at one of Fairchild's Spinoff Company's National Semiconductor. He would happily take the job, but it wasn't long until he started having arguments with the superiors. You see, Don felt that it was too bitter that they were selling boatloads of wafers to certain companies, but not investing instead companies. He tried to convince leadership to try their hand at investing, but the answer was always. No.
实际上，他做得非常出色，以至于他被提供一个在Fairchild公司的Spinoff公司National Semiconductor的高层职位。他很乐意接受这个工作，但不久他开始与上级发生争吵。你知道，唐觉得他们卖了大量的晶圆给某些公司，却没有投资其他公司，这太残酷了。他试图说服领导层尝试投资，但答案总是不。

At first, Don accepted their reluctance, but the more time that passed, the more he felt that he was missing out. Don started feeling that the next something was no longer silicon wafers, but the companies that were built on these wafers. So Don began investing his own money into up-and-coming tech companies, which caught the attention of Capital Group. Capital wasn't familiar with the tech scene or startups. They were primarily a mutual fund company, but while they didn't have expertise, what they did have was money, and they wanted Don to invest this money. For that, Don would quit his job and create Sequoia Capital in 1972, using $3 million worth of funding, mostly from Capital.
起初，唐（Don）接受了他们的不情愿，但随着时间的推移，他越来越感觉自己错过了什么。唐开始觉得下一个重要的东西不再是硅晶片，而是建立在这些晶片之上的公司。因此，唐开始投资一些新兴科技公司，并引起了资本集团的注意。资本集团对科技行业或初创企业并不熟悉。他们主要是一家共同基金公司，但虽然他们没有专业知识，但他们拥有资金，并希望唐将这些资金投资下去。为此，唐将辞去自己的工作，于1972年创建了Sequoia Capital，使用了300万美元的资金，其中大部分来自资本集团。

The term Sequoia alludes to a local tree that's known to live thousands of years. So he chose quite an ambitious name, but Don had to now walk the walk. Fortunately for Don, this wasn't too hard, as his first investment itself would be $600,000 into Atari. Atari would go on to be sold for $28 million to Warner just a few years later, so it was no doubt a great investment. But there was something that made the Atari investment magnitude better.
“Sequoia”这个词指的是一种本地树木，其寿命可长达几千年。因此，唐选择了一种相当雄心勃勃的名称，但他现在必须付出实际行动。幸运的是，对于唐来说这并不太难，因为他的第一笔投资本身将是60万美元的投资于Atari。仅仅几年后，Atari被卖给华纳价格达2800万美元，因此这无疑是一次非常成功的投资。但有一些东西让Atari的投资显得更加重要。

If you know your Apple history, you probably know that Steve Jobs used to work at Atari. I think you can guess what happened next. Don wasn't the first person that Steve approached. The first person Steve approached was actually the founder of Atari, Nolan Bushnell. He offered Nolan 33% of the company for 50 grand, but while Nolan was tempted, he ended up declining and suggested that Steve talk to Don. Don was sold almost immediately. He says that he's only meant two visionaries throughout his entire life. The first one was Robert Noise, a co-founder of Fairchild and later Intel. The second was Steve Jobs.
如果你了解苹果公司的历史，你可能知道史蒂夫·乔布斯曾在雅达利工作。我想你可以猜到接下来发生了什么。唐并不是史蒂夫第一个联系的人。史蒂夫首先联系的是雅达利的创始人诺兰·布什内尔。他提议诺兰投资50,000美元，得到公司33%的股份。尽管诺兰很心动，但最终他拒绝了，并建议史蒂夫与唐交谈。唐几乎立即就同意了。他说他一生中只遇见过两位有远见的人。第一个是法尔柴尔德和英特尔公司的联合创始人罗伯特·诺伊斯，第二个就是史蒂夫·乔布斯。

And given that Don has interacted with hundreds of Fortune 500 CEOs, this is really saying something. But by the time Steve reached out to Don, they already had operations underway, and Steve had wise in doubt regarding how much Apple was really worth. So Don had to invest a much more hefty $150,000 into Apple. It's not clear how big of a stake this gave him, but that didn't really matter as he would end up selling just two years later for $6 million. That's obviously a phenomenal return of 40x in two years, but Don didn't exactly want to sell.
鉴于 Don 已经与数百家财富500强公司的CEO进行过互动，这真的很值得一提。但是当 Steve 联系 Don 时，他们已经开始运营了，并且 Steve 对苹果公司的真正价值持怀疑态度。因此，Don不得不向苹果公司投资更多的150,000美元。 不清楚这给他带来了多少股份，但这并不重要，因为他最终在两年后以6百万美元的价格出售了苹果公司。这显然是两年内惊人的40倍回报，但Don并不想出售。

The problem was that Don's investors needed their money back for tax purposes, so Don was forced to sell. This was quite a shame as Don literally had the future world's largest company in his hand, but this taught Don a valuable lesson. Never accept money from non-tax exempt institutions. Don wasn't too disappointed though, he felt that the computer revolution was just getting started, and there was plenty of opportunity left.
问题在于Don的投资者需要拿回他们的钱用于税收目的，所以Don被迫出售。这真是非常遗憾，因为Don手中实际上拥有未来世界最大的公司，但这给Don教了一个宝贵的教训。永远不要接受来自非免税机构的钱。虽然Don并不太失望，他认为计算机革命只是刚刚开始，还有很多机会。

With that, Don would turn around and invest in electronic arts in 1982. He would follow this up with an investment into Oracle in 1983. These were obviously outstanding investments that performed exceptionally well, but Don couldn't help but feel that he just didn't have enough skin in the game. Sure, he was pretty good at investing a few hundred thousand dollars into making a few million, or maybe even tens of millions. But there was no way that Sequoia would reach the hundreds of millions, or billions if they stuck to the strategy.
在那之后，唐在1982年投资了电子艺术公司，随后在1983年又投资了Oracle公司。这些显然是杰出的投资，表现得非常出色，但唐仍感觉他没有投入足够的资金。当然，他投入了几十万美元使其变成了几百万，甚至是几千万美元，但如果他们仍按照这个策略，想要Sequoia达到数亿或数十亿的规模是不可能的。

So Don started looking for companies in which he could gain a much larger stake. This took quite some time, but he eventually found his target. Cisco In the late 1980s, Cisco was in dire need of money. They had already asked Sequoia for money, but less than a year later, they needed even more money. Cisco was desperate, and let's just say Don would seize this opportunity. He offered them $2.5 million for 32% of the company, and looking back, this was definitely a predatory offer, but Cisco had no choice but to accept if they wanted to survive.
那么，唐开始寻找可以获得更大利益的公司。这花费了相当长的时间，但最终他找到了目标：思科。在20世纪80年代晚期，思科急需资金。他们已经向红杉资本公司要过钱，但不到一年，他们需要更多的资金。思科非常绝望，让我们说唐捉住了这个机会。他出价250万美元购买该公司32%的股份，回顾过去，这无疑是一份掠夺性的报价。但如果思科要生存下去，他们别无选择只能接受这个交易。

Ironically, this actually worked out super well for Cisco, as Don would bring his expertise and management and sales to Cisco, which allowed them to become the world's largest company by 2000. As for the founders though, well, it didn't work out all that great, but that's a whole other story. At the peak, Cisco would reach a valuation of $569 billion, so let's just say, Sequoia made a crap ton of money.
具有讽刺意味的是，这对思科公司实际上非常有利，因为唐将他的专业知识、管理和销售经验带给了思科，这使得他们在2000年成为了世界上最大的公司。关于创始人，情况并不那么好，但这是另一个故事了。在巅峰时期，思科的估值达到了5690亿美元，所以可以说，红杉资本赚了一大笔钱。

Sequoia was now the world's most well-known and most respected VC firm, but they were just getting started as they were trying to round and invest all of their profits from Cisco into dot com favorites. Some of the last investments that Don personally led at Sequoia was in video in 1993 and Yahoo in 1995, but this was for the best. You see, Don was extremely self-aware, and he acknowledged that modern companies were way beyond his expertise.
Sequoia现在是世界上最著名且最受尊敬的风险投资公司，但他们刚刚开始，在试图将所有从Cisco获得的利润投资到点com (指互联网公司)中。Don在Sequoia领导的最后一些投资是1993年的视频和1995年的Yahoo，但这是最好的选择。你知道，Don非常自我意识，他承认现代公司远远超出了他的专业知识范围。

He was able to somewhat keep up as long as companies were actually creating physical products like Apple, Cisco, and Nvidia. He could help with manufacturing, suppliers, scaling, and logistics. But more and more promising companies were starting to have no physical product whatsoever, and this was a clear sign to Don that it was time for him to step down. In 1996, Don would hand over Sequoia to two of his most trusted executives, Doug Leon and Michael Moritz.
只要公司真正创造了像苹果、思科和英伟达这样的实物产品，他就能够在一定程度上跟上步伐。他可以协助制造、供应商、规模化和物流。但越来越多有前途的公司开始没有任何实物产品，这对唐来说是一个明显的信号，说明他该下台了。1996年，唐将Sequoia移交给他最信任的两位高管Doug Leon和Michael Moritz。

These two were nothing less than absolute professionals. They would not only run Sequoia well, but they would run it exactly how Don had envisioned. For example, in the mid 1990s, the duo started feeling that much of the opportunity was overseas. At first, they considered just doing it themselves, but then they thought about how Don would approach the situation.
这两个人无疑是绝对的专业人士。他们不仅能够很好地经营塞考亚公司，而且能够按照东恩先生的设想来经营。例如，到了九十年代中期，他们开始感觉到很多机会在海外。一开始，他们考虑自己去做，但后来他们想到了东恩先生会如何处理这种情况。

If it wasn't his expertise, Don wouldn't do it himself, and this was the exact philosophy that Doug and Michael would use overseas. Instead of investing themselves, these two would assemble local teams in these overseas countries, specifically in China and India. And let's just say, this strategy worked out spectacularly.
如果不是他的专业领域，唐不会亲自去做，这也正是道格和迈克尔在海外采取的哲学。这两位不会直接投资，而是在海外国家，尤其是中国和印度，组建当地团队。可以说，这种策略非常成功。

In China, their most notable investments include Alibaba, DJI, JD, Neo, and of course, bite dance. And here's a list of their hundreds of investments in India. But just because Sequoia was expanding internationally, did it not mean that they were slacking at home. In fact, they were catching even bigger fish back home.
在中国，他们最突出的投资包括阿里巴巴、大疆、京东、NEO，当然还有抖音。以下是他们在印度的数百项投资清单。但是，尽管红杉资本正在国际上扩张，但并不意味着他们在本土松懈。事实上，他们在本土还抓住了更大的鱼。

In 1999, they would score Google and PayPal, and 2003, they would score LinkedIn. In 2005, they would score Kayak and YouTube, and in 2009, they would score Dropbox, which brings us to modern times. For the past 15 years, the world has experienced a mobile revolution which has progressed faster than anyone could have ever imagined.
1999年他们评价了谷歌和PayPal，2003年他们评价了领英。2005年他们评价了Kayak和YouTube，2009年他们评价了Dropbox，这带我们来到了现代。过去15年间，世界经历了一场移动革命，进展比任何人都能想象得更快。

But somehow, Sequoia managed to stay at the leading edge of the mobile revolution as well. Their first notable mobile investment was Airbnb in 2009, where they invested a total of $600,000. They would follow this up with Evernote, Stripe, Tumblr, Square, WhatsApp, Instagram, Instacart, or Dash, Reddit, GitHub Zoom, Robinhood, Dashlane, Figma, and SpaceX, just to name a few.
不知何故，红杉资本成功地跟上了移动革命的前沿。他们首次在移动领域的值得注意的投资是 2009 年的 Airbnb，总投资额为 60 万美元。他们之后又相继投资了 Evernote、Stripe、Tumblr、Square、WhatsApp、Instagram、Instacart、Dash、Reddit、GitHub、Zoom、Robinhood、Dashlane、Figma 和 SpaceX，只是其中的几个例子。

How are they able to find so many winners, you ask? Well, it's not rocket signs, though they do invest in rocket signs as well. The secret is simply that they're constantly handing off the torch to newer generations. First, Don passed on the torch to Doug and Michael, who were responsible for many of the dotcom and international hits.
你想知道他们是怎么找到那么多获胜者的吗？其实，这并不是什么难事，他们也投资于火箭标识。其实秘诀就是不断将火炬交接给新一代人。首先，Don 将火炬传给了 Doug 和 Michael，他们负责的很多互联网和国际项目都非常成功。

These guys then passed the torch to Jim Goats, who scored most of their victories throughout the 2000s. And more recently, it seems that the torch has been passed on to Matt Miller and Andrew Reed, who are both barely 30 years old. In fact, Andrew actually worked on GitHub and Robinhood in his 20s. And as long as Sequoia keeps embracing the youth, they won't be losing their own youth anytime soon.
这些人将火炬交给Jim Goats，他在2000年代取得了大部分胜利。最近，似乎火炬已经传给了30岁左右的Matt Miller和Andrew Reed。事实上，Andrew实际上在20岁时曾在GitHub和Robinhood工作过。只要Sequoia继续拥抱年轻人，他们就不会很快失去自己的青春。

Nowadays there's a lot of VC firms out there that have hit it big, from Tiger Management to an Andrews and Horowitz. But what sets up Port Sequoia is their longevity. Most of the other VC firms have barely been around for 15 to 20 years, but Sequoia has been around for over 50. And the craziest part is that they were investing in leading edge companies the entire time.
现今越来越多的风险投资公司在业内取得了巨大的成功，例如Tiger Management和Andrews and Horowitz等。但是Port Sequoia与众不同的是他们的长寿。大多数其他的风险投资公司只存在了15到20年左右，而Sequoia已经存在了超过50年。最疯狂的是，他们一直在投资领先的公司。

They've literally had their hands in everything from Apple in the 1970s to SpaceX in the 2020s. Unfortunately, Don Valentine wasn't around to see this as he passed away in late 2019 at 887. But while Don is no longer with us, there's no question that his legacy and impact will live on for as long as the Sequoia tree itself.
他们从1970年代的苹果到2020年的SpaceX事事插手。不幸的是，唐·瓦伦丁已于2019年底去世，享年87岁。但尽管唐已不在我们身边，毫无疑问，他的遗产和影响将像红杉树一样长存。

Are you familiar with Sequoia Capital? Comment that down below. Also drop a like if you hope that your legacy lasts as long as the Sequoia tree. And of course, consider checking out our Discord community, suggest us for your ideas and consider subscribing to see more questions logically answered. Until then, I'm Hori and I'll see you guys on the next one.
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