Sequoia Capital (Part 1) - a podcast by Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal
from 2019-09-26T14:58:22
Join the Acquired Limited Partner program! https://glow.fm/acquired/ (works best on mobile)
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.
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
Sponsor:
- Thanks to Silicon Valley Bank for sponsoring Acquired Season 5. You can learn more about SVB here: https://www.svb.com/next
Sources:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traitorous_eight
- https://www.sfgate.com/technology/article/Silicon-Valley-Shockley-racist-semiconductor-lab-13164228.php
- https://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.html
- http://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-11
- https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=47240
- https://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
Further episodes of Acquired
Further podcasts by Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal
Website of Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal