Douglas Leone
Douglas Leone
Douglas M. Leoneis an American venture capitalist and a partner at Sequoia Capital. He joined Sequoia in 1988 and has been a Managing Partner since 1996. His focus is on internet, software and communication investments. He has been ranked in the top 10 investors in the United States by Forbes Magazine multiple times. Doug also led Sequoia's international expansion into China and India...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionBusinessman
CountryUnited States of America
thinking looks fancy
Crystal-clear thinking is one of the things we look for - not a fancy slide pitch, but crystal-clear thinking.
chiefs chief-executives great-company
A tremendous chief executive in a small market will never be great. All great companies start with great markets.
benefit creates encourage individual investors shown star work
We work as a team. I think having the individual being shown as a star actually creates problems internally. We encourage all our investors to work as a team for the benefit of the founders.
clearly companies either invested moderate number
There's a number of companies clearly that we wish we had invested in either at the early or at the moderate stage.
both ceo founder ideas meet product quickly strategic talk
You meet with a CEO or founder. You talk about sales, engineering, product management and give some ideas or suggestions. And the founder quickly understands that you really can help them both operationally and from a strategic standpoint.
business continue india maintain necessary offices run trips
I routinely make trips to China and India where we have offices to continue to maintain the linkages that are necessary to run a successful business.
clear coming india number
We look at the number of engineers coming out of India; we look at the growth of the economy, and it's clear that India is a place we want to be.
business ceo great helping names seeing
Our business is all about helping someone - a founder, a CEO - building a great business. It's not about seeing our names in the press.
capital instance
I'll say this: I can't think of one instance in my 20 years in venture capital in which I have wanted to sell a company before the entrepreneur.
choose compete market
If you choose a market that already exists, say, networking equipment, you have to compete with an established company like Cisco. Even if your product is marginally better, Cisco can fudge it and outsell you.
button capital honoring press
If I could press a button and have all of Sequoia Capital on the Midas List, I would choose to do that over a honoring a single individual.
china companies three
If you start a successful company in China at 11 A.M., by 2 P.M. there's three more companies like it.
invest means spread winning
In a globalized world, one application can spread like wildfire and there's only one winning company, which means you have to invest more than you've ever had.
large trick
The trick is, a market has to be nonexistent when you start. If the market is large early on, you will have too many competitors. You have to make it large.