Just over three years after taking the reins as the top leader of Sequoia Capital, Roelof Botha is stepping down as senior steward of the storied VC firm. The firm announced Tuesday that partners Alfred Lin and Pat Grady will succeed him as co-stewards.
Lin joined the storied firm in 2010, where he has led major investments into category-defining companies like Airbnb, DoorDash, and Kalshi. Meanwhile, Pat Grady has been a partner for nearly 19 years and has led Sequoia’s growth-stage investing since 2015, backing iconic companies such as ServiceNow, OpenAI, and the legal AI platform Harvey.
Botha assumed the highest leadership role in mid-2022 and immediately oversaw a period of upheaval. He took the helm just as the downturn decimated the public markets, severely slashing the valuations of many companies across Sequoia’s portfolio. The firm also wrote off $200 million when its investment in cryptocurrency exchange FTX blew up — a small loss in the bigger scheme of things for Sequoia but a financial hit all the same. Further, in 2023, amid growing political tensions between the U.S. and China and regulatory pressures on both sides, Sequoia spun off its India and China operations into separate independent firms.
This year, Sequoia became embroiled in a controversy over partner Shaun Maguire’s comments attacking New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, calling the politician an “Islamist” who “comes from a culture that lies about everything.” Though Maguire later walked back some of those remarks, they led to a sizable online backlash and debate. In August, Sequoia’s chief operating officer, Sumaiya Balbale, a practicing Muslim, quit over the firm’s decision not to discipline Maguire following his remarks, as first reported by the Financial Times and was discussed last week during an onstage sit-down with Botha during TechCrunch Disrupt.
Asked about Balbale, Botha said that as a matter of routine, Sequoia doesn’t comment on personnel matters and that he appreciated everything Balbale had contributed to the firm. Asked about Maguire, Botha said, “Internally, we celebrate a diversity of opinions, and we need spiky people inside of Sequoia.”
Botha continued, “We have some of our partners that are very active in philanthropy or some [other] private dealings, and they’re just not as vocal as Shaun might be on social media. And we’ve always honored the right to free speech of each of our individual partners.”
During that same interview, Botha maintained that his role as senior steward is not one of absolute command, stressing that other partners hold nearly as much power to steer the firm’s direction. “My title is steward for a reason — it’s just a notch above ‘usher’ in the dictionary,” he said. Then, in a comment that drew laughter from attendees, he added: “It’s mostly because Global Supreme Leader wasn’t available.”
When TechCrunch editor-in-chief Connie Loizos asked Botha who might succeed him as leader of the firm given its historic emphasis on ensuring smooth hand-offs — Botha was himself promoted numerous times on his path to the top of the firm — Botha responded that Lin; Grady; Luciana Lixandru, who leads Sequoia’s European investments; and Andrew Reed, a partner whose investments in Figma and Klarna went public this year, “have incredible depth and operate as a team.”
Botha also pointed out that every investor at Sequoia votes on investment decisions. “We want the triumph of ideas, not the triumph of seniority,” he said.
The transition news, however, suggests the steward position carries real weight. While Sequoia has continued to rack up major investment wins during Botha’s tenure, the leadership change comes as the firm seeks to move past a challenging period into its next phase.
Indeed, Sequoia, one of world’s most prominent venture capital firms, recently renovated its office, installing a wall where every investor handwrote this reminder: “We are only as good as our next investment.”
Last week, the firm announced a $750 million early-stage fund targeting Series A startups, as well as a $200 million seed fund.