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:


WorkOS: https://bit.ly/workos25

Sierra: https://bit.ly/acquiredsierra

Sentry: https://bit.ly/acquiredsentry

Anthropic: https://bit.ly/acquiredclaude25






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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



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